This isn't a sprint, it's a marathon for reform and a lot of work still needs to be done.

My own view is that the period of economic reform has ended. Reform itself needs to be redefined because the crux of it has left the economic sphere and entered other areas.

The reform of government needs to continue,

I ran the Los Angeles Marathon, which was my first one and I went untrained. By mile 20, I was walking the rest of the way. I felt really bad because old ladies were passing me up. I thought to myself, 'I'll never let this happen again.

Our current education system was created in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and was modeled after the new factories of the industrial revolution. Public schools, set up to supply the factories with a skilled labor force, crammed education into a relatively small number of years. We have tried to pack more and more in while extending schooling up to age 24 or 25, for some segments of the population. In general, such an approach still reflects factory thinking—get your education now and get it efficiently, in classrooms in lockstep fashion. Unfortunately, most people learn in those classrooms to hate education for the rest of their lives.

The factory system doesn't work in the modern world, because two years after graduation, whatever you learned is out of date. We need education spread over a lifetime, not jammed into the early years—except for such basics as reading, writing, and perhaps citizenship. Past puberty, education needs to be combined in interesting and creative ways with work. The factory school system no longer makes sense.

In general reducing the public debt will require drastic public sector reform. To implement drastic reforms, Koizumi needs to gain public support.