It came up lately, so I checked the reference. It should be "When the wind blows, the bucket maker get rich." But cats do feature in this story from Meiji Japan. Summary: When the wind blows, sand gets in peoples' eyes. So, more people will become blind. One of the traditional jobs for blind peole is playing shamisen. Shamisen are covered with cats' skin, so cats will become rare when the demand for shamisen increases. With less cats around, mice will have a party and eat all the buckets (this is in a time when buckets were made of wood). Hence bucket makers will see their wares sell well.
David - shamisen player who loves cats David van Ooijen [1]www.davidvanooijen.nl -- References 1. http://www.davidvanooijen.nl/ To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
