What's up with the value of the YEN?

[matsuki]

Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[DudeAbides]

Im in Honkers now. Did they have 100 Yen parties like they did a few years ago?

Nice forum by the way. Spent most of the early 00s and some other years in Japan (going back to the 90s) but have spent more time here actually.

[MrUltimateGaijin]

mod edit - just added the img tags around this link to embed into the post.

[FG Lurker]

Closed over 101 for the week! Definitely happy to see it finally moving more in the right direction.

[Coligny]

With the tax hike to 10%... aren't we driving quick to a concrete wall... and still accelerating ?

[Mike Oxlong]

Rammstein. The pun is in the extra m.

[Coligny]

Is it "non-sequitur" week ?

Because... that's my game... nobody ain't beata me dere yet...

[Coligny]

And I got an awesome first entry.

See this sararyman last month in Nagoya Ecchi Tokyu Hands ?

dafuq.jpg

The black with yellow stripes back back ?

It's a circa 1987 schoolboy backpack from Gerard Henon. I'm not even sure it was sold outside of France.

http://ios.mobapp.ina.fr/pub/habillemen ... le.fr.html

Beat that one guyz...

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

nobody ain't beata me dere yet...

I think it's because nobody else is playing

[Coligny]

ok, but i still don't get the rammstein reference...

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

ok, but i still don't get the rammstein reference...

Me either, but it sounds German, which always gets the alarm bells ringing for mine....Mind you, being Australian, rammstein also holds connotations of, what shall we say, somewhat excessively intimate bovine husbandry.

[DudeAbides]

If they keep printing it will reach 200 within a few years or months?

[Mike Oxlong]

ok, but i still don't get the rammstein reference...

according to zee local Germans, it basically means running into stone, a play on words with the place name. Kind of like driving a car into a wall. Or not. most of my references do not make sense.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Kind of like driving a car into a wall...

A panzer into the Maginot Line? (Then again, that could simply mean to drive around something as though it doesn't exist, too....)

[wagyl]

Mind you, being Australian, rammstein also holds connotations of, what shall we say, somewhat excessively intimate bovine husbandry.

Not that I have excessively detailed experience (well, no more than the next guy) but I believe you are referring to ovine husbandry. Just for future reference.

[Coligny]

Kind of like driving a car into a wall...

A panzer into the Maginot Line? (Then again, that could simply mean to drive around something as though it doesn't exist, too....)

fuck youze...

Maginot line was mostly a fortified tunnel... of course you can go over it without noticing if nobody is manning the masheen gunz nestz...

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Mind you, being Australian, rammstein also holds connotations of, what shall we say, somewhat excessively intimate bovine husbandry.

Not that I have excessively detailed experience (well, no more than the next guy) but I believe you are referring to ovine husbandry. Just for future reference.

Well, actually, I had been thinking bovine, sensing the term derived from Holstein cows. But, knowing Strine's tendency to abbreviate while keeping initial morphemes intact, it would have been more likely to be termed Hollyramming, which now conjures up images of the ovine, bovine and divine. Sublime!

[gaijinpunch]

The day it got up to 99/$1, I started playing Break on Thru by the Doors, full blast. Even sent the youtube link to our office where most of the people are (I'm in finance). The kicker is, I was at home (permanent home). Little did I know the pasture who was conducting my recently deceased father's funeral was halfway through a prayer in my living room when I started the jam. A life long friend came in laughing his balls off.

[FG Lurker]

With the tax hike to 10%... aren't we driving quick to a concrete wall... and still accelerating ?

The idea is to bring inflation back to Japan and encourage people to spend instead of putting of purchases for as long as possible.

The 10% sales tax increase is going to be interesting though. It's needed but I'm not sure they will have the balls to actually put it through.

[legion]

The idea is to stop people bitching about the price of everything and just to pay and move on

It isn't consumer deflation that brings the economy down, it's the deflation imposed on vendors & suppliers, there is plenty of money further up the money river, it just doesn't come down because the line "can't you do it cheaper" has been hardwired into every production process. Hence people waste huge amounts of their working day trying to get things done for less, when it would be far more productive just to pay the price requested and get on with something else.

[gaijinpunch]

it just doesn't come down because the line "can't you do it cheaper" has been hardwired into every production process.

Then why are Japan's production costs so fucking high? (Really asking... not being presumptuous). I used to think huge costs in land/rent drove the price of everything up. Then I went to Hong Kong, where shit is far cheaper and land is a similar premium. No sales tax helps I guess.

[Coligny]

Last time i checked, shareholders wants the biggest profit, they don't give a fuck wether it comes from low production cost or high sale price...

[matsuki]

it just doesn't come down because the line "can't you do it cheaper" has been hardwired into every production process.

Then why are Japan's production costs so fucking high? (Really asking... not being presumptuous). I used to think huge costs in land/rent drove the price of everything up. Then I went to Hong Kong, where shit is far cheaper and land is a similar premium. No sales tax helps I guess.

It's all those kyabakura and snack expenses...

Seriously though, it really depends on what they are producing but if the raw materials have to be imported and transported within Japan, that can make anything expensive.

[gaijinpunch]

Imports are an obvious one. However, what about produce? That shit is made in Japan, in the country, where land is almost free. Yet, it's at least double the cost of imported produce. Sometimes 10x... and that's not even the "gift" stuff.

[wuchan]

two letters, JA.

The JA is the largest co-op in the world. They have huge influence over the national government and basically dictate how much foreign product can be imported. The JA is also very close to the media outlets. They use these relationships to get stories about how "bad" foreign products are into the media frequently (chinese rice, US beef). This keeps demand for foreign grown products low.

The JA is a gigantic bureaucracy where the only interest it to keep it going to pay salaries and pensions. The average JA markup (price paid to farmer vs consumer price) is about 400% for produce and 200% for rice. The farmers do get a good price for their product compared to other nations but they need to. If the farmers didn't get the amount they do now, no one would bother being a farmer in japan. The tax on large farms is fucking insane preventing an industrial farming style to develop . Big corporations (aeon) have found ways around this by growing produce indoors, unfortunately, this is also expensive.

There are so many issues here that can not be changed. If Japan began importing more food than it does now the farmers will quit being farmers which will totally fuck the country if there is a global crisis. 200yen apples are a fact of life here, however the consumers are fucking retarded for paying 5,000 a water mellon.

[gaijinpunch]

The JA is a gigantic bureaucracy where the only interest it to keep it going to pay salaries and pensions.

So it's just like every other Japanese corporation. Cool... got it.

[matsuki]

[quote="wuchan"]however the consumers are fucking retarded for paying 5,000 a water mellon./quote]

This is also part of the problem...people pay crazy money for all kinds of things here. I can't imagine it getting better as most of these insane purchases I hear about are old people buying their children these things as gifts.

[FG Lurker]

The JA is also very close to the media outlets. They use these relationships to get stories about how "bad" foreign products are into the media frequently (chinese rice, US beef). This keeps demand for foreign grown products low.

I'm happy to buy most foreign food but food from China freaks me out. No (enforced) environmental standards at all and pretty much anything goes if you have a few bucks to put in the appropriate hand. Add to that the hatred that China seems to have for Japan and I'm not too interested in buying food that originated in China.

[legion]

it just doesn't come down because the line "can't you do it cheaper" has been hardwired into every production process.

Then why are Japan's production costs so fucking high? (Really asking... not being presumptuous). I used to think huge costs in land/rent drove the price of everything up. Then I went to Hong Kong, where shit is far cheaper and land is a similar premium. No sales tax helps I guess.

because you aren't paying production costs, you are paying the people that insert themselves into the process between you and the person producing the product. These are the people that squeeze the money out, forcing down the income of those below, entrenching the deflation. They also force up your costs, which mean you in turn ask other people to sell you stuff cheaper.

[matsuki]

The JA is also very close to the media outlets. They use these relationships to get stories about how "bad" foreign products are into the media frequently (chinese rice, US beef). This keeps demand for foreign grown products low.

I'm happy to buy most foreign food but food from China freaks me out. No (enforced) environmental standards at all and pretty much anything goes if you have a few bucks to put in the appropriate hand. Add to that the hatred that China seems to have for Japan and I'm not too interested in buying food that originated in China.

I'd avoid buying anything from China if I could.

it just doesn't come down because the line "can't you do it cheaper" has been hardwired into every production process.

Then why are Japan's production costs so fucking high? (Really asking... not being presumptuous). I used to think huge costs in land/rent drove the price of everything up. Then I went to Hong Kong, where shit is far cheaper and land is a similar premium. No sales tax helps I guess.

because you aren't paying production costs, you are paying the people that insert themselves into the process between you and the person producing the product. These are the people that squeeze the money out, forcing down the income of those below, entrenching the deflation. They also force up your costs, which mean you in turn ask other people to sell you stuff cheaper.

Totally agree here...way too many middlemen in the distribution here and the materials/goods are taxed again and again, each time they change owners.