kokontozai comments

Expected trust levels after the release of the statement on tariffs;

Japan: 75%, EU: 60%, China: 45%, US: 30%.

Will the U.S. lose popularity and will there be a trend of boycotting U.S. products and services?

X, Facebook, Instagram, etc. may be replaced by alternative services. If this happens, the Magnificent 7 ? will collapse and US stocks will be in trouble.

I think not many Japanese want to buy American-made cars and industrial products. We would like to buy cheap rice, but Japanese may not like American rice. Thus, the only option is to buy more oil and weapons. Many Japanese people probably wish Abe were still alive. By the way, GDP will only drop by 0.2%? So it will have no effect at all ?

To be precise, household financial assets, not household assets. Kyodo should write accurately. By the way, Switzerland has cut interest rates and interest rates are now lower than in Japan. Because of this rate cut and the Bank of Japan's expected rate hike, there is a projection that the yen carry trade will decrease, and the yen may not weaken that much in the future. I hope to see an increase in assets in dollar terms. In addition, Japan has the disadvantage of long life expectancy and major natural disasters and people tend to save too much, but if even 5% of these financial assets could spent annually, GDP and the economy would improve.

As usual, this is a trivial ranking. Finland's suicide rate is 13.9 according to WHO statistics, while Japan's is 12.2. (Maybe the WHO statistics are tweaked.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

Finland's consumption of antidepressants is also unusually high. I don't know if they are really happy. Shouldn't happiness simply be determined by suicide and homicide rates?　Where violent crime is high, happiness is basically low. Curiously, this ranking does not take crime rates into account at all. It is quite a manipulated ranking.

It is only 100,000 yen per person, or 1.5 million yen in total, so I think it is too much of a fuss. I think that good new recruits nowadays receive much more money only for preparation. In other countries, wouldn't 1.5 million yen never come to light or even be talked about if it was revealed? In the U.S., Elon Musk has donated more than 40 billion yen and is doing something. However, I feel that Ishiba is really living without thinking in an age when politics and money are so sensitive.

This personnel shuffle will eliminate obstacles and prepare the way for the merger with Honda or for a subsidiary of Honda. It is not only in the automotive industry, but Japan has too many companies and too much unnecessary development and overhead costs. More M&A is needed. By the way, does anyone still believe in the innocence of Carlos Ghosn?　There is an international arrest warrant against him in France as well.

Salaries for foreign language teachers are very low due to oversupply. They should study Japanese and acquire skills, become full-time employees, and increase their salaries. Japanese companies will be also pleased.

Personally, I think Japan should stop throwing money away at space exploration and maybe use some of that money to help the people here. 

I know some of you would like to say that, but if you say so, wouldn't Russia, China, and India have to stop their space programs?　The U.S. also has many poor people, so it might as well stop. According to UBS's Global Wealth Report 2024, the median wealth per capita is not so different, with the U.S. at $112 thousand and Japan at $107 thousand. The average wealth per capita is very large in the U.S., though, because of the large disparity between rich and poor.

Both the ICC and ICJ are headed by Japanese presidents. This may be partly due to the extremely low crime rate in Japan. I hope they will get rid of the bad guys.

Something drastic needs to be done. Provide 10 million yen for the second birth and 20 million yen for the third. As a source of funding, reduce pension benefits for the elderly. In particular, benefits to the wealthy should be drastically reduced. Alternatively, from the perspective of preventing a decline in defense capability, men who do not have two or more children by a certain age should be required to enlist in the Self-Defense Forces for about six months. Positive and negative incentives could be thought of in any number of ways. Other ideas include making effective use of frozen sperm from athletes and scientists to make child-rearing more enjoyable for women. Well, this seems to be a legal and ethical impossibility.

The embassy's response was terrible, but the police were even worse.

According to the woman's lawyer,

the police were very negative about the woman's complaint from the beginning, saying, “This is not a crime or anything in Hungary, this is ridiculous.” 

I have heard that domestic violence is much more in other countries than in Japan, but is there any country where domestic violence is not a crime?

Some French people seem interested.

From a 90-year-old book by Jean Cocteau,

”The wrestlers are young, peach-colored giants who seem to be an exceptional race, having escaped from the ceiling paintings of the Suixtine Chapel.

Some, by virtue of their traditional training, display huge bellies and full-grown lady's breasts.

Every type of rikishi wear topknots and have lovely feminine features.

An immovable equilibrium is created. Soon their legs become entwined, their fingers slip between the belt and the flesh, their mawashi falls back, their muscles bulge, their feet take root in the ring, blood rushes to their skin, and the entire surface of the ring is stained a light pink.”

It's interesting.

Since the number of short-time workers over age 60 is increasing, it is no wonder that real wages are decreasing. This will change if the annual income barrier (1.03 million yen) is raised.

I think there should be a female emperor. Although unrelated to this issue, the UN has no power or authority, so contributions should be reduced.

While the increase in the number of child suicides is unfortunate, the good news is that the overall number has decreased. There are plenty of jobs available due to the labor shortage, and the welfare system seems to be responding. Suicides due to health problems may be unavoidable in an aging population situation.

Democracy Index Ranking 2023

Norway: 1st, Taiwan: 10th, Japan: 16th

Japan and Taiwan are higher than imagined. Is it because other countries are terrible?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index

Although Japan should not install surveillance cameras as much as China and Korea, Japan had better increase the number of surveillance cameras a little.

Recent work-life balance ranking is as follows. Japan is ranked 24th out of 100 countries. It seems to be improving. With a four-day workday, it gets even better.

https://remote.com/resources/research/global-life-work-balance-index

Most people who write negative comments are losers in real life, so we should just despise them.

The following figures show that wages, working hours, gender gap and subjective happiness index are not related to fertility rates.

Fertility rates in Nordic countries:（continuing to decline）

Denmark 1.50, Sweden 1.45, Norway 1.40, Finland 1.26.

Japan should reduce social insurance costs for the elderly and redirect the budget to the young, e.g. give around 10 million yen to those who have their third child.

China has developed thanks to the financial and technical assistance of Japan and the United States. China has forgotten that debt.

However, Japan still ranks third in the world in new patents.

China --- 38%, USA --- 18%, Japan --- 16%, S.Korea --- 10%, Germany --- 4%, France --- 2%, UK --- 1%

If it were the cumulative number of those currently in effect, Japan would probably still be in second place.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/countries-new-patents/

Taiwan has always donated to Japan, so now it is time for Japan to donate a lot.

Trustworthiness Ranking by ASEAN Countries (Trust vs. Distrust)

Japan: 59 vs 20 

USA: 42 vs 38,

EU: 42 vs 35,

China: 25 vs 50

Travel Destination Popularity Ranking

https://www.iseas.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/The-State-of-SEA-2024.pdf

Someone is commenting on North Korea, but they must be joking.

Japan's first satellite --- 1970

North Korea's first satellite --- 2023

North Korea is more than 50 years behind Japan.

And by the way, countries that have sent lander to the moon --- only 5 countries including Japan

Countries that brought back materials from asteroids --- only 2 countries including Japan

In BBC News, Akira Toriyama's death is a more read article than Biden's speech.

Can we take advantage of the estimated 1.46 million hikikomoris?

The Japanese have received the most Pritzker Prizes. It is strange that more Japanese than Americans have received the award.

Everyone, let's donate some of the money we earned to Noto.

Although Japan is often discussed, the fertility rates of European countries are also quite low. Even France, which is full of immigrants and has been considered an honor student in fertility rate, is 1.68. Spain, Italy, and other countries are lower than Japan. Some people attribute the decline in the fertility rate mainly to long working hours and poverty, but the number of working hours has been decreasing significantly, and the fertility rate was higher during the poorer years of the 20th century. Also, poor developing countries have very high fertility rates. In the end, the main cause is probably that developed countries have too much entertainment and have lost interest in marriage and having children.