A few observations on life here, from people around me and what is on the news...
Top news today :
Asian Games
Soccer match between Vasco da Gama and Real Madrid
Masumi hayashi and the curry poisoning affair
Bribes at Fuji Juko ( Fuji heavy industries)
Bribe at NEC
Topics often discussed in political programs
JI JI ( the union between Jiminto and Jiyuto and his very controversial chief ex-jiyuto LDP member Ozawa)
Basically, people are asking themselves how much the LDP is willing to prostitute itself to try to revive itself and the economy. Smells bad . Many calls to prove the LDP is in power legitimately, after in party election chose Obuchi (pulled that one out of a hat) and now cozying up with the ante christ...)
Unemployment rates still going up ; average of 60% of high school graduates without a job offer country wide while some areas have as low as 28% . Highest is Tokyo with 80% . ( you have to read them backward, since a ration of 80% of job offers implies that 20% of the high school graduates are without work. ) the ratios were on average 7% lower for women.
Still a lot of debate on how the sales tax should be earmarked. Premiums (health and pension) likely to go up next year. As well , the age to which a person can start withdrawing their pension will be raised from 60 to 65...
Companies changing their perks. Going from foregoing entirely the usual amenities (sport centers, kindergardens etc) to compensations in money, or a point system that allows employees to cash in their rewards according to their likes... In the past the system was supported of course in part through contributions from employees (or what they didn't make and could have made) whether one used the facilities at all. Companies are moving to a fairer system where employees can use only what they want to use...
Observations:
Gardening boom ; people rent small plots in the suburbs to go and grow flowers and vegetables on weekends; also quite popular on balconies. (i guess for people new to Japan, it seems everything here is a boom, so the gardening boom is real and talked about, with hardware stores racking up some nice sales in gardening supplies...)
Also indicates lower spending on overseas trips...
Local White elephant mega hotel and convention center project hatched in pre bubble days, built bubble era at twice the planned cost has still not gone bankrupt... The local government is heavily involved so it will fall last I suppose... The construction costs were 2,000,000,000 (2 billion dollars usd , at that time) and it has since racked up a deficit above 1,000,000,000 usd, in 5 years... not bad. On top of that it was built partly on a nature preserve...
Dai ichi Kangyo is the main bank for this one...
Recycling is taking hold slowly; just returned from visiting some friends in Tokyo and saw Japanese cooperation at its best . Turns out the neighborhood assigns 2 people every weekend over the span of a whole year (your turn comes up twice) to gather all the recyclable every Sunday so they can be put at the curb side for pick up. They built a small shed and the recyclables are stored there during the week. These included cooking oil (made into soap I was told) aluminium, paper, batteries, plastics etc... So if you have got some old cooking oil you want to throw away, you just walk up a few blocks, open the shed, open the jug marked for used oil , dump it there and someone will put it out for collection) I was told the list is decided at yearly neighborhood meetings.
I was a bit surprised to see this as I have always been under the impression that recycling was still way behind here compared to Europe and North Am. It is in some ways, although, at the grassroot level we are seeing some changes.
That 's it for my comments for now,
later
sg |
