Mike Critchley comments

They should instead give the police a deadline -- OK, we complied with your police request not to reveal the perp. So you have a week to find this guy and recover our property or YOU can pay the 250,000¥.

Name and shame the guy!

Free trade. The name says it all. Trade freely, or don't step up to the table.

As a Canadian, I've never understood why some of my southern neighbors are so against socialized medicare. A healthy workforce is more productive than one that is critically ill and unable to take care of itself (if you want to look at it from economic terms). The same can be said for helping your people become better educated.

To me, the problem lies in the COST of medical service in the U.S.. I had a simple outpatient biopsy done in Canada on a trip home to Canada (no insurance as I'm not a resident) for $75. A few days later down in Hawaii I split the stitches and went to a local private clinic to have a tetanus shot and 3 stitches. $350. The look on my face when told the cost: priceless.

So I'd say, get some controls on the costs. Make the system more efficient. Don't let doctors or hospitals charge $50 for an aspirin, etc etc. Then add user fees for simple doctor visits to avoid the kind of overuse you see here in Japan. Allow for those who can afford it to have insurance for higher-tier treatment if they choose to do so. And yes, make sure that everybody has at least basic care so the people who are out there working every day and growing the economy can do it without worrying about the cost of getting sick or injured.

Why is this a male-female issue? Workplaces in Japan basically are not ideal for either. Many of my Japanese friends work well beyond reasonable expectations and still feel they need to "gambaru" more. And a lot of them get brutalized on a regular basis by superiors. Who would "participate" in that scenario if they didn't have to? I believe a few female friends who have said that marriage is a way to avoid having to get to entrenched in the Japanese workforce.

Improve the workplace environment for all, and more women will participate.

I'm beginning to thing that there's an IQ cap on people running for public office.

I hope they stay, I love my weekly morning MacBreakfast fix! Although I wish they would stop trying to suggestive sell me their latest specials every time I hit a drive through.

How did this loser make it to public office, let alone out of kindergarten!? Incredible.

To any other foreigners wanting to do this kind of experiment, please think of the time you will waste, not only of the police but also the people who return your ‘lost’ wallet.

That's rich. Japanese "variety" TV programs do stuff like this hidden camera stuff all the time.

She's an activist, people. Which means that this is not likely about the money, nor about getting any kind of justice (I'm sure even she accepts the right of an institution to bar people who previously caused problems). This will be to raise awareness of the slaughter, most likely with a focus of getting more Japanese people to even know that the place exists. I asked my students on the day if they were aware of what was going on in the media outside of Japan that day, or if they were even aware of what was happening in Taiji that day -- NOPE! And there was nothing on the news anywhere that day in Japan except for about one 3-second blurb I saw. So for right or wrong, she's just doing what activists do -- creating noise so that people look up from their smartphones and at least become aware of what is going on.

Not really a rental NEET. But rather an enterprising otaku GEEK. And in a place like Akihabara, where people might actually need a bit of advice and guidance around by somebody who knows the scene, he might do very well for himself. No, it's not likely to be a lucrative career, but at least he's not at home watching cartoons and mooching entirely off his folks. Double thumbs up for this guy!

I wonder if Abe will actually attempt to revive this money losing blubber-fest, or if this is just pandering to the electorate. He may be thinking of playing both sides here.

On one side of the fence, he has the voters to think of. I have plenty of Japanese friends who openly and unabashedly say that they don't care if whaling loses money or if nobody eats it..."It's a Japanese right and nobody should be able to tell us what to do" (verbatim from one student). So by acting like a belligerent right winger, he appeases his voters.

But he is surely also concerned about international opinion as that could affect trade and the success of "Abenomics." Perhaps then, as the current international outcry passes over and the locals forget all about it, he'll drag his heels, effectively killing the program and appeasing the international community. If this is his strategy, then he's pretty politically savvy. If not, well, we're back where we started.

I've got several iDevices and I've yet to buy a plan. Instead, to avoid the price fixing smithinjapan mentions, I buy wifi-only iPads and iPod touches, then do everything via an LTE pocket wifi. It's less than 4,000 a month for unlimited data and for up to 10 devices, and it's as fast or faster than the typical smartphone data packages. As for voice calls, you can do all that using apps now for a fraction of the cost most services charge to call other carriers or to call from abroad.

Actually, you can get pocket wifis now for less than 3,000 a month, but I already signed on to a 2 year contract -- another form of gouging and anti-competition strategy that locks you into a price range. But it's still better than paying those ridiculous smartphone plans.

Isn't this article title incorrect? Shouldn't it be 80% of women EVERYWHERE!

This spring, a large number of companies took the decision to raise wages...by more than 2%

Yes, when you threatened to name and shame companies that didn't. And a 2% raise. Geez! Thanks! Yes, that's a comfort to people to know that they still make less than the 4% they need to keep up with inflation and the 3% sales tax increase.

There's no spinning the truth here -- without serious reform, this economy is unfixable. Simply printing money and pouring concrete won't suffice.

This is scary, but I don't know why people suddenly take this as a chance to rail on LLCs. It's not like they are dropping out of the sky or having any more accidents than major carriers like ANA slamming down on the tarmac. As for pilots, I met a flight crew once from Thai Airways in Kyoto...the co-pilot had done his very first flight training less than 3 years prior. So inexperienced pilots and co-pilots aren't just behind the sticks in LLCs. It's a problem in many places that need pilots to meet a rapidly expanding air industry and no local pool of pilots to draw from. Having said that, until the details and flight recordings are available, it's tough to draw conclusions here.

Hey, sing 'Yesterday!"

Is Abe a destabilizing force in Asia? Absolutely. But would the DPJ be a better choice for Japan? Absolutely not.

Japan needs something new. A party that is rich in statespeople who are diplomatic and do not anger the neighbors; who work for the best interests of Japan, but in a way that benefits all of Asia. At the same time, we need people with economic vision (which, arguably, Abe has), but with the sense to implement that vision by bringing out the best that lies with Japanese people, not simply by printing money and laying concrete.

I hope it happens while I'm still here to witness it.

Damn. There goes my plan of marrying a K-Pop idol....

Inflexible? Pffft. There should be no need for flexibility in a free-trade agreement. You drop all your tariffs and import-blocking strategies and compete on an even playing field. Easy-peasy. If Japan or any other country isn't interested in opening their markets, that's fine. Just say "No, thanks," and let the countries who want to move forward on this thing do so.

I much prefer tips to automatically included "service charges," mostly because I have been a waiter and a bartender, and I know that it's exceedingly rare for all that income to get to the staff as it is meant to. I prefer to hand over a gratuity to the person who has gone the extra mile.

Having said that, if restaurants are paying wages that are a bit above and beyond and ensuring great service, then no tips works just fine for me!

I hate the idea of nuclear power being brought back to this quake-prone country. But this protest will go nowhere. The last Tokyo election was clearly polarized as nuclear vs no-nuke....the nuclear side won. The people have (stupidly) spoken.

Doing a free trade agreement should be easy. Before joining, you say, "We will accept all of your goods if you accept ours," having already done the political groundwork at home.

There should be no negotiating in this. You either agree to accept to benefits to the greater economy and join, or you back down to protected groups and don't apply for membership. Japan should just say ' mata kondo' and try again next time.

Morimoto, toeing the party line.

Morimoto, a former utility executive

Ah! Now it all makes sense. 'Nuff said.

Abenomics has gone hand in hand with p1ssing off their neighbors and closest trading partners, so the lackluster export sector is no surprise. If Abe had decided to be a skilled statesman instead of saber rattler, he might have had a leg to stand on. Too late for that, now!

A few highly experienced divers I've dived with in SE Asia often warn of problems-waiting-to-happen with the Japanese tour groups. The instructors tend to do the "Zero to Hero" program, where they go from novice to instructor in one contiguous block of time, with no diving work logged other than "instructor." In clear conditions, they're fine. If things go bad, they are less likely to react as professionally as an instructor who has been diving their whole life in a wide range of conditions.

I hope they have just gotten carried away with the current and are stuck on some remote beach, but otherwise OK.

Unlike previous recoveries in Japan, his policy of much greater monetary easing and bringing inflation into the economy is aimed more at domestic consumption than pushing goods overseas.

This is such backwards thinking. "Good" inflation is the RESULT of domestic consumption. We buy more, so businesses can set higher price points. This is NOT what is happening with Abenomics.

"Bad" inflation is the rise of prices due to things like printing money or, as is happening to us now in Japan, huge fuel and import costs caused by disadvantageous currency rates. This is Abenomics in a nutshell. This inflation just makes things seem expensive to people who still have limited spending money, which makes them spend their money on, say, big bottles of discount sake so they can forget this mess we're in.

I understand this and I don't have an economics degree. How can the PM of one of the biggest world economies not understand it?

Price fixing? I think the correct term in Japanese for this is, "Business as usual."

And I'd be willing to bet that the H, L&W Ministry employees who did this major research project put in more than a little off-the-books OT themselves to get it done.

They must have relished in the irony.

100% agree with Tamarama. There is a mountain of research now showing that English-only pedagogy in EFL settings is not the way to go. But as usual, Monbusho seems to have turned to the few weary Japanese "experts" whose education seems to have stopped in the 1950s. I mean, if their plan to test for language proficiency is to use the Eiken, the most useless exam ever invented, that kind of says it all.

Monbusho. If you're going to do something, do it right!

This is why I love science.