Back to work you old slackers!

[Taro Toporific]

Japan Must Get Pensioners Back to Work, Health Ministry Says
Bloomberg - Aug 1, 2003 11:56am -- Japan must help companies employ more pensioners and ease the burden on working parents, a health ministry report said. ...

[kurohinge1]

Oh come on! Surely there's whole floors of minions at the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts & Telecommunications

who can think of good uses for old people.



1. What about replacing those wet sponges at the post office with the moist-tongued, bed-ridden souls, for a start.

2. Or young poeple could pay them to line up for concert tickets.

3. Instead of wheel clamps on illegally parked cars, the boys in blue could handcuff an old person to your front grill.

4. I've seen them used at stations to crush boxes, although some were a bit lazy and just crawled inside the boxes for a nap.

[Taro Toporific]

Oh come on! ... who can think of good uses for old....

Japan slumps into cosy retirement
...sayonara to the country he has watched over 13 years and reflects on its economic decline
Friday August 1, 2003 / The Guardian

I had read about the "Japanese miracle" of rapid growth, peace, egalitarianism, long life and low crime, but it never seemed real until I arrived and saw with my own eyes that the proof of the country's prosperity is in its rubbish.

Here, it seemed, was a country so rich, so technologically advanced and so obsessed with keeping up with the latest fashions that its people - even those on council estates - could afford to throw away appliances that consumers in many other countries could only dream about.

Little did I know then, however, that my arrival coincided with one of the most remarkable turning points in economic history - the bursting of the biggest asset bubble the world has seen in more than a century and the subsequent period of financial instability and collapsing confidence that is widely referred to in Japan as "the lost decade".

....

As soon as I got off the monorail, it was clear why no one would dream of calling Port Island "paradise" any more. Rust, weeds, even a tiny smattering of graffiti - all unthinkable in 1990 - hinted not just at age, but retrenchment. Locked railings on the bike sheds revealed an insecurity missing before. Most telling of all, the rubbish is not what it was. Instead of lovingly wrapped treasures, the tips are full of dirty, broken junk

[kurohinge1]

... Locked railings on the bike sheds revealed an insecurity missing before. Most telling of all, the rubbish is not what it was. Instead of lovingly wrapped treasures, the tips are full of dirty, broken junk

And all because rogue gangs of unemployed elderly are roaming the streets ...

[Taro Toporific]

And all because rogue gangs of unemployed elderly are roaming the streets ...

Soylent Green (1973)

[Taro Toporific]

Japan Must Get Pensioners Back to Work, Health Ministry Says
Bloomberg - Aug 1, 2003 11:56am -- Japan must help companies employ more pensioners and ease the burden on working parents, a health ministry report said. ...

Japan's National Pension System Collapsing as Corruption Spreads
Weekly Post Aug 4 2003 0:20AM GMT
The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Labor, (MHWL) will use the same method for its review this time.

Currently, the nation has to pay 13.58 percent of their annual income. During the review done in 2000, the MHWL announced that premium payments would have to be increased to 19.8 percent in 2025 in order to keep the system healthy. However, the Ministry has found that this was too optimistic. Based on the latest population data, the Ministry estimates that it should be raised to 22.4 percent in 2025, and if Japanese families continue to have less children, it will have to be raised to 24.8 percent.
If the MHWL's estimate is correct, Japanese salaried people will have to pay one fourth of their annual income into the government pension system.

[ramchop]

Japanese salaried people will have to pay one fourth of their annual income into the government pension system.

Another reason to not feel bad about evading taxes during my stay here.

Whatever happened to the word "quarter"? One fourth!! You Americans are a strange lot

[Taro Toporific]

Japan Must Get Pensioners Back to Work, Health Ministry Says
Bloomberg - Aug 1, 2003 11:56am

Japan to Alter Pensions to Promote Work for Elders, Nikkei Says
Aug. 25 (Bloomberg)
Japan's labor and welfare ministry aims to encourage older people to look for jobs by ending an automatic 20 percent cut in pension benefits for those who continue to work from 60 to 64 years ... starting April 2005 the ministry plans to cut benefits for the working elderly only if they earn more than 280,000 yen ($2,384) a month