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.

Prime Minister Taro Aso laughs it up with Carlos Ghosn of Nissan/Renault about the loss of 100,000 jobs last week in Japan at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos January 31, 2009 (daylife.com).


Enlarge to full-size photo, 925 x 593 pixels.

SONY’s so-called “new” Twil N Take [sic] battery-less digital camera is a rehash/relaunch of the ‘Twirl N Take‘ that we covered exactly one year ago. A botched press release with the product name misspelled shows that SONY deserves its continued death spiral to bankruptcy.

Dec. 11, 2008 – A FP—Daylife…Sony displays a new battery-less digital camera “Twil N Take” [sic] in Tokyo … environmentally friendly products at the annual Eco Style Fair.

Sony unveiled this first—a digital camera without batteries and which charges by rolling its green wheel for about 40 seconds on a flat surface to take a picture with its 3 megapixel CMOS element.
Read the rest of the description of the ‘Twirl N Take’ here in a mega-funky machine translation of the Japanese news story.

The G20 fails to rejoice that Japan is joining in the Depression Nouveau.
Sometimes headlines just don’t parse well.
Japan joins Europe in recession; G20 fails to cheer –Reuters:
This oddly worded headline has filled every entry in this afternoon’s google news.

Yeah, yeah, the headline has a semicolon not a comma between “recession” and “cheer”. However, it still sounds like the G20 nations should cheer and rejoice that Japan is joining in the recession but failed to (because they were too depressed or something).
This is Japan’s first “official” recession in seven years, but life here in Tokyo goes on. The Prada and LV stores on Omotesando in Tokyo’s Harajuku were packed last Sunday and lines in front of the new H&M was more than three hours long.

The world economy is entering a new great depression, but all of these diamond-encrusted bling phones were sold out in only three days to Japanese willing to spend 13 million yen ($134,000 USD) after the phones were put on sale November 1.

Diamond mobile phones sell out in three days in Japan
Fri Nov 7, 2008 Yahoo! News–Japanese actress Aya Ueto displays… Softbank’s “Tiffany mobile phone”, studded with 537-piece, a total of 18.34 carats diamonds…more…

Original 3Yen story posted January 29, 2008—
Tiffany and Co. phone rings bling for Japan

Tiffany and Co. edition mobile phone for $93,000

I just saw on the noontime TV news that Softbank Mobile will release in collaboration with Tiffany and Co. a blinged-out, diamond-encrusted phone with a charming price of more than 10 million yen ($93,751 USD)! According to their press release, the phone will be covered with 400 diamonds totaling more than 20 carats.

…continues…

The markets are better today but there still is street diving to Marunouchi-Otemachi financial district of Tokyo Japan since job cuts in Tokyo finance have been huge (and unreported).

4:28 a.m. ET, 10/12/08 – msnbc.com…performs on the trampoline during the Tokyo Marunouchi Street Stadium event at Marunouchi business district…

…within the next 18 months, the generation that built Japanese industry from the ashes of the Second World War will be hitting that magical age of 79.1. Given what is out there in terms of value and industrial strength, it is a fairly short wait for what could be the greatest private equity bonanza of all time.
——–—Age cannot wither them: Leo Lewis on Asia – Online – September 5, 2008

In case you were wondering why Japanese burglars only take cash during break-ins and why Tokyo’s home burglary rate is one of highest in the developed world….

Home cash savings hit 30 trillion yen, says Bank of Japan
August 23, 2008 / Mainichi Japan ….An expert attributes the increase in cash savings to the instability of the financial market. “It’s difficult to invest money in shares because of recent confusion in the financial market. I think people feel secured when they keep their assets in their own hands,” said Hideo Kumano, chief economist at the Dai-Ichi Life Research Institute...more…

Japan’s 50 million households divided by 30 trillion yen = 1,666,666 yen per household; that’s piles of cash stuffed in their futon bed of more than $15,000 USD per household.

Because of Japan’s rapidly aging society and negative population growth, the charmingly-euphemistically-named Soapland* industry is going limp so to speak.

New Yoshiwara soapland targets lusty middles
The Tokyo Reporter – August 6, 2008
…more businesses springing up which appeal to men in their 50s and over. (Who have their own bulges with which to contend, both above and below the belt.)
Sure enough, Shukan Taishu (Aug. 18) reports, a “soapland” in Tokyo’s Yoshiwara red-light district recently opened to cater specifically to the postwar baby-boom generation…
…The standard rate for a two-hour session with a masseuse in her 20s costs 25,000 yen — quite reasonable … presumably include a sudsy full-nude washdown on an air mattress and the usual foreplay, play and …more...

As I mentioned before, I’ve seen estimates that the sex industry in Japan made up at least 12% of the GNP. That was probably an underestimate in the “Bubble Years” before 1992, but now that figure may be accurate. Important for the the older crowd is that Japanese “Soapland” is good for the heart .

*Note that Soapland (ソープランド, pronounced sopurando) is the term for a type of brothel where male clients are bathed by female “companions” (prostitutes). However, the Japanese definition of prostitution does not extend to a “private agreement” reached between a woman and a man. Also legal as long as there is no genital penetration that results in the client reaching “happy-finish” (orgasm). [See Wikipedia.]