collegepark30349 comments

Rice price cut rush puts Koizumi back in spotlight ahead of election

I'm getting the sneaking suspicion this was the plan all along. Things moved much too quickly for him to have come up with the new rice plan on his own. I think the plan was already set up, the old Ag. Minister was made to fall on his sword. They put in the young, new father, telegenic, popular guy with the popular wife and more popular father to carry out the plan and bring prices down just before the election. Too convenient. The only thing keeping me from completely believing this, I don't think the LDP is actually this clever.

A few things still bother me. 1) This original problem was the LDP's own creation and you don't get credit for cleaning up a mess you made. 2) The stockpiled rice has to be replaced, which meant the gov't will buy a large amount, which would lead to a shortage, which would lead to higher prices. Was anything really solved by this? 3) There has been complete silence as to the total cost of moving the stockpiled rice. They are selling it for a little under 12,000 yen for 60kg. The price should include: the price the gov't originally paid for it + the price of warehousing it (sometimes for over 4 years) + the price to ship it (which the gov't is covering, even sending some it by shinkansen). Does the 12,000 cover all of this? How much more is being added to the debt?

This is a sad, sad day for music lovers. Pet Sounds is one of my desert island records. I listen to it all the way through a couple of times a year. Such a treat. Good Vibrations is something all musicians should aspire to. It is such a shame he could never get the music that was in his head for Smile out into our world. And, yes, I am also one for Beach Boys over Beatles.

Sly Stone and Brian Wilson in the same week. This is getting close to 2015-16 when we lost Prince, Tom Petty and David Bowie.

A tragedy. And, of course, the government and LDP plan to solve this by cracking down on foreign drivers (that's sarcasm).

As I said before, I'd rather they send me one of those 60kg bags of warehoused rice. I read they are selling them to companies at about 12,000 per bag. Much cheaper and more useful than 20,000 in cash.

This is just so ... I don't even know what to say. Considering what this man's family did to one of their own - Rosemary Kennedy, his aunt - it's no wonder his view of science is skewed.

Although it’s typically not viewed as a partisan board, the Biden administration had installed the entire committee.

Because the openings came up during his term. The Biden administration did not fire anyone or push them out.

“A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science. ”

There has always been public confidence except for a few fringe people. Unfortunately social media amplified their beliefs out of proportion. The people like this guy work to intentionally undermine confidence.

Rest in peace, good man. I enjoy your work very much.

I enjoyed his work. Rest in peace, good sir.

"I am lightweight but popular. My books sell," he once said.

Always glad when someone is self-aware. Reminds me of something Gene Simmons (KISS) often says: Don't worry about the critics. If is sells a million copies, it's good; if people like it, it's good, no matter what critics may think.

The cost of education for one child through college is said to be more than ¥10 million

Yes and no. Yes if you are foolish enough to sign your kids up for every naraigoto and juku and kumon and sports team..... you can find. Ditto if you want them to go to private schools. No if you use common sense.

School uniforms? Most neighborhoods have a used uniform "market" where people just pass them around, especially for the PE clothes. Same with recorders for their music class. Naraigoto? I only let my kids do one at a time. Gave them time to be kids and us time to be a family. They could change after one year if they wanted to try something new. Juku? When my kids needed help with math, we found some great videos on YouTube for nothing. Tons of free educational videos and websites. Learning experiences? There are tons of free taiken classes at museums, libraries, science centers...almost every weekend. We got flier from school on a regular basis. If you spend 10 million yen educating your child, you need a few lessons in finance.

ian: And this applies to all of Japan?

No, not this specific example, but the general idea that the gov't in particular and the LDP specifically are, in my opinion and experience, not up to the task of dealing with the results (consequences) of a smaller population. The population is shrinking, and is going to continue to shrink, that ship has sailed. Smaller number of births now means there will be fewer people to give birth in the future. My question is: instead of trying to encourage more people to have more children, which hasn't, isn't and won't work, what are the plans for structural and social reform needed to meet the challenges of a smaller population? I mean, if they can't even change school districts to get more kids into a school that is losing students...

Even if 3 million babies are born next yer and another 3 million the year after, it will take 20 years for them to become productive members of society. It would take another 30 years for their children to do so. What are the plans in the meantime? I don't know of anything, do you? Other than, let's have more omiai parties and make childbirth free.

“We’ve tried nothing, and we’re all out of ideas!”.

I can't up vote this enough and I will be stealing it for my next staff meeting.

A smaller population is not necessarily a bad thing. However, I just don't think the Japanese gov't (LDP) is up to the task of structural and social reform needed to meet the challeges of a smaller population. They just keep doing things as always.

Case in point. There are neihboring elementary schoosl close to where I live. Two in an area that is growing ( new condos being built, rice fields being filled in for housing lots) and another is in an area of town that is shrinking (older homes, older people, younger folks moving out). The first two schools are now getting overcrowded - close to 40 students in some classes. The other school is shrinking, sometimes only one class per grade. I do some work with the BOE and this topic came up. I asked why don't they just redraw the school district lines to move some students from the crowded school to the less crowded on (common done in the States). They looked at me like I was crazy the said it would be impossible. They'd rather have overcrowded and empty schools than make a change.

Don't do it and go somewhere else where you'll be welcomed.

As an American it pains me to say this, but I'd wouldn't recommend going to America for educational purposes at all. I'd hope for my kids to spend at least a year in high school in the States, living with relatives, and maybe even going to uni there. There is no way I can do that in good conscious now. The MAGA movement is hell bent on destroying public education. My home state of Georgia now has one of the sorriest excuses for public education around folks like Marjorie Trailer Queen want to make it even worse. I'm almost ashamed to admit I have a Georgia teaching license. Stay home, Japanese students, or go to a country that respects education. The US does not any more.

Remember, this is rice that was scheduled to be used as animal feed in a year or two. Kind of shows the LDP's thinking of the common folk.

The cogniive dissonance is breathtaking. I rememebr when the GOP went bonkers when the Obama administration acquired vast amounts of Ford and GM stock in the bailout (and eventually sold it all back at a profit). Communism, they said. The State has no business in business, they said.

Considering every time I see a news story about somebody crashing into a convenience store or hitting a group of children walking to school or driving the wrong way, it is an elderly Japanese person who was driving, I think they might be looking at the wrong people

I have no experience with it, but I'm not so sure it is a good thing. I guess the AI can make judgements based on the info it is presented with from the applicant. But, I think it takes a human to be able to judge things like fit and chemistry. Back when I was coaching, there were many a player in tryouts who passed the eye test, but in talking to them and seeing how they interact with others, I knew that certain people wouldn't have chemistry or be a good fit with who and what I already had.

The stockpiles of rice produced in 2021 and 2022 are to be sold at 11,556 yen, including tax, per 60 kg and the government will shoulder the cost of transportation to regional areas.

So, my questions are: 1. How much did the govt initially pay for the rice? Was is less or more than the price they are selling it at? (my guess, "no") 2. How much as it cost to store the rice for the past 3 to 4 years? Is that cost reflected in the sale price? (my guess, "no") 3. How much is the transportation going to cost? Is that included in the sale price? (my guess, "no")

If you do the math: find the difference between the purchase price and the sale price, add it to the storage and transportation costs , it will tell you how much tax payer money the LDP is willing to spend on votes in the next election. Don't worry, we'll be billed for it later in the form of taxes, benefit cuts, and interest on the debt passed on to younger folks.

Also, this thing smells. Koizumi could not have come up with the scheme on his own in such a short time. I think this plan has been cooking for a while. The ex-agriculture minister may have been told to fall on his sword so the LDP could get the telegenic guy to ride in on his white horse and save the day (er, the election).

Koizumi said Friday the government plans to sell its stockpiled rice to retailers through direct contracts, bypassing auctions that have prevented government control over prices, and aims to make it available in stores at 2,000 yen per 5 kg.

One of the talk shows yesterday morning gave details on how the plan to do this, so don't be surprised if it does happen. Koizumi plans to 1) sell the stockpiled rice at a loss - for less that what they paid for it, 2) have the gov't cover the all the shipping costs from the warehouses to polishing mills / bagging centers and from these places to the stores, 3) have the gov't cover the cost of the polishing and bagging.

I'm sure they will sell it to the retailers low enough for them to make a profit at 2,000 yen a bag. After all, all the retailers have to do is mark it up from what they pay to what they sell it for. The LDP will cover all of their other expenses.

Koizumi and the LDP apparently don't care about the cost to the gov't (= tax payers) and the effect it will likely have: more taxes, more debt, and spending cuts. After all, it is not their money. They have an election to win and no amount of taxpayer money is too small for them to spend in order to win it.

I am curious if they will let it be known how much the gov't sells the rice for. As far as I know, the auction prices have never been released.

I'm with YeahRight, not hard at all. Also switched a Georgia license. Took the writing test and driving test once. If you can survive driving in and around Atlanta - the connector southbound, Spaghetti Junction, get to the airport witout getting lost, survive the Grady curve - you can drive anywhere.

Getting all of the paperwork - driving record from the US, getting it translated by JAF... - and going through the hoops at the DMV, that was pretty time consuming.

Saw a few things on TV that were interesting this morning. The show said that over 90% of the auctioned rice has been sent to JA but only 28% has gotten to wholesalers. JA is sitting on most of the rice. Why? While 28% has made it to wholesalers, only 7% has made it to retailers. This actually had a sensical explanation: the process to convert it from brown rice to white rice takes time and is at a bottle neck at the moment (there are only so many companies with the equipment and they can only do so much at a time plus man power issues). Also, once the rice is polished, it has to be bagged. One guy with a polishing factory said he had to bag the rice under 100 different brand names and in 2kg, 5kg and 10kg bags. Switching the bags and machine settings apparently takes a lot of time. I don't see how Koizumi can resolve this.

 has pledged to sell the stockpiled grain directly to retailers

Makes no sense. How can the retailers polish and bag it given what I just wrote above. They still have to send it to the polilshing and bagging factories that are backed up at the moment.

we want to bring it down by introducing 2,000 yen stockpiled rice

Apparently Koizumi is planning on having the government pay all the transportation and polishing costs for the buyers. This is his idea for brining the price down. So JA and the other companies get to keep their profits and make money and the tax payers pay less at the register but more in taxes or cuts elsewhere. Most people will fall for it since they only care what they pay at the register, not what is taken from their paycheck or social security.

Harvard is a breeding ground of liberal, antisemitism and...

This kills me. Some Harvard alums: Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, George W. Bush, George HW Bush, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Mitt Romney...truly nothing but insane, liberal radicals all.

the real culprit is JA! They serve no real purpose but to create a bottleneck for the far trade of produce in Japan. They are the reason rice prices are so high!

JA is a cartel mafia which comes at a tremendous cost to the people of Japan.

I have to agree with both of these. People need to realize the graft and the grift that is JA. Their number one job is not to protect farmers. There number one job is to protect JA. I have a neighbor. Nice house, good sized yard, two cars (both Audi), daughters go to private high school and university. His job? A JA bank manager. Not a farmer. Nothing to do with farming, but probably makes a lot more than the average farmer. JA looks out for JA.

It wasn't so much his comment as it was his attitude after being called out on them. But, hey, nice move by the LDP - let's put the young, handsome, popular guy back in to distract and take off the heat.

Performative garbage. They get this done in a week while still taking 40+ years to tackle declining birthrates, pension problems, spouses keeping surnames, meaningful education reform... They just look like they're doing something.

I don't think this is going to help their cause:

Samples of store-bought rice from more than 100 different brands purchased in the United States contained dangerously high levels of arsenic and cadmium,

https://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-arsenic-cadmium-levels-dangerously-090050710.html

From my experience, having children is not that expensive. It's raising children that costs a lot. A one time fee versus 18 years of spending. Work harder on the latter, government, not the former.

Interesting article. It reminds me of an experience I had in Atlanta a few years ago. (for the record, born and bred in College Park, Georgia, just south of Atlanta, near the airport and old Ford factory). I was with my kids at White Water and talking with one of the teenage staff (I'm 51 years old). He asked where I was from. I said, " From right here in Atlanta, south side of the city. Why do yo ask?" His response, "You don't sound like you're from around here." I was so stunned I didn't know what to say.

The classical white Southern accent in the Atlanta area and other parts of the urban South peaked with baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964 and then dropped off with Gen Xers born between 1965 and 1980 and subsequent generations

This is true. My parents were born in the 1930's and have pretty heavy accents. Two brothers and a sister are boomer (born '56, '59, '63) and have the smilar accents. My other sister, brother and myself (born '68, '72 and '74) have weaker accents. However, while I / we don't have the typical Southern drawl, we do make full use of the lingo: fixin' to, y'all, reckon, yonder, might could, this here / that there, britches, done ate (have eaten), tooken (taken), growed up (grew up)... We also have some of the pronunciation: PO-lice, HO-tel, UM-brella, winduh (window), Mondi (Monday)... While the accent maybe going away, I'd posit that the vernacular lives on.

Often, outsiders wrongly associate a Southern accent with a lack of education,

Lord, don't I know it. Hollywood hasn't really helped with this preception either. As I mentioned above, my mama and daddy (see, Southerner), have / had pretty thick accents. Daddy especially. He was what we call a Cracker (not the racial pejorative, moderator, the socio-economic term) from the part of Atlanta known as Cabbage Town (mostly poor white mill workers). If you are familiar with the country singer Jerry Reed (also in Smokey and the Bandit) or the pro wrestler Dusty Rhodes, Daddy sounded like them. He was an intellignt man - Tech Sarge in the Air Force, radar technician for the FAA, and even taught some courses at the FAA academy in Oklahoma. However, every time he attended a convention or training seminar, people assumed he was some uneducated hick in the wrong place. He'd have to tell them, "Looky here, son, I ain't come to take this here seminar, I come to teach it." I did some post-grad work in Mass. and most of my cohor was from the North. I could tell from their attitudes that they'd thought, initially at least, that I was the lowest in the cohort due to my accent (which is not that strong, but must have sounded strong to them). Not to mention what the natives up there thought of me. Accent discriminatoin / harassment is a thing, people.

Anyways, I've rambled on too long. Interesting article and nice to have some of my personal observations confirmed.

A horrible tragedy.

New parents or soon to be parents: little children are much faster than you think. Be careful when taking your eyes off of them, especially after they start walking. I remember when my son was about 2. We were playing on the floor. I went to the door to sign for a delivery - less than 30 second. When I came back into the room he had managed to climb on top of the dining table.

And once again there will be a lot of ink spilled on how to make the lives of child-bearing age adults better and easier and child rearing less expensive while completely ignoring the well-being of children and how to improve their lives. A good number of adults don't have an overall positive evaluation of their childhood and don't wish to visit the same upon their children: school system, club hell, short vacations overbooked with busywork and visits to overcrowded places, dad spending more time at work than home, mom being run ragged by PTA, grandparents, housework, lots of time without parents... If you didn't like it yourself, why would you want to put your own children through it? Most people want to give their children a better life, not the same one.

Like Toshiro aboce, I'm no stranger to heat (south Georgia in the US), but am truly flagergasted by the ammount of preventable heat related health problems that occur here. A lot of it is just common sense. We had American football practice starting in August, but this is how we did it. Practice was either early (7:00 a.m.) or late (6:30 p.m.) to avoid the heat. Water / cool down breaks every 20 minutes, helmets off, with water sprinklers and ice for those who need it. Anybody with a nosebleed (a sign of over heating), practice was over - go sit in the shade. Indoors, we had fans, and lots of them. I do not understand this dogma that everything has to be done in the heat of the day. Even now I go running at 6:00 a.m. and shake my heads at the folks running at noon.

One other thing I would like to see: Get rid of the hard pack gravel that dominates school ground and put down so grass! That gravel makes the heat unbearable. Put fans in the gyms too.

The late record producer Thom Bell, pianist Nicky Hopkins and bassist Carol Kaye will each get the Musical Excellence Award.

It's about friggin' time for Carol Kaye. Shame on the Hall for not doing it decades ago. Same goes for Warren Zevon. As for the others, pretty "meh" to me. While they are all fine artists with a lot of record sales, I don't see anybody who is what I woud consider foundational or influential, or in the Hall's own words, “an impact on other musicians, the scope and longevity of their career and body of work, as well as their innovation and excellence in style and technique.” Cyndi Lauper is the female equivalent of Kenny Loggins. And while I do like Kenny Loggins, Danny's Song is great, he's not a Hall of Famer.