Namorada comments

The rules are not very clear. Someone always knows someone who did this that or the other.

It would be nice if there was a lot more clarification.

Robert Mang:

A weak Yen is not all bad news. It's good for exports, and Japan exports a lot. It's also an incentive for foreigners to come and spend... that is if they were allowed to enter the country!

Maybe when Kuroda was a spring chicken a weak yen really helped export companies, but most of those companies have moved their manufacturing overseas (Mazda, Panasonic, Bridgestone, to name a few), so that they can reduce their exposure to forex risks. In fact, Japanese blue chip companies see less benefits from a weak yen than they used to see. According to the nikkei, 2022 profits will rise by 0.43%, however, in 2009, they rose by 0.98%. Clearly, a weak yen policy has diminishing returns for Japanese export companies. Kuroda and the rest of Japan’s dinosaurs need to stop trying to relive the glory days and come up with something new. The Showa bubble ain’t coming back.

So tired of the single minded weak yen policy.

"It's not just exporters that are leading the Japanese economy. The service sector accounts for 70 percent of gross domestic product," Sakurada said at a recent press conference. "The service sector is not necessarily structured in a way that welcomes a weak yen."

This policy is outdated only serves to make Kuroda look like he has inched closer to accomplishing his target of 2% inflation based not on actual growth but a simple numbers game. One which relies on a weak currency, government spending, increased taxes, and low wages. Not domestic demand.

Between 2005 and 2019, manufacturing output in Japan per worker grew by 25%, while wages grew at about 1%. In contrast, Korea, which allows its currency to rise in value saw output rise by 57% and wages climbed by 52%. Like Japan, Korea has an elderly population, but domestic demand is high. To be fair, Korea has problems, too.

However, a weak yen is not sustainable. It is hurting demand, export growth doesn’t trickle down to medium/small domestic companies and their workers.

It is time to let the yen rise in value, let consumers drive domestic growth by giving them higher wages to spend, and let export companies start to compete without government support.

Is it willful ignorance on the part of some individuals posting here or what? The prosecutors resigned not due to a lack of evidence, but due to the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg deciding not to pursue charges.

The entire system is ブラック.

I help a friend on the side at the various properties they own/work with around Tokyo and let me tell you, the “ideal” Japanese tenants have the potential to be just as nasty as the other undesirable tenants they complain about so much.

They skip town without paying rent for several months, can’t separate their garbage if they ever throw anything out (ゴム屋敷), they smoke and let the walls get all stained, broken screens and cracks in windows, wallpaper damaged, tatami flooring that had furniture on it when it wasn’t supposed to, noise complaints from kids or couples fighting, televisions and radios too loud, pets that weren’t allowed damaging the property, smells coming from their rooms and so on.

Anyone in Japan who owns rental properties and complains about foreigners, LGBTQ+, the elderly, and so on but seems to hold other Japanese individuals up as model residents is acting bigoted. Percentage wise, the risk is not much different than that of the desirable Japanese. The undesirables are just much more memorable than your average Taro. That is the real shame.

Not exactly sure why they’d want to know how much money we send back to our home countries. They already make the remittance companies ask the reasons for our remittances, so surely they know how much is going back.

US forces are NOT the sole reason Omicron is spreading in Japan. US forces are tested more often than Japanese. They also get locked down unlike Japanese. Maybe Japan should be locked down like US Forces are, and see how they like it.

You are right. It is not just military personnel. It is also all those SOFA visa holders who live off base but got to go in and out of Japan and did not adhere to the other requirements that Japanese and non-Japanese foreign residents had to follow. No staying in a hotel for two weeks. No finding and paying for their own transportation to and from airports. Riding on public transportation like it was no big deal. Acting Americans by taking off their masks whenever they felt it was safe for them (not the others around them).

Frankly, if military members and SOFA visa holders want to travel outside Japan, they should’ve used military aircraft, flown between bases and quarantined on base for 2 weeks. Instead Japan in its naivety believed the off-base SOFA VISA residents would observe the rules. I saw no such behavior among the few individuals I know. Their lack of empathy and false sense of entitlement has been astounding.

It works both ways too. I would find someone who makes judgements about anyone based on something as simple as a wallet to be a vapid waste of breath. People need to stop caring what the vacuous bobble heads say.

Too bad that someone’s life will boil down to how much they are worth to others and the government in death…

As was said earlier, I’d rather see a news release regarding a new album than something that reduces him to numbers in someone else’s bank account.

I don’t drink beer for the same reason that I drink wine. Most major beer brands have a consistent flavor that I can match with food easily and most alcohol drinkers will drink it at different events. I was a latecomer to the craft beer movement and by the time discovered it, there were really no entry level craft beers and the hops was getting out of control. So, now I’m not really a craft beer fan at all. Each glass or can is like playing Russian roulette. If Asahi goes this route with Super Dry, I’ll stop buying it entirely.

If the rules were consistent I wouldn’t care so much. Ban “non-essential” travel abroad for residents, yet let the US military and those with SOFA visas roam the world freely? Make an exception for 87 students? What is this?

Meanwhile I’m on a packed train with people sneezing and sniffling all over the place. No government is flawless and I accept that there needs to be room for mistakes and fixes, but Japan seems to just wing it.

In Japanese-style bathing, you’re supposed to thoroughly wash your body at a shower station so that you’re completely clean by the time you dip so much as a toe in the communal tub, in order to keep the shared bathwater clean.

Completely untrue in the men's bath, so mother, don't worry. Can't say I have seen anybody wash themselves before getting in.

This is so very true! I see countless Japanese men walk in, drench themselves with a bucket or two of water and then step right into the bath. Japanese love to believe that the rules are followed in all cases, but at some point they need to take off the rose colored glasses.

Haha! Unlikely. Same salary for nearly two decades. Newer employees starting with lower wages than I started with. Health and Pension premiums rising, along with local taxes creeping up and the consumption tax being used to fill government coffers. Perhaps something more than setting targets is needed.

US Forces Japan and the GOJ have been in close-coordination for over a year on COVID response and mitigation measures. All US military members arriving into Japan go into a ROM (Restriction of Movement) status where they remain within one building. USFJ has restricted unavaccinated personnel to base. USFJ even offered shots to its MLC Japanese workforce before Japan had set up its vaccination effort.

You say this but it does not seem like it applies to all SOFA status passport holders. If you have insights as why individuals who don’t live on base, don’t pay taxes here in Japan, don’t pay into the healthcare system, and what not get the luxury of bypassing the quarantine procedures that other foreign residents (and presumably Japanese nationals) must follow, then I am all ears.

I know of a couple individuals who have travelled abroad already and have avoided any real stringent quarantine. Another individual is currently abroad and will return in a week or so and when that happens that individual will board a bus with locals after getting off an international flight and travel into the heart of Tokyo and spend time with other individuals all in the same day.

This is not being alarmist. This is what is happening and it is not acceptable at all.

What the military SHOULD be doing is not allow ANY personnel to fly commercially at all! Fly them directly into one of their airbases in Japan and quarantine them in base facilities. Keep them out of commercial airports, and if they do fly into commercial airports, have them follow the exact same procedures that Japanese citizens and foreign residents must adhere to!

Agreed completely. Know a couple SOFA individuals and they are as American as they come. Picking and choosing which situations to mask up in and engaging in non-essential international travel. If they were confined on the bases, I would not care so much. However, they live OFF base and think they’re special with their SOFA status. They don’t seem to care that others around them are extremely uncomfortable with their selfish actions. Taking buses and trains immediately after getting off a plane. It really exemplifies why America is in the state it is in.

What irks me the most about this entire situation is the individuals with SOFA stamps in their passports who do not reside on base. They fly commercial airlines to various locations around the world and get all the perks of military members who live on base. This is unacceptable. I certainly do not want them being on public transportation traveling back to their homes while non-SOFA stamp passport holders are treated as they should with caution and placed into hotels and made to arrange their own transportation. Those are the rules. Take all the SOFA stamp passport holders from airports and fly them to a base to quarantine there until they are safe to mix with the general population.