JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- English Instructor (Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe)
- Berlitz Japan, Inc. (ベルリッツ・ジャパン株式会社), Kansai
- Salary: ¥125,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month
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- FT English Teachers for Kids - Osaka
- Kohgakusha Co., Ltd. （株式会社興学社）, Osaka
- Salary: ¥255,000 ~ ¥275,000 / Month Travel Expenses, Encouragement of Japanese learning*
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- Translator
- ZAIHON, Inc. (日本財務翻訳株式会社), Tokyo
- Salary: ¥6.0M / Year Negotiable
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seaforte03
In case you guys are interested, there are mail-order farmer's coops around Tokyo where you can buy first fruits and farmer's picks of the crops, albeit at higher prices - but hey - organic, FRESH, and utterly amazing. Once you've tried reputable coop produce, you'll NEVER go back (and leaving Japan will be extraordinarily painful). Lettuce is as juicy as a ripe watermelon, crunchy as a freshly picked apple. Fruit and juices always sweet, never sour, never bitter, never dry. You pre-order based on their seasonal crops and they deliver pretty much on-schedule in refrigerated (dry iced) styrofoam containers (which they want back - very green you see).
A VAST difference from the animal fodder at most grocery stores.
Posted in: Japanese farmer is French chefs' secret
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seaforte03
Actually - for the smaller companies, such as international schools - they'll just find the simple route around the law - they'll fire most of their full time staff, then hire them back as independent "contractors" with one-year contracts. The visa issues will be more complicated - but there's always a solution to a problem.
This will resolve the tax issue - albeit at the expense of no benefits for foreign contractors - which will drive up prices. The alternative is to raise prices to compensate for the tax increases. Same problem we face in the USA (except for the visa issue). So you see - no matter WHERE the government decides to place the tax - it ALWAYS comes back to bite the public.
I've shopped at Walmart in China - they sell expired meats (one month old or longer) and use fraudulent packaging ploys to increase profits - example we bought a package of instant noodles - upon opening the package the "noodles inside were HALF the size that were normally packaged inside. Don't know if this is a Walmart issue or just a corrupt buyer embezzling money through kickbacks - but it's widespread - so that makes seem more like a Walmart fraudulent practices play until the government catches them and fines them yet again.
As for taxes on the auto industries - ALL high-tech and foreign investment firms enjoyed roughly a decade of preferential taxes - with a limit so all this whining about taxes is cow manure. They knew it was coming - just your typical winging and whining because they have to pay taxes just like everyone else.
In China - there is only ONE income tax for employees. Companies are burdened with the bulk of taxes and social benefits for their employees and truthfully, I prefer this system as no normal human being can actually fill out a US tax return. The US gov uses the complexity of the IRS rules and regulations to fraudulently steal billions (perhaps trillions) from it's not so sophisticated taxpayers - while mega corporations (e.g. Bank of America 2010) pay ZERO taxes - I'd call that akin to rape and sodomy.
Posted in: Foreigners in China squeezed by pensions, taxes
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seaforte03
Farmers in Japan face the same plight of farmers in the USA - allegedly the land of milk and honey - poverty. There is a way to reutilize idle agrarian resources without welfare, in a sustainable manner, which also contributes to the social economy - but you'll have to watch China to see how this plays out. The free market west is far too greedy and vicious to care about poor farmers who don't have enough money to contribute to various political campaigns - let alone pay for a bucket of golf balls at the exclusive membership only driving range.
China may be a so-so government - but it's doing well for a relatively new government. Second largest economy in the world - rapidly approaching super-power status - and they haven't even really ramped up yet. On top of that - China pays close attention to its rural areas - always the hotbed of revolutions and general rabble raising. While China (noted by the UN) has made consistent and steady progress towards poverty reduction and elimination, the US is hitting records - near depression are percentages of a rising socio-economic class of poverty stricken.
Domestic agriculture, like OIL, is a national security issue. No government can afford to be dependent on foreign imports of agro-goods.
The US solved the problem of poverty amongst farmers by allowing large corporations to take over the industry, effectively forcing most small farmers out of business. This resulted in some fairly serious consumer abuses - steroid laced meats, insecticide laced produce, and massive outbreaks of diseases such as salmonella, eboli, etc from lax quality control practices (a la the fukushima crisis perhaps, remember snow brand milk?).
Unfortunately - Japan will eventually migrate to the corporate agriculture model, once some corporate giant decides to enter the space. The only solution for farmers is to expand their product line using the resources at their disposal - that said - should be interesting to see how China addresses/resolves this problem.
Posted in: Farmers - last of the modern-day samurai
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seaforte03
Simply goes to show how the AP is a governmental propaganda yippy dog. Slanting and biasing the news. Jazcko's intolerance is more probably due to frustration at working with corrupt government officials and lazy ass government employees who just want to protect their industry subsidized government jobs and get good job recommendations and promotions from the four government shills.
Simple solution - find out how much the nuclear dogs paid directly or via lobby groups to the four public officials PACs (Political Action Committees - a legal term for bribery slush fund) or their re-election campaigns. If they're on NRC - they should be legally banned from accepting donations etc from the nuke dogs as a conflict of interest - but the gov shills wrote laws exempting themselves from conflict of interest bribes. Welcome to democracy - American style.
At least the gangsters in Japan are legalized, recognizable, and generally pay taxes.
Posted in: Jaczko's response to Japan crisis criticized by U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
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seaforte03
Aside from the lack of sleep and occasionally bewildering crying temper tantrums (babies need a change of scenery too and seem to cry out of frustration) - I miss the baby days - they were so cute and playful...and simple. Making them was also a blast (when it's somewhat planned).
Posted in: Baby carrier
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seaforte03
Intelligence is highly over-rated. FDR was assuredly receiving intel about potential Japanese attacks EVERYWHERE in an obvious intel subterfuge by Japan to spread our limited forces all over the place. That we piled them all up in Hawaii for the Japanese to take out in a single blaze of glory required some incredible political intelligence (what happens when politicians practice military strategy).
Did FDR know - of course he did, despite the nay-sayers. But he also had a plethora of other data to process - I'm guessing the theory was to mass the navy at Pearl so they could sail out in force once activated. The blunder occurred with the lax if not non-existent vigilance of maintaining a "safe perimeter" around the battle group.
Posted in: Did FDR conceal Pearl Harbor intelligence about Japanese attack?
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seaforte03
I for one am glad the USA invaded Japan - although I REALLY think WE are the victims now and NOT Japan - as we have to PAY to maintain our troops in this most idyllic of countries (aside from the occasional nuclear melt down and radiation poisoning).
We implemented a government which has become steeped in corruption - just like our government - I don't know if that was intentional - but amusing to observe.
Japan first broke the Geneva convention when it firebombed Shanghai - targeting civilians. They followed through with civilian massacres in Nanjing, etc etc - the list is endless. This man - just like US citizens - likes to blame everyone and anyone except his own leaders - just like the good old USA. Our politicians can point fingers everywhere except back at home where the evil and corruption were allowed to take root.
Posted in: The forever war
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seaforte03
Woodford is dreaming. A significant amount of Olympus business is generated through the complicated kairetsu relationships of it's board and senior executives. Woodfords idea to "clean up the board" comes with a serious if not suicidally catastrophic drop in revenues - he'll come out of this looking rather ugly if he actually manages to succeed. The board, meanwhile, can afford to outlast this foreigner - working behind his back to destroy his credibility, collapse the company's revenues, and generally be a major pain - while being verbose critics of every move he tries to make.
Should be amusing to watch...
Posted in: Woodford ramps up campaign to oust Olympus board
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seaforte03
Also - based on the above numbers - perhaps you all see why Japan and the USA are quite concerned - China WILL eventually shift the balance of economic power. with a population ten times the size of Japan and five times the size of the USA and already the world's #2 economy, what do you think will happen as the Chinese machine ramps up to it's full capacity? It will obviously overwhelmingly eclipse both Japan and the USA combined.
Kudos to Mr. Noda for his long-term vision - hopefully - China will be significantly more responsible as a global citizen than the USA - with it's long history of using military and violent covert interventions to interfere, oppress, and suppress the natural evolutions of foreign governments and sovereignties, in its quest for colonial domination of foreign sovereign natural resources and manipulate "world favor". BAD neighbor...BAD neighbor. For those of you who disagree - let's discuss using the US's complicated relationship with Mexico as a case study.
Posted in: Noda said Japan needs to tap into China's development
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seaforte03
The problem is the gap between politics and reality. Japanese companies are already somewhat entrenched in China - but how to differentiate between genuine low risk opportunities and outright frauds. Secondly - Japanese corporate mentality is colonial - the goal of Japanese corporations is to suck resource and money back to Japan - which doesn't work well in China. China prefers long-term companies that will contribute to the domestic infrastructure and employment - with heavy social responsibility. While the world criticizes China's state run enterprises - the simple fact is they provide massive employment for a country with 4-5x the population of the USA. Japan's population of 120-130 million roughly equates to a single large province in China (but kudos to Japan for being the world's #3 economy at roughly one-tenth the population and size of China).
Over the last ten years I've continuously provided major (USD 100 million+) contractual opportunities to both US and Japanese firms - the USA is simply unresponsive. Japanese firms have tried on multiple occasions to circumvent our NDA/Non Circumvention Agreements and use their own "guanxi" to circumvent my mandates - which shows their utter disrespect for entrenched Chinese processes. I can only be amused as circumvention of a mandate results in open bidding as opposed to sole sourcing (no corruption involved - we don't do that).
Our focus has changed from working with Japanese and US multinationals to the SME's. They're less prone to banditry although their lifecycle stability is always a risk.
Posted in: Noda said Japan needs to tap into China's development
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seaforte03
The fact that the police mentioned her husband has "gone missing"strongly implies they suspect her husband. He'll probably give himself up in a little while - plead temporary insanity, regret his actions, get off with a few years in the clink and probation for a "crime of passion". Probably yet another case of a nagging wife who just didn't know when to shut up. Although I don't condone family homicide - I also don't condone aberrant stupidity, although I'm beginning to suspect this may be a DNA imposed behavior in certain women.
Posted in: Woman found strangled in Kamakura
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seaforte03
If you've ever been stopped by a traffic cop - then you'll know for sure - ninja are still alive and practising the arts of camouflage and subterfuge - in giving out traffic tickets. Completely invisible until you make that illegal right turn, then POOF! the team materializes, waving you over to the side of the street.
Incredible, amazing, astonishing skills.
Posted in: Tokyo's really, really real ninja hideouts
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seaforte03
20,536 patient sampling size. Approximately 3,500 cancer patients. That's approximately a 17% incidence in patients at risk of cardiovascular disease. Extraordinarily high.
Posted in: Heart disease: Long-term study proves benefit of statins
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seaforte03
For those of you wondering about the organ harvesting - death row criminals must repay their debt to society - which includes food, board, laundry, utilities, legal assistance, and health care services - so they sell their organs to cover incidental prison expense and in some instances, to leave some things behind for their families.
Quite civilized, actually.
Posted in: China executes man for raping 14 schoolgirls
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seaforte03
Let's start with politicians - reduce their number, term limits to prevent chrony-ism, nepotism, and the resulting despotism - apparently prevalent in all democratic governments today. Corruption is rife in Japan, the USA, and other democratic governments because good government depends on a vigilant public. Not sure about Japan - but I know most voters in the USA are apathetic and irresponsible - typically voting for the "good looking" candidate or blindly following party recommendations as opposed to voting for the "right person".
Posted in: Global leaders have forgotten to clean up their economic mess
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seaforte03
Extraordinary negligence bordering on criminal behavior. And the hospital has the gall to say "correct" procedures were followed? I shudder to ponder the results of "incorrect" procedures.
Posted in: Wrong twin terminated in Australian hospital error
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seaforte03
johninnaha John - regardless of what's happening now - look back into the true history of that idyllic Tibet - you'll find that what's going on now looks more like a nunnery compared to the atrocities inflicted by the upper caste Tibetans (including the Dalai Lama) on their lower caste slaves - and yes - slavery was alive and well in Tibet until China kicked his CIA kissing ass out.
As a US citizen - I'm frequently appalled at the brutally oppressive governments we support in the name of democracy.
Posted in: South China Sea: a complex territorial dispute
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seaforte03
In the good ol USA - the video tapes would have been "misplaced".
Posted in: The case of Abubakar Awudu Suraj: A PR nightmare of Japan’s own making
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seaforte03
Guess Puroland doesn't count - but it's my FAVORITE place to take the little ones - especially when it's rainy and cold outside!
Posted in: Kanto with kids: The Tokyo area's best family outdoor adventures
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seaforte03
Absolutely fantastic - free disaster aid and anti-piracy for other sovereign nations - all of course, paid for with my tax dollars - deducted from my unemployment check - which runs out shortly - let's see the IRS tax nothing! Gyahahahaha...
Posted in: U.S. Marines to be based in Darwin