Friend of 3Yen and international man of mystery, “Mulboyne” tweeted about the government’s, “plans for the new Miyashita Nike Park in Shibuya,” which is just a two-birds-with-one-stone plan to wipe out the homeless in the park while cashing-in on Nike’s deep pockets.
Younger homeless people have gathered in Miyashita Park in Shibuya since the collapse of Japan’s Bubble Economy in the early ’90s and the following Lost Decade that has lasted for almost 20 years. In addition the park has been the staging area for Tokyo protests, which has motivated Tokyo’s arch conservative government to “Just Do It” and redevelop the intentionally neglected park. antjeverena’s flickr in-duce’s flickr
My Japanese economic stimulus finally arrived yesterday even though I applied in March for it here in Ota Ward, Tokyo. If the authorities really thought the stimulus of 12,000 yen (about $120 USD) was needed, should have been a bit more prompt, sheesh.
Also, the Japanese government is stingy—each American taxpayer received $300 to $600 dollars from the US economic stimulus but the Japanese economic stimulus package is only 12,000 yen per person, meh.
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The above photo is of my economic stimulus receipt that took the my ward’s snail-like bureaucrats four months to issue.
Japan Inc’s passion for silly anthropomorphic robots has finally hit the wall of cold hard business reality:
Creating two-legged robots that cannot perform
any useful function is a waste of money.
In Japan, machines for work and play are idle New York Times, July 13, 2009
They may be the most efficient workers in the world. But in the global downturn, they are having a tough time finding jobs. Japan’s legions of robots, the world’s largest fleet of mechanized workers, are being idled as the country suffers its deepest recession in more than a generation …Tetsuaki Ueda, an analyst at the research firm Fuji Keizai, expects the market to shrink by as much as 40 percent this year.....more...
As I have mentioned many times before, decades of creating fantasy robots like ASIMO, Aibo, Roborior, et al has bankrupted the research and development departments of Japan while not resulting in any viable products.
Also note, that the specious Japanese claim repeated in the NY Times that ‘Japan has the greatest number of factory robots’ is intentionally misleading (if not nationalistic bragging). Japan counts almost any kind of semi-autonomous factory machinery as a “robot,” whereas in the rest of the world, NC milling machines and potato pealing machines are just factory automation.
Let me share a strange observation from my shopping in Tokyo today…
Several stores in uber-trendy New Marunouchi district of Tokyo have moved their stock of Louis Vuitton bags to jumbled piles on folding tables on the street just like the final discounting of distressed stock.
For the past 20 years, not having an LV bag was like going out knaked for Japanese OLs (office ladies). According to one Financial Times report, 94% of Tokyo women in their twenties own a Vuitton piece.
Now all of a sudden, NOBODY, wants to buy Louis Vuitton. I have heard that this is because of the Great Recession: Japanese don’t want to be seen with flagrant displays of conspicuous consumption. Refer to FT.com, June 2.
So, to “stimulate” demand, Louis Vuitton has created a custom-order “Malle Mars” junk-in-the-trunk cum buttpluggery designed with a trip to Mars in mind.
I can imagine the only possible use for LV’s “Malle Mars” butty-plug is for preventing alien analismprobes, right?
Canal City in Hakata Fukuoka Japan has a Problem-Bot—That is, you ask the patrol robot a simple question or for directions in Japanese, engRish, Chinese or Korean and the robot will answer with some kind of lame reply like, “It’s crowded, be careful.”
Occasionally mall employees use the robot’s speakers and web-camera to talk to children. With prearrangement the robot will wish a child happy birthday. (And, according to the GAP store manager in the mall, the robot has tried out nanpa/pick-up lines on cute girls shopping with a, “90% success rate.”)
Fuji circuit withdraws from F1, report says Agencies | 2009-July-2 —Toyota-owned Fuji International Speedway is reportedly planning to pull out of hosting the 2010 Japanese Formula One Grand Prix…
…Toyota has been hit by the global economic downturn….the current fiscal year through March 2010 to be its worst ever financially, forecasting a net loss of US$5.7 billion.
Fuji Speedway hosted the Japanese Grand Prix in 2007 and 2008 for the first time in 30 years, replacing the Honda-owned Suzuka circuit. The 2009 Japanese Grand Prix will be held at Suzuka, near the city of Nagoya. It was expected that the race would alternate between Suzuka and Fuji beginning this year…more...
For the price of a mere 12 trillion yen–more than the GNP of most countries–Tokyo is proposing to demolish 50km of its expressways and replace it with a new 200m-underground network. pix thanx: midorisyu
Green idea: Bury Tokyo expressways AP—The Japan Times, Friday, May 1, 2009
Business executives proposed Thursday burying Tokyo's elevated and aging expressways 60 meters underground, thereby creating an eco-friendly urban environment and hundreds of thousands of jobs….The proposal calls for the elevated sections of the Metropolitan Expressway network in the heart of Tokyo, officially called the Inner Circular Route, to be demolished and replaced by the new underground network…more…
Having been stuck for hours underground in a Tokyo traffic jam and having carbon monoxide poisoning so bad I had to go to the ER, my opinion is: DEMOLISH THE EXPRESSWAYS–DON’T BOTHER TO REPLACE ‘EM.
Sheeeee-it. Just as you can see in the photo below, I just got back from hellacious 40-hour drive from Shikoku Island that normally takes 11 hours “thanks” to the new Japanese economic stimulus measure of a 1,000 yen flat road toll for the weekends. …restofthestory…
Expressway toll discounts begin, traffic increases 52% Kyodo – Mar. 28 OSAKA, Japan
….crowded March 28 on the day that toll discounts on weekends and national holidays were introduced as part of stimulus measures to buoy Japan’s sluggish economy.
...restofthestory... All expressways in Japan are tollroads and in the case of the 11-hours drive from Tokyo to Shikoku the regular toll is 12,000 yen ($120 USD). The new 1,000 yen flat road toll for any drive during the weekend sounded like a bargain. The “1,000 yen flat” resulted gridlock across the nation. Now thanks to the economic stimulus measure I never plan to take any weekend trips by car, sheesh.
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