Abe's virus-relief ¥100,000 cash program faces barrage of criticism

"...yielding to pressure from Komeito,"

So the nation is beholden to one minority party with a tiny number of seats in the Diet. That's consensus democracy for you.

he expects some wealthy individuals to choose not to receive it

Most wealthy people didnt become wealthy by skipping the chance to make money.

Public assistance should go to people who need it. Not to everybody. How hard is that for Abe and others to understand?

Nice to know they didn't leave out those serving time and those on death row.

https://www.nhk.or.jp/politics/articles/statement/35025.html

Aso told a news conference that the money would only be given to those who "raise their hands" and that he expects some wealthy individuals to choose not to receive it, provoking a public backlash.

Public Backlash.

Excuse Me, when was that.?

Who is the writer trying to deceive here. We al know, Aso is Untouchable, is beyond reproach.

Take the damn money, then donate it a worthy charity, or medical association that needs help with funding during the pandemic.

One very vital info missing from the article is that even if you have the MyNumber, you will need a IC card reader to apply using a desktop computer whereas it is not needed when applying with your smart phone but then it doesn't mean it is a smooth and flawless operation has there are several complains of problems scanning identification documents as a results are preferring applications through the post.

Public assistance should go to people who need it. Not to everybody.

100% agree, these morons suggesting that rich politicians and other wealthy folks turning down this pittance of money would make the needy feel embarrassed is mind-boggling...

If all rich people and those otherwise unaffected by the pandemic didn’t take the money, there will be more capacity to splurge money on another round of assistance for the needy, because 100,000 yen isn't going to tide them over for long.

 should also receive the Yen 100.000 and instantly donate the money for a good cause

If the money we’re dropped from helicopters yes, but if you have to go and apply and queue and risk infection, we’re better off if they stay home and feel content to pay higher taxes in future to cover this.

So, for once I agree with old Aso, the only people who will feel embarrassed by taking the money are those who absolutely don’t need it.

The mismanagement of all of this is beyond belief. My in laws, who are great people, Japanese to the core and proud of Japan, and also were fairly strong supporters of the LDP have now completely reversed their opinion of the Japanese government.

They are now embarrassed and ashamed of the response to this. The last time we spoke I tried to tell them they have nothing to be ashamed of (they work hard and are great parents to their kids). In spite of this they still feel a sense of "shame" coupled with disgust.

Although I have lived here a very long time I am not Japanese so there are things I will not always fully understand culturally, but in this case I am now wondering how many other Japanese people are having these same feelings.

"Mr. Abe has said national solidarity matters, but what LDP members are doing is like saying, 'We are special and things like the cash handouts are not necessary for us.' That could spoil the spirit of solidarity," Fujita said.

It's academic attitudes like this that make people turn against what many scientist/researchers have to say these days. This attitude that if rich people take the money that they are all in this together is absolute lunacy.

First of all, shouldn't this be private and none of our business, who gets and who doesn't get the money. Also, I would think more highly of them if they refused it for the good of the people.

Tokyo-Engr, you have some nice relatives.

Mine will believe whatever their LDP masters tell them...

What a load of bull article, barrage of criticism is one idiot who thinks that the rich should not use the decline option. Anb yes, trying to distribute 100,000 jpy ro more than 100 million people is logistically tough

This article is a garbage. I received an application form from the local government. It was very simple to fill. This is the most simple one the government require people who apply for help. A young couple who is my acquaintance has four children and a grandmother living together will receive 700,000 yen in total. This helps them a lot. All the relief programs have problems. It is difficult to make everybody happy.

Individual Number Card, designed to increase public convenience when receiving administrative services.

No, it is so they can track your finances to tax more accurately. To get the car you have to give your bank details.

For real, talking about solidarity? These clowns in government have no idea what's going on. Just hurry up and send the money and if you really want to bond with the common folk, take a 50% reduction in ALL of your government related income, including non-monetary perks; which eventually translates to monetary anyways. Stop talking pretty nothings idiots, we don't care about your noble intentions because we know you don't have it.

Japan’s greatest ally just announced negative interest rates and are seriously considering UBI until further notice or face a Great Depression again. This one-off ¥100,000 is a joke in comparison, that they can’t even organise! Can’t imagine what a potential Great Depression looks like in Japan. Not sure it’s a good idea to find out...

Declining the cash handouts is not a noble act but an act of stupidity. The purpose of the universal handout is to stimulate the economy and create the sense of unity among all legal residents in Japan, including foreign nationals and those serving time. If you can’t use it in prison, then your family members scam. And if you’re super rich and don’t need the money at all, just donate it to hospitals or spend it at eateries that have been devastated by last year‘s consumption tax hike and the coronavirus outbreak.

That often-remarked, topsy-turvy, illogical mindset is here on full display and Prof. Fujita really takes the biscuit!

Fumble, Bumble, and Stumble are the key words to the J-gov's handling of this. Open up the danged economy and LET PEOPLE GET BACK ON THEIR FEET!

If Japanese politicians are anything like British MP's, most of them would sell their Grannies down the river to get 'more', whilst voting for austerity for the people.

They are not called 'troughers' for nothing!

Manufactured "contraversy". The real ones are the vastly greater percentages of the money going to wealthy megacorps, the insufficiency of the payments to the average workers affected by the crisis and the deliberate delays and obfuscations to make sure it is only a one and done deal after the majority have already been suffering since the end of February.

"If we create a mood where declining the handout is seen as a noble act, we end up making people in urgent need of help feel embarrassed to receive it," Tamaki said.

What an absolute load of codswallop. The carry on by the opposition here is a great illustration of why people have had to put up with the LDP for so very long. They rant, rave and scream bloody murder like fools But can’t come up with a cohesive alternative narrative or policies that would make your standard national want to even give them a try. All they can do is vehemently oppose!

There’s no way in hell someone needing money would feel too embarrassed to collect it if rich folks opted out. In fact the across the board payment is the only way to do this thing as the nightmare of deciding who gets what would break the whole system. Donate it, spend it , keep the economy going. Simple.

Still waiting for my application letter from city hall... and for Abenomasks as well. Good thing I had some money in the bank or else I'd be completely on my own. The speed (or lack thereof) of the government response is just amazing.

I can’t even attempt to muster up the brain cells to try to get what these guys are saying?

Show solidarity by being a millionaire by taking ¥100,000????

Be a human being! Give it to the single mothers, the homeless, and the single income households.

Everyone is complaining that the online application requires a My Number card that they then have to get at the prefecture... But what about the at least +6000 yen card-reader that is mandatory too?? Who has that in their home, exaclty? Why do I need to buy a one-time use card reader to get the money I'm supposed to get?

If Fujita really wanted to start a substantial debate, all he needed to do ( as even some of the morning magazine shows have done) is relate a timeline of the Abe administration's efforts compared to a country with a much smaller bureaucracy like New Zealand that started rolling out weekly payments before a lockdown.

It reads like a satirical litany of two masks, the meat and fish tickets, 300,000 if you could prove someone designated as a head of household had suffered a certain percentage of loss of income in a certain designated time frame and then the linking of the current payout to an identification system only a minority of the population hold.

The cash handouts would be "meaningless" unless every person received and used the money, Fujita, who is also an associate professor at Seigakuin University, argued.

"Mr. Abe has said national solidarity matters, but what LDP members are doing is like saying, 'We are special and things like the cash handouts are not necessary for us.' That could spoil the spirit of solidarity," Fujita said.

This Fujita guy is a real piece of work. Maybe I ought to pass myself off as an expert and start making baseless and bizarre comments. Can't be any worse than people like this. Who the hell has ever felt "solidarity" with some out of touch lawmakers? On the other hand, I feel a great solidarity with a handful of ten thousand yen notes. Mail out the damn money already!

What do you think? Everyone stops paying tax?

On the application form which recipients need to file with their local government, a checkbox is provided for people who wish to decline the cash handouts.

What the heck is this supposed to mean?? Why fill out the form if you are gonna decline the money? Or is there some weird rule that we all are required to fill it out?

The My Number Card is not required. You can mail in your application.

You don’t need to buy anything.

I'm talking about the online application.

Nothing wrong with a check box for people if for whatever reason they don't want/need the handout. But the process should be simple and as fast as possible.

This is hilarious. There are a million things you can justifiably criticize the Japanese government for and what makes the paper is someone criticizing politicians for declining to receive some government assistance because it destroys the "solidarity". What an idiotic, over-thought argument.

The focus should of course be on the failure to deliver the money. Get it out there to help those who need it and for those who don't to spend and get the economy going again. Other countries have paid their citizens already. It can be done.

The critics are so convoluted!

The US response to the pandemic and the behavior of Trump is beyond belief and embarrassing. Yet I got my U.S. stimulus check in the mail the other day even though I live here in Japan, without doing anything at all, simply because I filed my tax forms last year. I have yet to receive either my Abenomasks or the application form from my city (no, I don't have the My Number card).

Some of the posters here have it correct 100%.

The misplaced focus in the article is on whether the rich and entitled should receive the payment and ‘national unity’ (whatever that is?)

However, those concerns have no bearing for the millions waiting to apply and for whom 100,000 yen is a necessity right now!

There seem to be three broad groups of people who are moaning about all this:

1) The "I can't read Japanese despite living over a decade in Japan" foreigner group. They probably didn't even realize they had to apply for the plastic card.

2) The "I don't want the damn 'gubment' having an ID card about me" group. Presumably these people will be foregoing their 100,000 yen since they distrust 'gubment'.

3) The "I couldn't be bothered to get the plastic chip card" group. Well, suck it up, should have thought about possible consequences before.

With a smartphone and plastic "My Number" card, the whole process took ten miniutes. It is very efficient and straightforward.

Still waiting for my masks so I guess I shouldn't wait the paper until August..

Of course that rat Aso was against it, he’s a scumbag for the ages him.

JP government makes it so difficult to get the stimulus money.

What's wrong with changing the password online.

In the US whoever filed their income tax will automatically receive money. Did nothing.

Btw, there will be a 2nd around of payments in the US just passed today.

Next they will say you have to exchange your abenomask at the ward office to receive your ¥100,000!

next problem ... who received an abenomask? Who didn’t ? Can you prove you didn’t get one?

what a farce!!!!

Wheres my abbenocoin?

Abenobucks

Abenomics summed up perfectly here! Can’t organise a piss up in a brewery springs to mind! Mind you that’s how world politics works these days!

There's a lot of talk on the 100, 000 which unsurprisingly has been handled poorly.

I don't hear much about 'jizokukakyufukin' sustainable benefit which is available to freelancers upto a max of ¥1,000,000. Anyone had success claiming this ?

JeffLee: "So the nation is beholden to one minority party with a tiny number of seats in the Diet. That's consensus democracy for you."

Get your facts straight. The Komeito wanted people to get 100,000 now, while in financial distress, and not have to wait for the 300,000, which many would not be entitled to anyway. NOWHERE have I seen it that the Komeito said it should be INSTEAD of the latter 300,000 in assistance, but of course Abe and the LDP jumped on it as a way of 'saving' money. So, you're beholden to the LDP, not the Komeito. Trust me, when they don't like something the Komeito does, like standing up against legislation the LDP wants to pass, they LDP does not care and does what they want anyway.

But back to the story at hand, only in Japan do you get this kind of ridiculousness when applying for a card with a number you then need to buy a card reader (ancient tech) to use at home to apply online, or get an app that doesn't work for most phones, then go to City Hall if you haven't got one or forget your number in order to apply at home and avoid the wait, or the crowds of potentially infected, only to wait for hours in a tightly packed line of potentially infected, to fill out information on a card that will take months to issue, for a tiny bit of assistance they are waiting forever to send, and will likely not get out to everyone anyway. TIJ.

Sorry, I meant to add, this guy Fujita sounds like a self-righteous moron. Why is there a problem with excusing yourself from the money? That you have the option -- that you are included in the count until you do so -- doesn't disqualify you from being part of the people. I'm sure this is the excuse of a lot of rich people who still want more, though.

I got my online application completed, but the process did seem rather complicated. No idea how long it will take for the actual money to arrive though.

I just got my application through mail. Very simple, just fill in your name and the bank account info, and attach a copy of your ID and of the bank book. Indeed, for each member if the family, there is the option to opt out.

Reading these comments is much more entertaining than reading the article. Thank you all for the comments.

Has anyone here received this cash payout yet ?

I suspect once the State of Emergency has been lifted, then the payout promise will disappear along with it.... and that, probably was the intention from the start - merely a Political points ploy, trying to gain support from the Nation, by... literally buying it!

I haven't even received my Abenomask yet, and I live in Shibuya-ku.

I wouldn't worry about the Abe-no-mask... it's been a pointless exercise of what could be seen as a blatent money for the Old Boys network, exercise. Many have complained about its size and cleanliness. It's little wonder that when you see the Parliament sessions on TV that only Abe was wearing one, but he appears to have stopped doing so recently too.

Peeping_Tom, You seem to have an old view of what's happening here in Japan. Japan is not Spain !

Since you don't live here, let me tell you what's it like now.

Over the past 20 years that I have lived here, I am surprised by the number of fellow foreigners whose Japanese is excellent (mine included). Gone are the days of many gaijin who can't speak Japanese.

"Personally I live with a Japanese woman, eat Japanese food almost everyday(sic), visit Japan at least once a year."

Yes OK, but do you argue with a Japanese woman every_(insert space here)_day? That is the litmus test...