RainMonster comments

Posted in: OECD urges Japan to promote labor reforms; calls wage growth 'muted' See in context

Where to even start?

Japan needs a 40hr work week with compulsory overtime pay for anything beyond 5hrs per week. Japan needs mandated wage equality so women will equally carry the economy. Japan needs greater efficiency to let working people have a life outside of work. Tax and benefit reform and improved immigration to fill declining worker levels. And let inefficient outdated companies fail and the market replace them as it naturally would. And finally stop age and sexism in employment.

Benefits? People with less time in office will spend more money generating more jobs, tax revenue and economic activity. Equal pay will mean women have more resources to contribute to the above as well as support their families better. There will be reductions in national healthcare costs if people are not overworked and suffering from stress related illness.

Older workers would be able to retool and get jobs to remain productive instead of being marginalized.

Efficiency will make Japan more competitive. If they add regulatory changes it may help make Japan a greater hub and bring back jobs from other Asian nations.

But lets face it. The LDP have no interest in an of this. They are the status quo. They want and love the status quo and lack the creativity and vision to prepare Japan for the future. Sadly no other party here is any better.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Posted in: High court upholds obscenity ruling against 'vagina artist' See in context

It is art not porn. But I am sure the oyaji in the courts have a very limited view of women. It is obscene that a country can have so much sex related industry, penis festivals, so much sexual exploitation of young girls and still be pissed off at an artist. Priorities here are ass backwards on this ruling. Just shows their profound ignorance of art and overt disregard for women.

10 ( +10 / -0 )

Posted in: Are funerals growing obsolete? See in context

Once I am dead my body is of no account. My family doesn't need to spend a lot on me. Have a party at my favorite cafe. Talk about the great things we did together, the love we shared and the nonsense we got into. Remember me as I was. Burn the shell and spread the ashes somewhere nice. Enough.

I don't believe in an afterlife, bad luck days, superstition. I am mortal. When I am dead, nothing else will matter to me ever again. So my family should not worry over such nonsense.

9 ( +9 / -0 )

Posted in: Stakes high as Abe eyes labor reform to boost economy See in context

Maxjapank You are a great example.

We run a small cafe. We depend upon people coming out to eat or enjoy an event. But so many people work too late to do anything after work. So weeknights are quiet unless something rare is happening that people will go to anyway. Weekends a lot of people work too, so they may come in but not like they could.

Most of our customers are not typical salary people like me. Even my job makes coming to our own cafe hard when hours are late and weekend work is looming too.

It hurts us all. Exploitation here needs to change.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Posted in: As streaming booms, songs getting faster: study See in context

We have allowed corporate thinking to subvert and ruin music. Music is a product. And not a valued one. It is like deodorant, soda, shampoo, snacks. Something to consume. Background noise. Air filler.

Songs are fleeting, unoriginal, commercially planned instead of creatively. Watching a top 20 last week most top hits were using the same bangra beat sped up, slowed down, adjusted. The latest trendy dance sound.

Originality is gone.

There is a reason that so much of the classic music of the past still resonates today. Why it still sells, why these songs are covered by the millions of artists out there who are not competing in the corporate noise industry. These songs appeal to human beings with emotion, meaning, originality and unique character.

Since 2005 there have been so few releases that I can say I will still be listening to in 10 years. Most of it is throw away, well planned jingles that sound great today, dated tomorrow and have not relationship with providing a meaningful emotional soundtrack to our lives.

Streaming services are killing creativity in favor of practicality in music. As a musician and composer I have no interest in crafting my art to fit a corporate paradigm. So I have zero chance at fame. But so do many other artists I know. So we play directly to people around us and in communities who don't want junk music. We will never be wealthy from our art, but we will be remembered by those we touch with it.

That is far better. To hell with streaming services and their artist assassinating policies and trends.

5 ( +7 / -2 )

Posted in: Stakes high as Abe eyes labor reform to boost economy See in context

The solutions are and have been obvious forever.

First. Limit salaried work weeks to 40hrs. Require paid OT for anything over 5 hrs per week. Double time pay for weekend and holidays. Period. This will force companies to do one of two things. 1. Become more efficient so over work is not as required. 2. Look to hiring younger or older workers to pick up gaps.

The benefit is obvious. People finishing work at 6 or 7 will still have time to go out to dinner, go shopping, catch an event or movie or concert, spent time with family doing some kind of activities. And more.

Family and individual activity will spur domestic spending. We have seen this in Europe where people do far more out after work and are far more involved in activities that generate income for other businesses.

This means more income for a wide range of businesses. It means more tax revenue. Efficiency improvements forced by this would improve Japanese global competitiveness. Win, win, win, win, win.....

But first you need people who don't think "Premium Friday" or "Happy Monday" sound like labor solutions. These are frankly completely daft ideas that have zero hope of changing anything. Like painting a collapsing house a new color to shore it up. Idiocy.

Instead you need a plan to move the entire country towards what I have suggested in a 3 year period and enforce the labor laws once they are in place. Stop this insane exploitation of every worker in Japan and make a society of families who have time together, people who have time to spend some money and enjoy life and make the country more efficient.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Posted in: 2 women jump to deaths from Osaka condo See in context

Too many people on JT are just completely heartless and quick to judge people they know nothing about. We do not know what drove these two ladies to this extreme act. But we can assume it was something profound enough that they thought this made sense. We have no idea what compelled them to do so. What trauma or hardship they faced. Or what they sought to escape from. We just know that whatever it was it motivated this.

Have a heart people. You could find yourself on that ledge one day and not be able to even believe your life brought you to that point.

11 ( +11 / -0 )

Posted in: Trump denounces Streep as 'overrated Clinton flunky' See in context

Is Trump Muppet really daft enough to think we will like his tweet over Streep's eloquent speech (eloquent means nice Trump - in case you are reading)?

Frankly speaking. Trump is a moron. Not to be hard on morons. But nothing he says or tweets is of any meaningful consequence.

He has four years of resistance by most Americans to look forward to. His tiny feeble ego is going to be under constant attack. The only comfort I get from this is that he will be too busy responding to Twitter to do that much damage.

17 ( +20 / -3 )

Posted in: Body of suicide jumper hurled by train into woman on platform See in context

No strong structure for mental health care. Public stigma for seeking mental health care help. Fortune tellers and mystics often filling the role of mental health care professionals. Complete absence of work life balance for most people. And more.

Want suicides to stop?

Embrace mental health care as an acceptable and available option for people. This will reduce the numbers.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Posted in: New U.S. Congress prepares to undo Obamacare, weigh Trump personnel picks See in context

I don't care if you are right or left in America today. The bottom line is this. We have an incompetent narcissist who has selected a bunch of neo-fascists, racists, corrupt business men and the elite to "drain the swamp". If you are a working person in America you are screwed. No political affiliation will make a difference. Your labor protections, environmental protections, health care and wages are all going to be under constant fire until the elite turn you into virtual slaves. Not that most of you are not already.

Working people screwed themselves this time. Instead of unity amongst working people, we let the elites divide and conquer us. They have won and all working people have lost.

The level to which you are all screwed is just something we have to wait and see. But if the GOP make good on their promises, all working people will be living in regret for the next four years.

Let's just hope working people put down their division and come together to vote in someone who works for us in 2020.

11 ( +11 / -0 )

Posted in: Couple in their 90s die on same day after happy lifetime together See in context

Jesus H Christ people. Just smile at a nice old couple dying on the same day instead of pining away for the lost one and dying alone. They died close enough together to think they just wanted life together or not at all.

Has all sense of wonder, romantic sentiment and the ability to digest a gentle story been overcome with people too obsessed over nit picking. Often the same people incapable of nit picking when it would actually help something in the world be better.

We should all wish for a life long love and a departure together rather than in longing loneliness for the one who went first.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Posted in: Gigantic straw Godzilla sculpture appears in field See in context

The only good news online today. Thank you to whoever built this. We need more art and more things to smile about when we pick up the news.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Posted in: University student arrested for pushing his girlfriend off train platform See in context

Law student. Great. He is an arrogant yuppie dirt bag already. Over a drink? Jail him and teach him a long hard lesson in patience, humility and consequences for his actions. And ban him from practicing law.

12 ( +13 / -1 )

Posted in: Clinton tries to quell resurgent email issue late in race See in context

A freak show circus, both this thread and the election. You know people, the real victims of all this are all of us working class Americans. We are being screwed by all of this. By the idiotic GOP candidate who should be in freak show and not running for office. The establishment candidate who is better qualified but heavily unpopular.

We are losing people. Whether you are a conservative or a liberal. You are losing. We should be asking more form our government than this idiotic infighting that has led to GOP obstructionism, wasting huge amounts of money on investigations that go no where and supporting a fool like Trump for president in the first place.

We are now officially a banana republic of the very worst kind. Congratulations America for making absolute fools of ourselves.

11 ( +11 / -0 )

Posted in: Oct 12 power blackout a reminder of worse things to come See in context

NCIS, yes it was not directly in Tokyo, but the shaking was more than most US cities would remain standing in. As someone who was on the 26th floor of a shaking building, it was not fun and cabinets flying around did not help.

Like Ms Delicious, I walked home in mostly the dark. Trains stopped, people were injured and others fell ill due to the shaking.

I don't know where you were, but for those of us in central Tokyo, it was a very real experience.

Yes Shukan Jitsuwa is a rag, but that does not mean they could not strive for better writing.

Strangerland. Picky are we? We all knew what he meant, why do care what word he chooses?

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Posted in: Osaka train driver apologizes to Japanese passengers for ‘having many foreigners’ on board See in context

Look there are daft people from Japan and other countries who will behave badly on trains. Just think of how many drunks there are on most trains in Japan, the vast majority of them Japanese.

Racism and xenophobia hurt Japan and Japanese more than it hurts foreigners who can just stop coming here if it gets bad. It is bad for business and it is pathetic and sad.

We live in a globalised world, like that fact or not folks, it is realty. We will all be sharing this world with people from all over, some of whom may make us uncomfortable. But in the end, we will adapt and some of us, who already do so, will be able to share with those of you who don't yet, the great and amazing things that sharing our lives with diverse people is great.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Posted in: China warns Japan not to 'play with fire' in South China Sea See in context

China you know that war with Japan means war with the US. A war that would end China and ruin so much for everyone. So stop the poker face, everyone knows you have no intention of starting a war. You are an empty bully. Shut up and get on with business instead of playing at imperialism. You suck at it.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Posted in: Philippines leader likens himself to Hitler; wants to kill millions of drug users See in context

I think it is Duterte who is likely to end up dead. This guy is alienating everyone but his looney fringe. With the Philippines so important to Asia, someone in their military or someone from some other faction will take him out if he continues to wreck the country they way he has.

I think few tears would be shed.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

Posted in: Canadian YouTuber explains why she quit working on Japanese TV See in context

I have met a few producers here. They are creative in the same way beige walls are creative. One guy was telling me about a new band idea he had, which sounded like every other Jpop band idea I have ever seen while here. It was creative only in the extent that it had a new name. I would not let that guy touch my creative work as it would be instantly infected with mediocrity and mainstream beige-ness.

What is worst is that he was constantly asks why I wasn't more "genki" or more energetic. "Are you sure you are American? You seem more quiet and maybe European." What? I don't know where they get this idea that all foreigners behave as if they are on four types of illegal stimulants and laughing gas all at once. But even when trying to place voice over for corporates I often hear that the person didn't sound genki enough.

As long as Japanese producers expect foreigners to behave like hysterical morons on speed, then they will chase away all the truly talented personalities and be left with only the sheepish, hard up people who are willing to compromise who they are to fit some idiotic stereotype some producer who has never left Tokyo thinks is representative of the western person.

13 ( +15 / -2 )

Posted in: Unable to keep pace with change, salarymen over 50 'destroying their companies' See in context

This article is full of agism. I am over 50 and am one of the key creative forces in my day job as well as the production of events I do outside work. I earn every yen I make with damned hard work often dealing with millennials who are flaky and unreliable and people in their mid careers who are as intransigent as any elders I meet here.

We need to stop making broad assumptions about age. I know hard working dynamic older people and completely useless younger ones and vice versa.

What we all need is to start seeing individuals as just that, individuals. And stop this idiotic nonsense where we lump everyone into pigeon holes and think it is right.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

Posted in: N Korea conducts 5th nuclear test See in context

NK is like brain cancer for Asia. You can cut it out, but at the price of probably killing the patient. If we ever go after these lunatics, they will have time to level S Korea and probably parts of Japan before their capacity was taken down enough to render them helpless. It is a no win.

If we don't deal with them, then sooner or later they will freak out and do something insane. If we do deal with them, they still do something insane. Advanced Brain Cancer, that is the reality of NK.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Posted in: Worldwide concern over 'too many immigrants,' study shows See in context

Reality check time.

Global warming will increase mass migration to levels never seen before. Yet conservatives in the US and in other countries are unwilling to take the hard steps to address this issue. That will inevitably lead to severe problems that we could address now before they are worst.

Nationalism and Xenophobia are on the rise in much of the world. Neither will address the inescapable reality that we have spent the last 40 years creating a globalised world economy that will inevitably mean people working and living all over the world. You cannot have both a global economy and nationalistic isolationism for immigration. Choose one or the other.

Racism. We are seeing way too much of a return to racism.

Fear. People fear change. But change is inevitable. The only rational solution is to learn to deal with change and enact policies that help smooth over the inevitable integration of outsiders into every country.

-3 ( +5 / -8 )

Posted in: Yasukuni gathering See in context

It was daft right wingers like these people who created the system that ultimately led to the war and to the loss of so many lives. The only difference is that these guys have the benefit of history to learn from and yet fail to.

The right wing in nearly every country wants to lead society towards division, conflict and war. We need to make sure they never get that chance again.

11 ( +12 / -1 )

Posted in: Trump: Japanese will 'watch Sony TV' if U.S. is attacked See in context

I'm sorry to be so direct. Trump is a moron. No offence to other morons, but come on this guy has the common sense of a five year old delinquent.

But as once asked, "who is the greater fool? The fool? Or the fool who follows him?

3 ( +7 / -4 )

Posted in: Liar. Lock her up. Shoot her. GOP denounces Clinton See in context

The GOP is all about fear and bigotry. They are leveraging white fear and hysteria to get people to support a candidate most people in the country think is grossly unqualified to even be in the running for office. Their rhetoric is all masked bigotry about returning the country to the imaginary white world it was supposed to have been in the undefined past.

At no point in my life have I seen a convention so much about hatred and fear. It claimed to be about ideas, but they have not definitive policies to support any "ideas" all they have are accusations, fear mongering and implied racism.

If this is the future of America. If this is making America "great again" then we are headed for a new dark age where religion overcomes science, fear overcomes reason, racial division is restored and people are quick to hate each other rather than see each other as Americans.

I am often called a Liberal in the same way bigots use the "N" word. As if having ideas about people being free to live without the intervention of religious zealots is somehow unAmerican. Well folks, YES I am a Liberal and proud of it. I support your religious rights, I support your wish for safety and better jobs. But I don't support the bigotry, fear and division that your party had so clearly stood up for during this convention.

I am one of the many mixed race people in our country. I want an America where race is not how we see each other. I want an America where we see each other as people. I am not religious but I would fight with you to protect your religious rights as if they were my own. But I would equally fight to live free of the influence of your religion upon my life. The is what it means to be Liberal people. This is what it means to be free. We love, respect and stand up for each other and leave each other to live in peace. Now that would make America great again.

Don't give into Trump and his message of fear, anger and hatred. Stand up for an enlightened country where we can be Americans together despite our differences.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Posted in: Liar. Lock her up. Shoot her. GOP denounces Clinton See in context

Have to agree. Ben Carson has some wiring loose. But then again a lot of the GOP speakers do. From climate change denial to less than subtle racism and overt hatred, this party has lost its collective mind.

Plus, at what point did America stop being great? We have the biggest economy, the strongest military and some of the best qualities of any country on earth. Yet these people seem to think we are somehow diminished. Because fear mongering propagandists say we are less today than we were.

It is hysteria. Just hysteria.

7 ( +11 / -4 )

Posted in: Liar. Lock her up. Shoot her. GOP denounces Clinton See in context

Watching the GOP convention is like watching the people of an insane asylum pretending to hold a serious political convention. The things being said are insane. It is shameful.

9 ( +13 / -4 )

Posted in: Trump nominated as Republican presidential candidate See in context

Well, way to set a new low GOP. No qualifications beyond a demonstrated aptitude for divorce and bankruptcy. It is clear that the GOP would rather burn the place down than elect someone they consider a "liberal".

Thankfully when it comes to November, we are going to hand him his behind in a landslide defeat for Trump.

7 ( +11 / -4 )

Posted in: US destroyers sail close to Chinese-held features in South China Sea as court case looms See in context

Wolfpack. I think you would blame Obama for your house dust. China cannot be allowed to bully all of the nations it is bullying on regional territory. This is not a prelude to war, China does not want a war and neither does the US. This is indeed a competition of will. One that must be persistent to curtail Chinese expansion goals.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Posted in: N. Korea says US sanctions on leader 'a declaration of war' See in context

To North Korea. Whatever............

1 ( +1 / -0 )

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