Namorada comments

Not gonna lie, every time I hear and ambulance siren around this time of year, I assume mochi is the culprit.

Wages refuse to budge and the concern for their exporters is putting pressure on everyone else. So while I’m so glad that shareholders of those export led companies see some benefits, it is not being felt by the majority of people.

Time to give the US one island for its navy. That’ll stop China immediately.

People will just move elsewhere. There was a time that people partied on the Yamanote Line. So they’ll just find a new area to go to and party. Or, perhaps, it might be better to encourage people to go inside and party around the Tokyo area by offering freebies to people who go into shops wearing a costume. There are just so many ways they could approach this. Instead, fear-mongering is the route they’ve chosen.

Just went in to update my card a month ago. Had to fill out the same form several times. They didn’t like that my name on my pension card didn’t match the my number card. I showed them all the cards in my wallet and told them to start standardizing their system. The Pension card accepted my form filled out in Romanji but sent me a card with Katakana. They selected the katakana, not me.

When I went in to pick up my card, I asked about the health insurance plan. They acted like they had no idea and said it wasn’t important. I asked them how they will create a secure system to protect my information at all these tiny little clinics? Again, I was told that was simply told that it was in the future and they can’t answer such questions. Useless.

The kids I saw today at just before lunchtime were like rabid animals.

Running around the restaurant, spilling things on the floor, having fun in the bathroom with a single stall, running into other customers and the staff, banging their cutlery on the table, screaming and shouting…my initial reaction was “I hate kids.”

Then, I thought, where are their parents. The vast majority were moms on smartphones or gabbing away with their friends. A few dads were there. One on a laptop, another on his second beer already and the third one seemed to be lost in thought cause he certainly wasn’t looking in his wife’s direction while she talked.

These are the people I actually hate. Their kids are their responsibility but instead they let the rest of the customers do the work. I wonder how long it’ll be before a hot iron plate falls on a kids head or god forbid some child goes missing before these people realize that a restaurant is not a park and that their kids are their responsibility.

I loathed cable companies, but when streaming services started popping up all over the place, it felt like a return to cable. Except now not everyone has the same services so it is getting increasingly harder to talk to anyone about shows. They’ve seen it already and have moved on, they will get around to seeing it after I’ve moved on, or they’ll never really watch it. At first it didn’t bother me, but then shows started getting cancelled or decline in quality that I stopped watching. Instead of so many different shows on different platforms, why not offer a lot of the same shows with different features and ways to enjoy them. That way viewership levels will be more consistent and shows will continue.

deep-rooted perceptions among Japanese people that prices and wages will not rise

I don’t see how this has changed? Prices are definitely rising, but I haven’t heard of many people getting raises. Perhaps if the news keeps saying it is happening, people will just think their turn is going to come soon and when it doesn’t they’ll have something else to worry about and have moved on.

Unless Japan can find a way for younger people to actually get out of their parents’ house and interact nothing will happen.

Younger people need to be able to live in areas with other young people, free from overbearing parents. And they need to be able to afford these places without devoting their lives to their jobs.

Companies pay very little and expect long hours out of their young workers. Then the availability of affordable housing in desirable areas for singles or roommates is highly limited.

Extending leave for expecting parents is the bare minimum Kishida can do.

Birth rate policy funding is secured…now what policies do you have? Or will you need to have a bunch of champagne and steak dinners at some high priced Japanese inn owned by one of your family members or friends to figure this out?

Hmm… I would offer up those islets to Korea in exchange for active vocal support on the Senkaku islands as well as the Northern Territories front from Korea. It is a loss, but the gain is much more valuable.

It is all just a ploy to get people to spend money. For some people, it won't be a problem but for a large number of people, debts will become a huge problem.

Notice a lot of people are downvoting a lot of fairly reasonable comments, but not really offering up any reason to believe that the above comments aren’t accurate.

Japan has never been pro-tourists.

Chinese tourists provided the bulk of spending if any.

Americans are the only ones with the real cash to spend and they don’t buy that much and they certainly don’t care for masks.

The government has been asking for wages to be hiked since Abenomics was started and so far there’s been little change there.

So, a lot of what Kishida is offering is meaningless actions.

Feel free to downvote, but at least offer up something in the process cause at the moment it just seems like people dislike having reality presented to them.

I would like a breakdown of these numbers. Who all is holding this cash?

It certainly doesn’t include a majority of people 45 and younger.

I suspect this is also why certain generations (older ones) are opposed to the MyNumber system. It might reveal that they hold a lot of wealth and do not need to stick it younger people with cheaper visits to the hospital or higher pension payouts funded on the backs of workers.

The only thing Abe successfully accomplished was showing how deeply connected the ruling party is to the Unification church.

Abenomics did nothing except leave us with Kuroda and his bubble era ways of thinking.

Buttering up Trump really did nothing.

Territorial issues, kidnappings, etc…all a big pile of nothing really.

So taxpayers should fund some funeral for a guy who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth?

Just in time for the new law requiring everyone to join Japan’s broken pension system. I can watch what little spending cash my wife and I have be sent to the elderly who, for the most part, are loaded.

What with salaries stuck in place, the wife and I aren’t going to be having kids at this rate, unless she agrees to move back where I can get a higher paying job and the cost of raising a child isn’t so prohibitive.

I used to go out to eat at least 2-3 times a week. Even during the pandemic, I would still order take out. However, with the yen decreasing the value of the money I send home, prices rising and salaries unchanged for years, and now some new government change requiring everyone to get on the national pension plan in order to support the elderly, my going out will be reduced to about once a month if I can swing it.

Maybe, the people need to start telling the government enough unless they start leaning on companies to hike wages or face tax hikes themselves.

Not that I want to see all the tourists back, it is obvious that the yen isn’t going to stop its free fall until demand increases and most domestic consumers are being bled dry or are already tapped.

As a male, I would be very curious to hear what women want to happen and what would help them feel as safe as men feel when they ride the trains or walk through urban areas.

It is obvious that what is being done is not fixing the problem. I have seen women opt for car 9 despite car 10 having more room and only women and the answer often given is: it’s convenient.

I don’t blame them. Why should a woman feel like she needs to go to a specific car and sacrifice convenience for safety. And it isn’t just trains. Nearly every time I walk through one of the larger central Tokyo stations, women are constantly being approached by the sleaziest of men trying to give them “work” while they’re simply trying to get to their destination.

I do not think that Japan is the worst place for women to live. It has some features that women around the world would envy, but more can and should be done.

So, I do think it is time for women to be given a microphone and the attention of a nation willing to put an end to this garbage.

Pretty sure that most people could stomach a falling yen and rising prices if salaries actually moved in a positive direction allowing consumers to drive the economy through increased demand. Instead, they’re pushing the shrinking number of 25-65 year old consumers to tighten their belts at a time when they’d otherwise would be spending if they could count on wage increases.

While not particularly unique, I have a Korean friend who constantly checks out various forums, Facebook posts, and so on which only serve to feed his fears. He won’t travel very far from his apartment or workplace and he prefers being in groups of Japanese in which he can blend in over groups that have foreigners which might draw attention. He tells me how Koreans are discriminated against by various shops, areas of japan, the police, etc and he is afraid.

While I am aware that discrimination exists, I do think that if one actively looks for evidence that you’re at risk, you will find it. It is sad, cause I have watched him descend into this pit of fear over the years and there’s not much anyone can say as the word of his countrymen holds so much weight.

I wonder how many other Koreans who move to Japan end up becoming this afraid.

Well, given that salaries haven’t budged for almost 15 years, I do not see me buying anything unnecessary for the time being.

All I keep hearing is how great this will be when some companies repatriate their money. Good for them. It won’t boost consumer spending. Never understood how businesses or the government seem to think that consumers aren’t also workers.

Signed the link.

Not sure how 75,000 citizens will change the mood of some dinosaurs hellbent on raising Abe to deity status. He didn’t deserve to be assassinated, but I didn’t agree with any of his policies, found his response to pandemic to be another way to fleece taxpayers and so on.

He comes from wealth and the party has plenty of money. Let them pay for it.

https://chng.it/m68YS6Mb82

Is any of this really effective?

Russia is still continuing its foolish efforts in Ukraine, prices around the globe are rising and some nations are running out of food and money.

I am sure there are greater minds out there, but I do wonder if there are better options.

This is the inflation Kuroda so desperately wants all so some export companies can get higher profits?

Salaries aren’t going up and schools are being forced to choose between making cuts to nutritional lunches and charging parents more?

It seems like the government really doesn’t have its priorities straight.

Of the individuals who are not getting married or don’t want to get married, what percent of them are part of the LGBTQ+ community (openly or not)?

Additionally, I suspect sexlessness is a huge problem as well, whether you’re a man or woman. I meet a fair amount of men who say they are in a sexless relationship (I suppose the women are in a similar boat). These people probably have lost any spark if there ever was one. And while I can’t speak for the women, I do know of several men who not only seek out pleasure with other women (something that has been fairly common), but also with men due to the convenience and novelty of the situation.

For Japan to reverse the single-hood trend, a lot more than recommendations will need to happen.

-Salaries will have to rise (for everyone)

-Working hours will have to fall

-Communication within the relationships will have to improve

-Old expectations need a rethink

-Childcare/Elderly care facilities will have to increase and become affordable

-Education costs need to fall

-Modernize name policies

-Encourage the youth to move out earlier

Increase tolerance of all relationship styles

There are plenty more, but Japan doesn’t seem to be moving forward on much of anything. However, the reports seem to come out fairly regularly. If they’re not gonna fix anything stop wasting money on the reports then.

A weak yen policy is so outdated it is hardly laughable anymore. The elderly remember fondly a time when a weak yen meant great profits.

Of course this was before cheaper competitors came along, before export industries moved factories overseas and before a lot of people who are struggling to get by were even adults with jobs.

The Nikkei already stated that a weak yen has diminishing returns compared to 2010 or something like that, almost half the return it used to have.

Time to change the record Kuroda. Japan’s economy will only grow if there are higher salaries, some sense that there is a future beyond the immediate present and more investment in R&D. Instead the government just pursued a weaker yen and companies hoard cash.

So let me get this straight.

Kishida and Kuroda will continue their rhetoric on the rapid fall of the yen while also saying that the BOJ should continue its efforts to reach the 2% inflation target even if that is due not to demand and rising salaries?

What meaningless garbage! The only people that buy that talk are the same people who continue to put these clowns in office.

The falling yen value has had diminishing returns for export companies as most of them have sent their operations abroad. Additionally, it’s not like they invest that money into their workers or newer products that might boost demand. So who is benefiting from these policies? No one. Just a bunch of deluded old men who long for the days before the bubble burst.

I want the media to report on the diminishing returns of a weak yen for Japan’s exporters. The BOJ and common wisdom among Japanese is that exporters will benefit and so will the rest of Japan.

However, Nikkei suggested there has been benefits as more and more blue chip companies are moving industries overseas.

In fiscal 2022, pretax profits are expected to rise by 0.43% across 200 Japanese blue chip companies for each 1 yen weakening by the home currency against the dollar, according to data compiled by Daiwa Securities. This is roughly half the 0.98% boost from June 2009, following the global financial crisis.

So Kuroda and the BOJs entire strategy is based entirely on an outdated Showa mentality, which is hurting all of us and designed only to give the BOJ “proof” that their policies are working.

Japan’s media needs to start reporting about the diminishing returns of a weak yen. The nikkei did an excellent article about this and I have yet to see others reporting on it. The benefits of a weak yen to export companies were higher 10 years ago than they are now. Better minds with the time to sift through the data should be doing this and asking is the BOJ’s one-track focus on raising inflation doing more damage than good.