MotMotMot comments

Japan screams open markets when America says no to US steel, yet when a foreign firm wants to take over a convenience store chain in Japan, they panic.

It is an open market, and Japanese private industries are welcome to outbid them. Which is exactly what is happening. The gov't isn't holding up the merger.

Also, the holding company isn't just 7/11. It's a bank, grocery stores, department stores. Speedway in the North America, Tower Records, Denny's Japan. It's a big conglomerate that has a plan and doesn't want some Couche-Tards (actual name of the acquiring company) messing things up.

Looks like the Family is making a $58bn white horse bid. Most likely with Sumitomo Mitsui, Mitsubishi UFJ, and Mizuho providing funding.

I was part of one of the first US acquisitions of a Japanese company in the late 90s. It was an uphill battle back then and really only worked because the family wanted to sell to us. Coming in and trying a hostile takeover usually results in big Japanese corporations and banks working against you with a counter bid.

Having worked for foreign companies Canadian corps have taken over, I don't blame them from wanting to go private. They tend to overestimate their abilities and love adding bureaucracy than centralizes power and decisions back to Canada.

Why not cut out the middle man here? Load up a tanker and let it out near the fake islands China is making.

We're talking about the same company that promoted British employee Michael Woodford to CEO to basically be a patsy for a $1.5bn (though prosecutors believe the real number was closer to $6.5bn) financial fraud scandal. Woodford blows the whistle and brings in outside auditors. Only to receive death threats and is fired by the board. He ends up fleeing the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympus_scandal

None of the Japanese executives ended up in prison even though the scale of the fraud was many times larger than Carlos Ghosn.

Only Japanese for sushi?

In the West it's extremely rare for a Sushi place to have any ownership or workers that are Japanese. In particular once you get away from large costal cities that had existing Japanese diasporas.

If anything, I think it's weaponization of woke culture by people who aren't particular woke and manufactured outrage.

I've worked for companies that have been bought by large Canadian Corps. It's mixed bag. The issue is a lot of time they've gotten used to Canada's regulations regime. It protects a lot of incumbents in a market. And the overall market is just smaller. My observation is companies that are number 1 in their segment are the worst. They can believe they know better when they really don't.

They all have different styles. Chris Abroad is a bit more cynical. More likely to crap on stuff (sometimes with good reason, other times it seems like he does it more for laughs).

A good example was the vending machine museum. Chris was not impressed at all and was pretty harsh on the place. Whereas John from Only in Japan (along with Scotty from Strange Parts) were really complimentary of the place.

PaolofromTokyo is like watching a commercial or NHK show. When he eats food his reactions are so over the top, and never has a negative word. He used to eat food like a typical Western person, but it seems like this is an act he puts on to appease the Japanese businesses that allow him to film. I can't say it doesn't work. He gets a lot of companies other YouTubers can't.

I've been involved in Canadian conglomerates buying foreign companies. It hasn't gone well in my experience. They just don't understand the local markets, and generally think they are a lot smarter than the local staff.

China needs to GTFO of Philippine's waters. This was adjudicated in the international courts. China lost the case and instead of following the rule of law has started ramming Philippine ships.

If Kelly is found innocent of the crime, it means there was no crime, and Ghosn is also innocent.

No. Ghosn was mad he had to take a pay cut (under Japanese gov't pressure) when there was an economic downturn. So Ghosn set up an elaborate kick back scheme from franchise owners in other countries to make up for the pay cut he was pressured to take.

Kelly was head of HR. Unless they have proof Kelly was involved in the scheme, it's abuse of the justice system. We've had a ton of press on this, and a docu series on Apple TV. I've yet to see any reporting saying Kelly knew about Ghosn's scheme.

In addition, the only reason they got Ghosn was Nissan investigators went to Ghosn's personal lawyers office (who had unexpectedly died) and got the paralegal to hand over a bunch of documents. That would get tossed in Western legal systems.

It's nice and all. But the voter registration and transport to the polling places is where the biggest need is. Older people have locked in their votes months ago. New voters is where it's at.

Fumi Nikaido commented how different the productions were in USA/Canada (filmed mostly in Vancouver, CA) compared to Japan. Lamenting how the agency system in Japan means often parts are given based on agency concerns, and not merit from a audition process. Younger actors have the ability to voice opinions and concerns. The union rules in the west prevent many of bad ways talent agencies and studios in Japan operate.

I take these stories with a grain of salt. There's a strong correlation between countries with "oldest population" and countries with the most pension fraud. Japan has been getting called out in economist circles as of late over it.

It's not like relatives have to go out of the way to do this. They just have to hold off telling the gov't.

Musk's comments are super creepy. But I'm not sure if he's mad she endorsed Harris/Walz or he's just mad she mostly uses Instagram and made the announcement there.

Reportedly, the link in her Instagram post has generated over 330,000 visits to register to vote.

I sense the Harris/Trump debate to be so important, due to US electorate expectation, the drama of the Trump assassination attempts.

The assassination attempt had one new cycle and just disappeared. Once the gunman was identified as a registered republican with mental health issues the media moved on. Biden dropping out and the vartious Harris campaign moves quickly filled the void.

The US can't depot Chinese people back to China. China won't accept them back if they know the person was sought status in the US.

I'll watch the super cut video from Jon Stewart. My bet is Harris winds him up and he has a couple unhinged outbursts. Maybe he'll call her Biden again.

Trump has a gift of word rhyme, but if you put actual words down on paper it reads like a dementia patient. It's a bunch of gibberish.

Heat pumps are just air conditioners with an extra valve. The Build Of Materials (BOM) cost differences are minimal. Yet in the US the heat pump systems are sold for thousands of dollars more than conventional HVAC systems. That's really the issue with adoption is there's a lot of companies out there ripping off consumers in the US.

The Russians have been doing this crap in Europe for over a decade now. They violate EU airspace fairly regularly, and that's when things were peaceful. You don't call on the phone. You drive them off with a show of force.

Real,how can you defend yourself now,China , Russia,,NK can strike in 5 minutes the city of Tokyo

If pushed, Japan can have a nuclear detergent very quickly. It's in everyone's interests to maintain the status quo.

Olympics are a great time to be a tourist. Companies have employees work from home. Tourist spots staff up. And realistically, unless you're right by a venue you're hard pressed to know if the games are even going on. It's usually less crowded at stuff because the games are pulling people away from stuff and all the office workers are away.

Unless one of you is a civil engineer most of these comments come off as uninformed.

The gov't makes it hard to start new farms. You can't just buy farm land (of which there is a lot) and start planting. You need permission from the local farmers to get your permits. Which is ironic as Japan is known for it's fairly loose zoning laws when it comes to city living.

Haven't seen the show. Does it cover how many of the Korean schools in Japan have ties to North Korea?

Nothing specific to Japan - police get in trouble in every country.

In other countries the cops would try to intimidate the staff into dropping the matter.

In the US, if the cops arrested a superior officer they'd face retaliation.

Gold was $2648 in Feb 1980 according to Macrotrends. It's not a good investment.

Fact: Spying goes on all the time between major powers.

That is true, but it would be highly unusually to conduct the operation via a big corporation. In particular one in an industry that deals with gov't regulators all the time.

Interesting side note, most Western Medical device providers will NOT certify in Hong Kong or China because you're required to provide the gov't with detailed information about the manufacturing process, along with the actual devices. They'll hand the device and info off to a local bio med company while they hold up your approval. You'll get through as soon as a local competitor has a knock off made.

Because of this, medicine in mainland China is a joke compared to the west.

Totally stolen valor.

Fact.

Bold move cotton, you have any facts to actually back that up? Can you name a single soldier, out of the HUNDREDS who served with him, that are saying that?

I think you mean Harris. Wants to tax you into oblivion

My taxes went up under Trump. Anyone who lived in a SALT state (which were mostly blue) who was middle and upper middle class income got screwed by the loss of SALT deductions. The tax breaks for the ultra wealthy was paid for on the backs of the middle and upper middle class folks in blue states. The GOP was dead to me at that point.

Most of what's going on in Sumy is from the Russian side. From TikTok, to State Propaganda. Ukraine keeps what's going on VERY close to it's chest. What we have been able to piece together is:

1) They did play Russia a bit. Releasing bits and scapes that they were concerned about Sumy and building up defenses. When in fact they built up an invasion force.

2) The Russians were a lot of young conscripts Putin promised to keep out of harms way. And they were very green. Some photos showing a lot of dead 18-20 year olds piled into transport vehicles in a close line. Militarily speaking easy to KIA.

3) Chechen Tik Tok thugs assigned to the area seemed to know things were bad and purposely avoided the offensive so they could live another day to stream their war atrocities.

4) This is part of something larger and we do not know exactly what that is yet.