Gasoline prices hit highest on record
MSN-Mainichi Daily News—Aug 9, 2006: The average retail price of regular gasoline in Japan has exceeded 142 yen, the highest level since an industry organization began recording oil retail prices in 1987…more…
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You think you pay too much for gas.
Today, the LED signboard in my upscale Denenchufu neighborhood in Tokyo was flashing the price of 155 yen for a liter of high octane gasoline. That “average” retail price of regular gasoline of more than 142 yen per liter is well over 144 yen in Tokyo.
Let’s do the math…
155 yen / liter * (3.7854 liters / 1 gallon) = 586.737 yen per gallon
And then converting the Japanese yen to US dollars we get:
586.737 yen / 1 gallon * ($1 / 114 yen) = $5.09 per gallon
Exclusive: Interview with Yuko Tojo
Rising Sun-Times - May 26, 2006
…granddaughter of wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, Yuko Tojo is in a unique position to reveal the private life of the oft-demonized leader. She is also a tireless campaigner for the restoration of her kin’s good name and an advocate of historical review of the war and Japan’s role in it. She spoke to the Rising Sun-Times recently in a Tokyo cafe.…more,,,
Hot damn, this old lady won’t give up….She sells books about her war criminal grandfather and is a “hero” here in Japan. I wish I could find a sweet gig like that—beats working, hee, hee.
For more information about this whole story read my comments at: My Grandfather the War Criminal
To all of you in the Real World dreaming about Japan, think again.
There’s a reason for Japan’s increasing suicide rate and it’s not caused mind-numbing anime or TV CMs.
Generation J in a land of confusion
Japan surrendered 60 years ago this Monday, but the defeat that once bonded the nation has no meaning to the youth of 2005…
A stretchy hat, edgy glasses and low-hitched trousers mark Junichi Nakano…is wondering where he and Japan are headed. “My vision of my country is my family, my friends, the places where I go to mess around, my neighbourhood,” Nakano says. “I don’t have a bigger vision than that. I don’t believe in God or the Emperor or something like that…. today is a list of problems that is as life-changing as 60 years ago, though much more subtle. Among them are a fertility crisis, a changing work ethic, population decline, a smaller economy, the shape of the future relationship with the US and the discord with China and Korea. As wealth and knowledge gaps emerge as never before, cohesion is crumbling.
At times, Japan feels as if a monumental fatigue has settled over it. One Tokyo academic has spoken of “an age of lassitude”….boys no longer dream of becoming salarymen like their fathers, and that there is no “guaranteed path to contentment”….the postwar job model, is out of favour. Family life is also under strain. Agony aunt columns get letters from wives who never even speak to their husbands, let alone have sex. Men are also unhappy and are disproportionately represented in the country’s suicide rate, the highest in the developed world….
Japanese Curves or the lack of them….
Japanese has the highest rate of anorexia/bulimia in the world and the social pressure to be thin is relentless in this society where shame is the primary social control. In Japan, it’s often a girl’s family causing anorexia: that is, anorexia is a family pressure besides an escalading thiness wars among young women. US dress size 8-10 is considered obese here. Japanese gyms here have a strict dress code—for women, it’s often choice between a light track suit (meaning you are beyond any hope) or super-scimpy two-pieces or leotards. A women’s-only gym is a blessing to many.
SWEATING AWAY FROM GUYS’ EYES
Women’s gyms find favor with females wanting to shape up TOKYO—-…Women’s gyms are mushrooming in Tokyo, attracting those who want to work out and lose weight without having to worry about men viewing their exertions…fitness chain Curves …. is opening three gyms in Tokyo this summer…. training areas do not have mirrors, so women who don’t want to look at their bodies won’t get depressed. The representative said the company is trying to generate a “women’s-school-like atmosphere.”
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Japan in the past 13-years of its so-called “Lost Decade” Japan has frittered away valuable time in vain attempts trying to reactivate its economy after the collapse of the economic bubble in 1992. Japan’s central government and the people as a whole has shown almost preverse willingness to do nothing. They even have a phrase for it: Going from Japan bashing 「日本å©ãã€to Japan passingã€Œæ—¥æœ¬ç´ é€šã‚Šã€to Japan nothing「日本無視.ã€
Japan nothing—How Japanese.
< --‘MU,’ the nothingness
Japan going down the drain—by Michael Hoffman for the Japan Times
Can things get much worse for Japan? In 2006, its population will peak, prelude to a sharp decline. In 2007, an unprecedented 3 million workers will retire, shrinking tax revenues and swelling pension rolls. In 2009 the crisis will be educational: the dwindling number of university applicants will match the number of places available. Standards will plunge; no one will be turned away….2009, [Shukan Shincho (June 30)] magazine fears, will see the nation’s universities brought to their knees. It will be “the year of the idiot student.”
The Japan Times Online…[Japanese] hospitals are preparing for the coming revolution in medical care that many anticipate because the current system is unaffordable and saddled with perverse incentives that extend hospital stays (four times longer than in U.S.) and boost drug prescriptions (double those of U.S. patients). The problem is that “health care in Japan centers around doctors, not patients” — meaning long waits, little accountability, poor service, hefty under-the-table payments and patients in the dark about the work history of their doctors and, in many cases, their diagnosis.
“ROBOTIC” is the one word to describe Japanese stockholders until recently. The stockholders were a rubberstamp for management malfeasance that cold be best described in one word as “ZOMBIE”.
Yep, Robotic Zombie Companies now shake in fear as stockholders demand some return on their investment which was denied to them.
Fanuc proposed takeover defense voted down by shareholders
TOKYO — Fanuc Ltd became the third company, after Tokyo Electron Ltd and Yokogawa Electric Corp, to see its proposed anti-takeover measure tossed out by shareholders in recent weeks, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported. Fanuc, the world’s largest industrial robot maker, had sought to revised its charter to allow management to increase the number of issued shares 2.3 fold as a defense against an unsolicited takeover offer.…more….
The rest-of-the-story is that Japan’s slave class of so-called “parto” part-time workers has increased to over 50% of the entire workforce. I say “slave class” because companies hire part-time workers for a 6.75 hour workday plus forced overtime that’s often unpaid. Whatta scam!
Employers take new recruiting tack as baby boomers near retirement
For a number of years now, many companies have been replacing full-time employees with part-time or temporary workers in an attempt to reduce operating costs.
But an increasing number of companies are having second thoughts about their employment policies and are actively recruiting permanent employees or giving contract employees de facto permanent status….”they’ll take a wait-and-see approach for the time being.”
Ok, let’s make this personal: Taro lives in healthcare exile.
While I have a ranch in Colorado, I cannot live there because I am denied real health insurance coverage. Because I’m handicapped, under the charming “preexisting conditions” exclusionary clause found in most health insurance policies everything that might be wrong with me can be construed as caused by that preexisting condition.
It sucks.
At least here in Land-of-Concrete(tm), aka Japan, I’m covered 100% under the national health insurance.
U.S. Healthcare Problem Too Big for Employers and Workers
Washington Outlook–
….GM now spends more than $1,500 on healthcare for each car it produces. That’s more than it spends on steel.
More importantly, that’s also significantly more than its key foreign competitors spend on healthcare. GM officials estimate that healthcare costs for Toyota are only about one-fourth as much per car, largely because the government pays more of the tab in Japan than in the U.S. …
The fact is…..
There’s nothing that going to make married Japanese have more sex with their spouses….neither side is interested. Sexless marriage is the NORM in Japan after a couple has their first child or after three years, which ever comes first.
Japan mulls cutting work hours to spur fertilityThe Japanese government is considering implementing considerably shorter working hours for public servants with young children, in a bid to coax workers into having more babies….
….public servants - working hours would be reduced to four hours a day, or 20 hours a week, for parents with children aged six and under….
…Currently, full-time national public servants have to work at least 40 hours a week, though individuals with children under the age of three are allowed to take off two hours per day….more…
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