Abe234 comments

Still feels like a shake down. A protection racket. Pay up, or else!

This is how you do it. You say yes. Absolutely then, you buy joint projects with Australia, the UK, Europe, etc al. When you buy stuff from the U.S you’re committing to a 30 year deal and all that money goes to the U.S. for the next 30 odd years. Spare parts, training, upgrades, software upgrades, and now there is the risk of geopolitical uncertainty with the U.S.

Trump et al believe that we’ll increase spending, buy American and then hollow out our own defence industries, which also reduces our independence. France & Sweden appearto have it correct. They have built their own independent industries, and maintained jobs and money in country but also maintained political independence.

Time to build our ships, missiles and planes, and keep the jobs, money, sales and politics in-house! We might even win exports away from the U.S.

As if nobody saw that coming. It might mean these schools, increasing places, increase test difficulty, or increasing costs in other areas, because they now know that those very same parents will have that cash at hand. I would expect increases is ancillary fees. The private schools look nice....but are they really that great? Some are...and some are just the same. But who will make sure the private high schools DON'T try and gouge out more money from parents in other areas, (making free, just into another FEE) for other things. Sports fees, Building fees, and test fees and anything else they can think of. The private schools are there to make a profit.

Good on Nissan. We need to take on the Chinese EV companies because it looks like the US is leaving the field open for them. If we let the Chinese become dominant, they will decide the infrastructure too.

I never linked the appearance of the first Leaf, but the second one looked nice. This also looks ok, but I need more than just its rear end. The little Sakura is doing pretty well as I'm see loads of them running about.

Iran is being asked for the UTMOST restraint!!!! Did anyone say that to Isreal when it went into Gaza or was it “they have the right to defend themselves” press releases. Did anyone else say to Ukraine after being attacked for the “UTMOST RESTRAINT”? Anyone?

Im not sure but it’s as though we are giving isreal consent to do what ever it wants…. Knowing that NOBOdY is going to do a darn thing. Isreal clearly got a nod from the U.S. so Isreal flew over how many countries?

Sorry but Isreal appears to do what it likes with impunity. I think I can understand why the Arabs are upset at everything. But that goes all the way back to the Ottoman Empire when they were thrown under the bus, and the west reneged on its promises.

As I have said previously, tax will go up to pay for defence spending, and more pensioners and higher health care as a result of that.

May? OH no! replace MAY with WILL HAVE TO.

BertieWoosterToday  09:35 am JST

Or, they could slash the number of government employees and cut useless public works projects. There are many ways to save money. A bit of austerity would work well!

Ah yes The go to excuse that will magically solve every known political, social problem known to stupid voters.

Meanwhile back in the U.K where austerity was in full swing for the past 14 years.......... But of course, it means cuts for thee, but I didn't mean "ME". In the meantime, putting those people on unemployment means.... you've got another person to blame for all the political and social problems too, because you've now made them UNEMPLOYED. As for cutting useless public works.....Could you tell us which works you would like to cut?

> RandomToday  08:13 am JST

Why would a 90 year old man with dementia be left at home alone.

Because there are various levels/stages of dementia. Just because you have dementia doesn’t mean you MUST be put into a hospital 24/7. It’s a progressive disease.So that’s why.

Now thats gonna be one absolute mega cash cow. I'm not a K-pop fan but i liked a few of their songs, and I go along with the other half for the show.

And the scalpers have also sold a record number too. Good for Nintendo though. if they can get all the big games on the platform, it really could give playstation and MS junk Xbox a run for its money.

kurisupisuToday  08:08 am JST

Maybe, Japanese companies should just pay females the same as males?

They get paid the same hourly wage. Some of the gap "maybe" accounted for by men generally working more overtime (maybe to compensate for their partner switching to part-time work, for the children). Women are taking time off for certain female health care issues.Childbirth, maternity, amongst other things. Women often take a career break or transition into childcare because they started a family.. But everyone I know, male and female, gets the same hourly pay for the same job. Teachers, Doctors, Nurses, cashiers, waitresses. Engineers.

Hence in scandinavian countries, they get men to take longer paternity leave. But also, is it just an excuse to dump the kids in nursery, send mum off to work, and become part of the GDP figures, and more pay tax? Something has to give. Earn more money, work the same overtime, but spend less time with your kids.( as a man or women) Less time at home, kinda translates to less time to prepare healthy food, being more tired. leading to increasing Obesity in the West. We can roll out some awesome power female CEO who has it all, but these not your average office worker, nurse, bus driver. We could FORCE MEN to go home earlier, take on more parental roles, but again this might impact the "families' earnings. I don't think it's that easy just to point to averages.

Nobody saw that coming!!!!

I still think Siri, should be seen as Silly.

was it really meant to anything more. Hey ,Silly!

I disagree with people thinking this is just about the "COST". While this is a factor. it completely ignores the fact that we want smaller families because we can earn more, and spend more on the smaller family. E.G trips abroad, better computers, TVs, entertainment, college, better homes, maybe a car, a motorbike.

We also live longer, so there is no real reason to procreate at younger ages, and women are becoming better educated, with careers.(Then they can enter the workforce, earn, pay tax, but this reduces available time for cooking, cleaning laundry, child care, breastfeeding, and nappy changing). What woman wants to go to college (subsidised) then have three or four kids, and expect them to be tied to the kitchen, doing the housework? Yes, we could provide child care, but that requires money. Either by the parents themselves via direct payments, or via HIGHER taxation. This is not purely a "MONEY" thing. As Vietnam develops, careers open up, more money means better choices, better food, better entertainment, trips abroad, etc. Access to birth control gives women control over their bodies, IUDs, and the Pill, yet marginalised communities won't have these options. Let's look at Sweden then, universal child care, Free preschools, Parental leave, and Grandparent leave too. Health care which is universal, affordable and high quality. Sweden's universities are almost free. And yet their fertility is about 1.5 per woman. Women are highly educated, expected (by previous politicians) to enter the workforce, have careers, earn, pay tax, along with excellent health care a¥have a 99.9% chance their one or two children will reach adulthood. The easy answer is to say MONEY, but I think the evidence shows it isn't.It's because girls have become educated, have more options, and have more control over fertility, and don't need a man to provide money. We can see this in every country that has gone through the development cycle. Yet if we invert and look at the opposite, eg Afghanistan, a poor country, with poor health care, poor education, where women have very few rights, their fertility rate is 4 per woman. More than double the global average. That's why we invest so much in health care and education (mostly benefiting women) so they can escape that poverty trap. and having 4 or 5 kids can keep you there.

Fighto!Today  10:37 am JST

But everyone else has to become mother or father, or otherwise live in poverty whole life. Many countries have strict rules, for example serving in an army and such, so why not? 

Punishing people who consciously choose to not have children? Worst policy ever. 

Anyway, why the obsession to keep growing the population to the point of severely punishing citizens if they don't? Developed nations like Japan (and other Western nations) are not like Africa, where it is economically beneficial to have many children. 

Does the world really need billions more people? I'm not convinced it does.

They too will also start to see their populations fall as they become wealthier, and move to the big cities, educate more women, give them careers, jobs beyond marriage, as health care improves, control of fertility increases, child mortaloty improves, they will choose to have smaller families. It is only economically beneficial in those areas because of farming. growing food, raising cattle, poor health care, etc etc. The children can work on the farm, and not go to school, go to uni and develop further. They have gone from a fertility rate of about 8 in the 50s, to 4. something. Thats a fall of half. This trend will continue.

SDCAToday  10:31 am JST

Looks like inflation got to the bosozoku too! Poor guys... On the bright side gas prices are coming down so time to go back to making brrrrrr noises? Just don't do it in the middle of the night lol

Maybe that should have been the headline. Inflation hits Bosozoku.

I think this is why people kind of switch off to the news. Over hyping headlines. So American!!! Terrorize? You say! I wonder how you describe real terrorizing…. Hyper terrorizing! LoL clowning around? Being silly? Showing off, show boating ?

it’s just all click bait now for eyeballs and for me to comment.

being stupid, young and showing off isn’t terrorizing. Now if they were stealing stuff?, threatening? Being abusive? Maybe!

It’s up to Ukraine and Ukraine alone. If they want to continue we should give them what they need. They have outperformed, outfought much better than anyone ever though as we bottled it.(or atleast dragged our feet) Still Ukraine followed our rules. We would never have asked ,Britain, France, Denmark Norway, Poland, etcKorea, the Philippines, Malaysia etc to capitulate to tyranny under Tojo, Hitler, Mussolini. I believe if we give in, Putin will rearm, and return, in another 10 years time. Putin attacked Ukraine over 10 years ago, and he thought he got away with it. So he wanted more and launched a full scale invasion and thought he’d get away with it. No! to peace in our time at the expense of Ukraine. Kudos to Ukraine!

HopeSpringsEternalToday  12:35 pm JST

Japan must do two things, raise interest rates to strengthen Yen and allow massive amounts of food imports including RICE as domestic farmers dying off FAST!

Japan could switch on its nuclear power stations. Then they won’t have to buy more oil, in dollars at the weak yen rate. Then the money saved from NOT BUYING oil, switching on the power stations , that money could be diverted to other areas eg rice, farming etc. However Japan is still exporting rice to other countries because it gets more yen for the same bag of rice. Some Japanese rice is cheaper in other countries that Japan. Which sounds bonkers. Anyway,Strengthening the yen would hurt japans exports. (But could stop some rice producers selling overseas) Raising interest rates sounds simple. But it’s just economic wack a mole. Secondly Japan wants inflation to reduce the value of the yen debt. That’s basically it. We complained when we didn’t get a pay raise when inflation was negative or basically zero saying “we want a raise”, but somehow expect prices to remain the same. Thats economically impossible. Then when inflation comes along at 2.5% , we’re complaining prices are going up, and wages are increasing too.(maybe not at the rate we want) but there is clearly a relationship between them. You can’t have one without the other.

If nobady wants in on there back yard japan must have some uninhabited islands. So Stick on there!

I couldn’t watch the whole of the last remake of karate kid with Will smiths kid (and Jackie chan. It felt too pushed to meet the Chinese market and the stupid kick at the end. Atleast in the original it was plausible. The thing I liked about the karate kid was it was set in the U.S, with the Bonsai tree art and Japanese elements and as a kid . Karate kid with Jackie chan just wasn’t karate kid, it was Wushu/kung fu kid so I felt a tad disappointed that it wasn’t karate, and absolutely nothing to do with Japan. Now, as for ,Cobra Kai. Myself and the kids loved it.

just the right amount of reminiscence, update's on the characters but also the youngsters. I hope it encouraged lots of kids to take up Karate.(or another martial art) Kreese was a fantastic villain in the original movie and in Cobra Kai. Some excellent nods to Mr Miyagi too. wax on, Wax off. Sand the floor, left circle right circle. Pair the fence up, down, side to side. I still run them through my head when clowning around with my kids.

Great series, great movies.(cough cough) I’ll pass on The 2010 remake.

Tesla is extremely overpriced. Still only doing the same cars. The ceo is a freaking lunatic, or at least has some condition at the very least. My guess is, the Chinese companies will benefit from the lunatic for years to come. I know there are fan boys but it won’t surprise me if its sales collapse even further. Not just because of the ceo but because other players will slowly eat into its market share.

garypenMay 24  09:30 pm JST

Abe234

So this is the way I have seen things in the past 50 decades. 

You're over 500 years old?

My bad. Thats was supposed to be 5 decades. LOL

I'm trying to see what it does. It doesn't produce anything. It isn't backed by any central bank as a currency. I can see digital currency working in an individual country. But I find it very hard to see a central bank or government giving up their currency to an open market. Sure, we can have digital dollars, euros, yen, pounds, Rubles, that function as a currency we know from yesterday, today and tomorrow, and we could do those purchases, investments from our digital bank accounts.(I prefer cash) But.. I'm going to find it hard to see everyone globally using Bitcoin. It's too volatile, countries won't want to give up control, and trust is what supports any currency. So what does it produce? Well, I admit to having some FOMO feelings, but maybe that boat has sailed. I most certainly see the real worth in the HYPE, the NEWS, the Articles, because it's building a pyramid, then I can sell it to the dude behind me. The code, at a national currency level, is useful. Just not the "BITCOIN".

JDoeToday  04:14 pm JST

She was probably verbally abused and treated like a servant, property for decades. I that case I would understand why she did it.

Maybe the husband busted his backside for decades, working long hours while she stayed home, going out for cake and lunch with her friends, controlling his finances for decades, as he worked overtime to get a better bonus to bring home. I don't think she was a servant, but it was the way many women wanted it. Men work long hours, and she cooks dinner, Stays home, perhaps work part-time, as she did the school and juku runs. How many men hand over their pay packet? Told to work more? But If a man made a woman do that, it would be called financial abuse, but women in their younger days expected men to hand over the pay packet. It was no different in the US decades ago. You can make a guy work til 9pm 10 pm, then say. Oi, you! Make your own dinner, look after the kids, oh and by the way, HAND OVER your pay cheques every month. Since there is absolutely nothing in the article about circumstances. Nobody knows the motive.

wallaceToday  07:57 pm JST

Japan builds bigger, better commercial ships.

Probably cheaper too. I don’t think we can pay more for the same ship in the U.S., when the CEO knows his eyes are on profits,(his pay package). He can’t pay more for a ship in the US and pay more in dividends. He must either pay more in the U.S., reduce his profits, reduce his dividends , resulting in a reduction in his pay package and pay higher wages. So if I was a ceo in the US I’d say let’s buy a cheaper ship somewhere else. That means China, Korea, Japan or……. That’s seems to be how the ceo, thinks.

So this is the way I have seen things in the past 50 decades. The U.S throws a tizzy, because they can’t make good stuff for the rest of the world at reasonable prices.( I’ll park burdening US companies with providing their staff with private medical insurance and the relevant costs). Then they complain that Japan, China, Korea, the Europeans are beating them at building good quality goods at reasonable prices. So they throw a little tantrum. So we decide to build all those factories in the U.S., to appease the U.S administration and a few years down the line they throw another little tizzy. In the mean time the U.S builds its factories or places its orders in China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, India etc. and yet what does the U.S build in Japan, or Europe? I see tons and tons of weapons, fighters and jet liners exported along with a few cars….So why the big fuss.Bottom line! If you link CEO pay to stock prices, profits and dividends then for a ceo it is good sense to ship production abroad. 1) cheaper to produce. 2) increase profits. 3) increase stock price 4) increase dividends. 5) increases ceo pay. 6) and the native workers pay is reduced. There is no incentive to increase the workers pay. And finally get the worker to actually become emotionally and economically invested in the stock market…… if the can afford it. If you can’t…. Your the one paying the price.(somewhere down the line) you can’t pay the dividends, and the the CEOs pay, and increase profits,with and eye on stock prices, and still give the workers a pay rise.(or a decent pay rise). Top of the tree shareholders,& ceo, and profits… bottom of the pile cut the pay. Thats it really!

I guess there are some other reasons for the development of the maglev system. It certainly has some military benefits.

kwattToday  08:21 am JST

I just wonder how good it is, compared with other gun/cannon/artillery?

I think it will depend on the shell being used. It might make production of shells faster cheaper since there may be no explosives. I suppose they can also add explosive rounds too. They won’t have to rely on other countries to provide the essential chemicals for the propellant and the explosive rounds.

rail guns can exceed the speed of a normal round so targeting, and impact time could be reduced, improving accuracy along with an extended range. Velocity, mass, and all that stuff. etc etc.All math above my head.The destruction would be the same though. A tank round kills the crew not just by the explosion but the shrapnel caused as it penetrates the hull and kills the crew. I suppose since lack explosives then the impact causes a massive blast wave destroying the target and crushing the internal organs of troops. Yuck! But that’s how artillery works.Aling with shrapnel.

It’s interesting that this has been in the works since WW2.

My only question would be if a massive EMP could render them useless.

I used to believe the double race naming was a good thing. But now I’m in Japan with kids, I prefer it when “we” within my family and group/friends talk about ourcultures we refer to our parents culture. But when we talk about our nationality in Japan, we don’t try and (….. +american) ourselves. (That’s for the politicians/actuvists) We tell people we are Japanese because we were born here. Imagine being black, you come to Japan and you say “I’m African American”. A) it’s insulting to Africans who actually do come from Africa. B) you’ve never been to Africa. C) you were never born in Africa. D) you might even speak their language. E) you were born in America, F) speak American English. G) you’re culturally American. F) confuse Africans. lol

So you’re American. Now if you were born in another country, and emigrated…. I can work with the hyphenated nationalities. But basically Americans love to cut up people into racial groups and identity. Even white peoples are cut up into other sub groups.Irish,Italian /American but Nobody says German American, French American or European American. Sadly the UK has followed that and I think it can make certain groups less American or Less British in the “eyes of the native population” fueling division, racism or otherism” So as a nation I prefer my kids are referred to as JAPANESE without the “other” nationality tagged on. Within our peer group, maybe that’s fine. But nationally, I think my family is JAPANESE and should IDENTIFY as Japanese. But can add a bit to their conversation around their name.

Peter NeilToday  06:34 am JST

It should be expanded to real skilled workers, like engineers, truly skilled fabrication and production workers, electro-mechanical technicians, real computer engineers and not just coders making dancing bunnies on sketchy websites.

I resecfully disagree. The reasons are not to different to other countries that did that.

It means that instead of investing in your own workforce, companies just brought in a fully qualified engineer from antoerh country. Since that is a fast, cheap option, universities won't train any more than in needed. So, you are lowering the high-quality jobs for the native population. We could take the U.K as a good example. They reduced medical, nursing, and construction training places, because we just brought them in from somewhere else.(Of course, the excuse to make it palatable to the population is, they are world-class, highly payed, talented people) The truth is that they were just ordinary people. We can always pay top dollar/yen for true world-class talent. Then you find out 20.30 years down the line, your native population (nomatter the country) when times get tough, get upset, resentful, especielly with massive student debt. We should be encouraging our own kids, to train in these jobs, nursing, medicine, engineering, and if the waiter staff from somewhere else, so be it. But again when times get hard, and pensioners can't get that extra part time job to top up their pension. Some people will get resentful.

Mr KiplingToday  02:33 pm JST

Solving a short term labor problem by introducing a culturally different underclass into a homogeneous society like Japan will lead to greater problems in the future. Much better to encourage those not in work return and those in work to stay in employment. There are advantages to multiculturalism (labor, spicy food and Olympic quality athletes) but in my opinion based on the European experience, the disadvantages far outweigh. 

Look at the areas with large immigrant populations in the Kanto area, Yotsukaido in Chiba and Warabi in Saitama. Hardly examples that any sensible government would want to follow.

I do agree to some point. We can look at the problems Europe is encountering. While it is a minority, as a society and a human, people generally tend to stick with and identify with their own group. As they come, who will provide housing? how about health care language needs? How about dealing with religious issues at work, school, and hospitals? Who will pay for the language training? (It won't be English). When someone decides to have two wives? Pop over to (said country) get married to a second wife and bring them over on a visa.

Japan has one massive advantage, it can learn from the mistakes from Europe,Canada, Australia, etc.

Maybe we need to increase the retirement age. We should try to steer kids into those high-skilled areas.

Yes, we need some immigrants, (absolutely) but not at the expense of the native population and social cohesion. and we should be able to discuss immigration without being called Racist.