rainyday comments

"The declaration of the NATO summit in Washington is full of Cold War mentality and belligerent rhetoric, and China-related content is full of provocations, lies, incitement and smears," the spokesperson said in response to a reporter's question.

Meanwhile the very next article in this section today is about China staging military exercises in Russia's de facto Belarussian colony right along the Polish border.

Attention grabbing animals? That’s sick. It shouldn’t be a business. At least the National Zoo in DC is free for all visitors, paid with tax dollars.

Higashiyama Zoo and botanical garden isn't run as a business. Its owned and run by the city and the admission fee is kept extremely low (kids free, adults 500 Yen).

The reason the mayor wants attention grabbing animals is because he wants more people to visit Nagoya (he has been big on that), not because he wants the zoo to be profitable.

Its infuriating. Basically all the effort being expended on ramping up the deployment of renewables is being offset by these scumbag tech companies sucking up power to run what seems to be little more than crypto ponzie schemes and essay writing devices that make it easier for lazy students to cheat.

I hate this so much.

If you followed the financial press, you'd be well aware of the recent periodic reports based on govt statistics that Japanese households have a growing amount of financial assets that have hit the highest level in history. 

Yes, this is because the stock market is high, and also because the availability of NISA and IDECO account have made investing much more popular and easy in recent years. Great for those who have already have savings they have invested in it. Not great for those who don’t.

True, inflation tends reduce the savings rate, but one needs to look at accumulated savings in this case. Japanese households continue to hold most of it cash (LOL) and life insurance! 

The data you cited doesn’t disagregate it by type - “savings” presumably includes not only cash deposits but also financial investments?

That aside, I’m aware that Japanese keep higher proportions of their savings in cash, but that is obviously changing. The number of people with IDECO accounts has risen sharply in recent years, and the switch from a deflationary to an inflationary economy over the past two years has created a much stronger disincentive to keep savings as cash.

If a significant number of households had reallocated that to moderate risk, diversified and tax protected securities from say around 15 years ago, Japan would be a considerably more affluent nation today.

I’m not disagreeing with you on that. But my simple point, which remains uncontradicted, has been that a very large proportion of the Japanese public do not have the ability to do so because the vast majority of those under 50 have almost no savings and, thanks to wage growth falling behind inflation, are unable to generate them. Savings are heavily concentrated in the older generation who had their working lives in a much different economy that allowed them to build them up in the first place.

So for those without the means to invest - which is to say most working age people these days - the rise in stock prices is of no benefit. This is not their fault, its the way the economy works right now.

@rainy

This assumes that most families have surplus income

Yeah, they kind of do, according to the stats (rather than your narrative):

"In 2023, the median amount of savings held by two or more person households in Japan amounted to approximately 11.1 million Japanese yen." -- Statista

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1235679/japan-multi-person-households-median-savings/

I was talking about income, you reply with data about savings. These are different things.

Savings is an asset one accumulated over time. Income is a stream of money you receive measured on a regular basis (monthly, annually, etc).

As I said, for some people yeah your observation applies to them. Namely those who accumulated savings in the past which they still have. These are mostly older households. Most people under 50 in this country have nowhere near 11.1 million Yen in savings: https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00677/savings-shortfall-many-japanese-under-50-have-little-in-the-bank.html Mean savings for people in their 40s is about 2 million Yen, and its way less than that for people in their 30s or 20s.

For those people, income is important because they need enough of it in order to build savings in the first place. Thus the RATE of savings is the main determinant of how much they can save, and that is closely tied to income and inflation.

The data on the savings rate in Japan is dismal. The link you provided, whose underlying data is behind a paywall to me, doesn't seem to show that. The Japanese government's statistics bureau is a much better source. Here it is:

https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.esri.cao.go.jp%2Fjp%2Fsna%2Fdata%2Fdata_list%2Fkakei%2Ffiles%2F2023%2Ftables%2Fkakei_23q4.xlsx&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK

As you can see, the savings rate used to be pretty consistently at or near 10% in the 1990s. Over the past decade it has more typically been in the 0 to 2% range and even negative in some years. It spiked briefly in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID, but for the 2023 Calendar year has gone all the way down to 0.1% meaning the population as a whole saved almost zero last year. The data indicates this is almost entirely due to an increase in consumption (which in turn is the result of inflation forcing people to spend more of their income).

So if you've got a population where almost nobody under 50 has significant savings, and those same people have a savings rate of almost zero because they are faced with inflation, your message that they should stop keeping their money in cash and put it in investment accounts is absolutely useless. It would be good for retirees who are the ones who have most of the savings and yeah much of that is tied up in low-to-zero yield things.

Japan’s household financial assets are at a all-time high, while investing in the Nikkei and other share indexes as never been easier or cheaper, with plenty of tax protection. If those families decided to keep their savings in cash or life insurance rather than investing it, then it’s their fault they’re not benefiting.

This assumes that most families have surplus income that they are frivolously stockpiling in cash or low-return insurance policies.

No doubt that applies to some, but for a lot of people the rise in the cost of living coupled with a lack of increasing income to offset it means they don't have that surplus anymore. If people have to spend all of your income on housing, food and basic necessities then its hardly their fault that they aren't putting money they don't have into investment accounts that are benefitting from rising prices on the TSX.

Pure conjecture. You might as well say all threatened by the U.S.

What are you, blind? Russia is literally invading its neighbors right now, China is sending its warships into the legally recognized EEZs os neighboring countries to claim them as its own right now. this isn’t conjecture, its reality.

The design of the roads has a huge influence on the speed at which people feel comfortable driving on them. If you have a wide, straight, open road people feel more comfortable driving at high speed than they do on a road with narrower sections, trees at the side and so on. Changing the road design - introducing traffic calming measures is going to be more effective than just reducing speed limits that many people don't follow anyway if they feel they can get away with it.

Oddly roads in residential areas of Japan sometimes have the opposite effect.

In my neighborhood the main road is an absolute nightmare. Its extremely narrow with no shoulder and too narrow for two cars to pass each other. It is also winding and has buildings constructed right up along the streetside, meaning visibility is extremely limited (can't see past the next bend, which is rarely more than 50 metres away at any given point).

Despite this it is a heavily trafficked, two way street. Cars can only get by each other at certain spots, usually where there is a side street or parking spot where one car can pull over onto to let the oncoming vehicle squeeze by. Its completely chaotic and cars are constantly having to go into reverse to find a spot where they can let ongoing traffic go by (or standoffs occur when neither driver wants to do so).

This is a road that should scream to drivers "Danger! Drive with extreme caution!" but perversely the effects of all of this is to make everyone drive faster on it rather than slower. Drivers are constantly worried about oncoming traffic creating these headaches, so whenever the road ahead of them is clear they just gun it to get down the street (and off of it) as quickly as possible before some other driver appears and screws it up for them.

Not all roads here are like that of course, but in older neighborhoods laid out before the automobile era you do find them and they are just fundamentally not fit for purpose (yet impossible to do anything about since there is no room to improve them).

This feels like an example of how the events portrayed in AC public service ads would actually play out in real life if they ever occurred.

The AC ad: Old lady rediscovers her youthful joy by innocently joining some kids as they play in the park.

The reality: Within an hour she's gotten tired of the kids doing things their way, loses her temper and heaves a bat at them.

No, the judgement shows that the Dems cannot weaponize the justice system to go after political opponents. Democrats should be happy about this ruling, that means Republicans can’t go after Biden now, so he’s safe from all his crimes, so it’s a win-win for both men.

Ignoring the immediate political consequences, can you not see the problem with having a rule that says a President can commit any crime he wants, so long as it is done in his official capacity, and he will never be prosecuted for it?

I mean, i get that politcally motivated prosecutions are one potential problem that requires some rules to protect against, but just saying "Presidents can do whatever they want" seems massive overkill to deal with that issue. Surely there must be some middle ground between the two that would make more sense as a rule.

This decision is going to be the law for decades to come, long after Trump and Biden are dead and gone and the potential for bad actors of whatever political stripe to abuse this should be blatantly obvious.

Chief Justice Roberts: "Few things would threaten our constitutional order more than criminally prosecuting a former President for his official acts. Fortunately, the Constitution does not permit us to chart such a dangerous course."

It should also be obvious that allowing a President to commit any crime he wants, so long as it is framed as falling within his "official" duties also poses a threat to the constitutional order.

Sotomayer's dissent is also worth a read:

"...under the majority’s rule, a President’s use of any official power for any purpose, even the most corrupt, is immune from prosecution. That is just as bad as it sounds, and it is baseless. "

Bear in mind this will apply to Democratic presidents who you hate as well as Trump. This is just a bad rule the Court has foisted on the country, purely for the purpose of protecting one man's personal interests.

I love football and went to matches in 2002, but no thanks.

I was here for it in 2002 too.

What freaks me out reading this article is to think that I was a young man in his 20s during that one, but will be well into my 70s by the time this one rolls around if they actually go through with it.

Time sure flies, 2002 doesn't feel that long ago....

Japan already hosted it in 2002… other countries should be given a chance to host it! 

Well, they are talking about hosting it again in 2050, by which time almost half a century will have passed since it co-hosted with Korea, I'm not sure its fair to accuse Japan of hogging it. Especially when there are so many other, better reasons to be super pissed off about the idea of Japan hosting a World Cup.

We just wasted billions on the boondoggle Tokyo Olympics, are about to waste billions more on this stupid Osaka Expo that nobody is going to attend, and now they've decided to really go for the "Screw you, Japanese public" trifecta by burning billions more on the gold standard of corrupt, wasteful international sporting events, the World Cup.

Somebody please make this stop. The folks up in Sapporo seem to have figured it out, having torpedoed their government's idiotic Olympic bid before it had a chance to do any real damage, we need a nation wide version of that.

The UN recognizes the Kuril Islands as sovereign territory of the Russian Federation.

The UN recognizes Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizia as the sovereign territory of Ukraine.

So nice to see you affirming that these things matter and that Russia has no legitimate claim whatsoever to these territories under the principles you seek to uphold.

 And if, IF a J-judge found it in his cold heart to grant bail it would be so expensive it would be pointless! NOBODY but a rich Japanese business man or of immense fame and wealth would EVER get released on bail prior to a confession. 

I'm not defending the system here, but just to clear one point up in case anyone ever ends up in the unfortunate position of being prosecuted: this is not accurate. The amount of bail money (hoshokin) is established by the Court on a case-by-case basis and is in relation to the assets the suspect owns. In this case the bail money was 200 million Yen specifically because Kadokawa is a wealthy person (Ghosn's bail was also quite high) and it needs to be enough to make it worthwhile for the accused to not violate the bail conditions for fear of losing it. If you are the average Joe then your bail would be set much lower than that.

Also, for anyone arrested, the possibility of bail only becomes available after the prosecutors have indicted you, which means you don't have the ability to apply for it during the 23 day detention period.

Oh come on mate, surely any staff member will help you order. Give them the old, ‘sumimasen’! Most ( like all ) would be more than happy to help you order. People still exist.

Put yourself in their shoes. You sit down at a table and if there is no button how are you going to call a waiter? If its a small place then yeah, just raising your hand and saying sumimasen will probably cut it. But if its in one of these big chain restaurants that have drastically reduced their wait staff, nobody is going to be there to respond to your “sumimasen”, and a flat screen tablet is going to be completely useless to you as a means of ordering.

Unless Japan's deep gender imbalances are rectified, "we're nowhere near ready to even discuss joint custody," said Tanaka, now head of a group supporting single mothers.

This is such an empty argument. Yes, gender imbalances should be rectified, but the idea that society can’t even talk about other grave injustices, like parents having their children kidnapped, until gender equality is achieved is ridiculous.

Driving the inequality in part, critics say, is a long-standing tax policy disincentivizing dependent spouses, usually wives, from full-time work.

Its noteworthy that most of the complaints raised by mothers in the article are economic ones. These are legitimate complaints of course, but they have nothing to do with child custody (ie the interests of the child) and shouldn’t be used to justify child kidnapping. Tax policies like this one should absolutely be reformed since this is probably the biggest driver of it. Husbands in a divorce, and their children, shouldn’t be punished for systemic governance problems beyond their control.

*If you think about it, the NATO-orchestrated Georgian War way back in 2008 was the first direct clash between a Western proxy and the Russian military on the territory of the former Soviet Union. *

Every post by this guy:

“If you think about it (insert whatever monstrous thing Russia has done all by itself here) was all NATO’s fault.”

That would make the Japan Trucking Assoc. wrong, LOL. 

https://jta.or.jp/wp-content/themes/jta_theme/pdf/aboutjta2024eng.pdf

Well, if you were to read past the first sentence of your own source you’d notice they actually list two ways of measuring it (graphs on the last page): tonnage and tonnage times distance travelled. Using the former you get roughly 90% for trucks, using the latter you get about 55%, with coastal shipping making up 44%. The latter seems a better way of measuring the overall reliance of the transport system on each mode to actually move stuff around.

I often comment on this topic because I once hosted a logistics forum in Tokyo and did a lot of homework beforehand, and tons of people like yourself are misinformed. A common complaint at the event was that Japan doesn't rely enough on rail. Some others remarked on how the US-Canada freight rail network is the world's best.

That is very nice, but you still haven’t actually addressed any of the points I raised or demonstrated that I am misinformed about anything.

Breakaway provinces/separatist regions everywhere are to be reunited in totality or not.

Great to hear that you support reuniting the Donbass and Crimea with Ukraine.

Important to observe that Taiwan lacks UN recognition and is not an independent country by any legitimate measure.

Ah good to hear that coming from you. The UN also recognizes Ukrainian soveriengty over all of its land currently occupied by Russia. Since that is the measure of legitimacy to you, you must also agree that Ukraine's internationally recognized borders of 1991 are legitimate.

No it doesn't. Only about 5% of freight in Japan goes by rail. 90% by smoke belching trucks that clog the highways. In the US, nearly a third of freight is rail-bound.

There are a ton of factors that make the comparison to the US meaningless.

First, what is being shipped? US freight rail's biggest cargoes are raw materials (coal, lumber, etc) or agricultural products (wheat, corn, etc). This makes sense since these things are generally dug up or produced in large volumes in one part of the country and consumed in another.

Japan doesn't have a significant resource based economy like that. And production of its main agricultural product, rice, is dispersed throughout the country in small scale farms that doesn't lend itself to agglomeration in single collection points like in the US.

Second, you are wrong about 90% of freight being transported by trucks. Almost every Japanese city lies on the coast and a huge volume (40%) of domestic freight is transported by sea rather than land. This is also something quite different from the US where sea travel from say New York to LA involves a costly trip through the Panama Canal (sea based transport accounts for only 8% in the US).

Third, the geography is completely different. Freight shipments are often measured in thousands of kilometres in the US, but only hundreds in Japan. Since the actual end destination of products being shipped is almost never the rail terminal itself, they still have to be loaded onto trucks to be shipped locally. If you've got a 3,000km journey by rail followed by a 50km journey by truck then the vast majority is by rail. If you've got a 300km journey by rail followed by a 50km journey by truck, you are going to be dependent on trucks for a greater proportion of freight travel. This is Japan's situation.

Third, where is this rail network going to magically appear? There simply isn't any available land left on the Pacific corridor where most freight travel exists.

Also important to recognize that water cannons are widely used by other actors in the region. For example, Taiwan and Japan employ them from time to time.

Problem isn’t water cannons per se, its using water cannons - or any other weapon- to attack another country’s territory. Haven’t heard of Japan or Taiwan doing anything remotely like that.

Japan should build an extensive freight rail network like the US has done.

Why? The vast majority of freight in Japan moves along a single corridor on the Pacific coast that already has an extensive rail network. Freight trains run almost entirely on passenger line tracks because there is no space to build a seperate network for them.

fallafel - clarification - intentionally used the word state, as opposed to nation, which it isn't as it lacks UN-recognition of a sovereign nation.

Nitpicking here but you are mixing up the terms there. A “state” is an independent country under international law. A “nation” is a group of people tied together by a common culture, language, etc who may or may not be organized as a state.

Quoting US "Naval News "...sorry laughing as I type...is an objective source ?

When was the last time the US waged a purely "defensive war "?

I was citing a US navy source for publicly available information about what the US Navy is doing. Its way better than simply lying about it like you were.

Christopher above...it's on record that USA and South Korea "exercises " war game an invasion of North Korea.

The US Defence people say thats the purpose.

This is simply a lie.

The exercise wargames a North Korean invasion of the South, not the other way around.

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2024/06/south-korea-japan-and-the-united-states-to-hold-freedom-edge-joint-multi-domain-exercise/

Sorry...facts matter.

Yes they do.

" Bring clean hands to the Court of Equity "....old Common Law saying.

Right, so if China ever brings a claim to a court in a common law jurisdiction where it wants the Court to find a resulting trust in an inheritance dispute or some other equitable remedy that maxim might be relevant. Otherwise its irrelevant.

China, for right or wrong, can bring past colonial actions against it, and committed by other nations, in it's deliberations.

Wasn’t aware that the Philippines had a history of colonizing China. Is that what they teach these days?

But nations with a history of meddling and invasions should not be surprised when such behaviours are done by others.

Double checks….yup, none of the countries China is trying to basically steal maritime EEZs from has a history of doing any of that.

Sorry for the reality check

You really need one yourself I’m afraid.

Monroe Doctrine not written into US law...it's an idea the US holds, and continues to hold.

I am by no means a defender of US policies in regard to South and Central America, but this is an apples to oranges comparison.

The US doesn’t claim exclusive possession of the Caribbean or any other body of water that other states share boundaries with like what China is doing with the South China Sea. Even though the US isn’t a member of UNCLOS it still respects maritime boundaries set under its principles and recognizes mutually agreed upon EEZs of other countries.

One can certainly rattle off a huge list of random bad stuff the US has done, but that merely distracts from a discussion of what China is actually doing. There is no modern precedent nor any legal justification for any country to be making the maritime claims China is making.

Putin was doing just fine; he is not a heavy drinker and sets a responsible example of consuming in moderation on special occasions.

Point noted. While he has no problem spilling the blood of millions of people, most of them Russians unfortunate enough to live under his rule, he has a strict rule about drinking in moderation.