Engrish lessons to fight unemployment?

[Taro Toporific]

English Lessons at 85 Help Seniors Hold Down Japan Unemployment
Bloomberg News | August 16, 2012
...part of an endeavor to unlock an estimated 900 trillion yen in savings held by Japanese over the age of 60, through rekindling the zest for spending that today’s retirees knew in the 1980s bubble years. From gaming arcades with tatami- bench tea areas to fitness gyms with stretching classes, the efforts go beyond nursing care, and may help Japan keep full employment even as manufacturing declines...more...

[yanpa]

With 7 million baby boomers starting to retire this year,

Wholly Cow!

[Taro Toporific]

With 7 million baby boomers starting to retire this year,

Wholly Cow!

The majority of those the new retirees are not retiring on the cushy company pensions of 20 years ago (that worked out to more than 400,000yen/m). Most have lost their private/coporate pensions and are dependent on the lower paying public pensions (averaging 222,000yen/m and dropping every year). That's not gonna pay for many engrish lessons or cause a big boost to the economy.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

I still favor the Soylent Green method of dealing with the elderly...

(I don't mean eating them, but letting them choose when to go and giving them a decent send-off with beautiful images and lovely classical music <and then eating them?>)

[Taro Toporific]

I still favor the Soylent Green method of dealing with the elderly...

FG member "den4" just emailed me this almost relevant Soylent Green Warning of...

when_grammar_and_punctuation_matter_640_05.jpeg

[wuchan]

One thing that shocked me in recent years was a very short conversation between Mrs. Wu and her dino aged granny.

Granny: What's this?
hands over a piece of paper
Wife: it's a bank statement.
Granny: I have a bank account at that bank? Strange, I haven't been there in years, figured they canceled that account.
Wife: It seems you have 3 MILLION yen in this account.
Granny: Oh? I do remember there being some money in there...

Granny then proceeds to make a cup of tea and sits down in front of the TV.





Now if she were loaded I could see the lack of caring BUT she is a farmer that didn't even finish middle school. Shit she asked the wife to read the thing because she couldn't decipher the kanji.

She died about a year ago and the battle over the cash seems never ending. In the end she had 10 million in random bank accounts. Because no one knew what they were doing the government took 50% and every member of the extended family is still battling over the scraps.

This whole thing got me curious about how common this situation is. What I found out from asking neighbors is that it is totally normal. A 100,000円 monthly pension payment seems low to us FGs. To a Japanese person that NEVER had a mortgage, lives family style with the oldest child, pays 2% for hoken co-pays because the oldest kid claims the old fart as a dependent, never travels more than 1km from their home....... eats nothing but rice, miso, umeboshi, and salmon flake... Well you get the picture. 100k comes in 10k goes out. Something like 60% of the rural elderly population are in a similar situation. Money means nothing to these people.

[Coligny]

Not exactly easy to keep trace... the bank tend to give no signs of life unless there i s activity on the account, sort of a catch 22...

I can't really tell how I personnally have or where, me Julie is in the same situation... And same also is the fact that money goes in but not much comes out. X'cept for the vet expense these days (but even these are not so big, and the cats have their own money reserve anyway).

[kagemusha]

To a Japanese person that NEVER had a mortgage, lives family style with the oldest child, pays 2% for hoken co-pays because the oldest kid claims the old fart as a dependent, never travels more than 1km from their home....... eats nothing but rice, miso, umeboshi, and salmon flake... Well you get the picture. 100k comes in 10k goes out. Something like 60% of the rural elderly population are in a similar situation. Money means nothing to these people.

On one hand it does sound cool and romantic, the Japan who wasn't blinded by money. On the other hand it is one of the direct reasons for the stagnation and crumbling of the Japanese economy. When one of the richest countries in the world keeps a huge part of its money in tens of millions of forgotten accounts or worse - under tens of millions of tatami mats, the whole financial power of the country has to be reevaluated and shrink drastically.

[Coligny]

And somehow this is bad ?

[kagemusha]

And somehow this is bad ?

Not from the national economy point of view or the 'strength of the country' fuck that.
the thing is that weak social circles are the first to get fucked in the ass from the lack of able government and financial institutions.
The money sitting dormant could have served those entitled people and communities but they prefer to watch the duraama on TV and wait for the 'ore ore' call to ease their burden.
And I'm not advocating for unnecessary higher material life - that's not the point.

[Wage Slave]

Not exactly easy to keep trace... the bank tend to give no signs of life unless there i s activity on the account, sort of a catch 22...

I can't really tell how I personnally have or where, me Julie is in the same situation... And same also is the fact that money goes in but not much comes out. X'cept for the vet expense these days (but even these are not so big, and the cats have their own money reserve anyway).

I knew I had crossed a personal Rubicon when I had to sit down and create a workbook in Excel to attempt to keep a track of the accounts the Julie and I have left in our wake. 17 bank and building society accounts in the UK alone. Then there's 3 separate pensions each, insurance policies, sharebroker account, random shareholdings as a result of demutualisations/2008 collapses and various managed funds. Add in variable interest rates, fixed terms, money laundering regulations, security safeguards, residency requirements, tax, exchange rate fluctuations. Oh, and 4 credit card accounts.

And all of them are sharks. If you don't do what you should do they are happy to see you lose all or part of it. It's a lot of information and a lot of work. And it's not as if we are talking huge sums either. Just ordinary people financials.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

I still favor the Soylent Green method of dealing with the elderly...

FG member "den4" just emailed me this almost relevant Soylent Green Warning of...

when_grammar_and_punctuation_matter_640_05.jpeg

I suppose it's better than making them slaves...

[Taro Toporific]

FG member "den4" just emailed me this almost relevant Soylent Green Warning of...

when_grammar_and_punctuation_matter_640_05.jpeg

He emailed that Soylent Warning and this one too.

demotivational-posters-soylent-green.jpeg

grammar_punctuation_matters.jpeg

[IparryU]

One thing that shocked me in recent years was a very short conversation between Mrs. Wu and her dino aged granny.

Granny: What's this?
hands over a piece of paper
Wife: it's a bank statement.
Granny: I have a bank account at that bank? Strange, I haven't been there in years, figured they canceled that account.
Wife: It seems you have 3 MILLION yen in this account.
Granny: Oh? I do remember there being some money in there...

Granny then proceeds to make a cup of tea and sits down in front of the TV.





Now if she were loaded I could see the lack of caring BUT she is a farmer that didn't even finish middle school. Shit she asked the wife to read the thing because she couldn't decipher the kanji.

She died about a year ago and the battle over the cash seems never ending. In the end she had 10 million in random bank accounts. Because no one knew what they were doing the government took 50% and every member of the extended family is still battling over the scraps.

This whole thing got me curious about how common this situation is. What I found out from asking neighbors is that it is totally normal. A 100,000円 monthly pension payment seems low to us FGs. To a Japanese person that NEVER had a mortgage, lives family style with the oldest child, pays 2% for hoken co-pays because the oldest kid claims the old fart as a dependent, never travels more than 1km from their home....... eats nothing but rice, miso, umeboshi, and salmon flake... Well you get the picture. 100k comes in 10k goes out. Something like 60% of the rural elderly population are in a similar situation. Money means nothing to these people.

my wife's family all did the same with the grandpa died on my wife's dad's side and when both parents died on my wife's mom's side... they seriously tried to fight for JPY20M and none of them wanted to dish out money to their siblings who took care of the dying parent and paid for everything.

fucking stupid and stubborn. Apparently, the will they set up was scribbles on paper and no lawyer was involved to finalize it... so they fought over every fucking bit until there was nothing left.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Fuck money....

I've seen some rip-snorting family feuds here, but few of them a patch on those in Oz (witness world's richest woman currently suing some of her children to avoid revealing details of their lawsuit against her for not allowing them to get their hands on money left to them) and we are mere amateurs compared to the Merkins.