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Aren't the vast majority of them owned by ethnic koreans? I would have thought the diet would love to antagonize/tax them.
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Aug 26, 2014 11:17
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Wait, aren't they 90% owned by North Koreans?
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Aug 26, 2014 11:18
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ookiimarukochan posted:Probably because all the pachinko places that aren't owned by the Yakuza are owned by retired cops, and so the Diet don't want to antagonise them. Japanese politicians unwilling to antagonize the elderly? How novel.
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Aug 26, 2014 13:12
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Samurai Sanders posted:You exchange them for a prize, and then you walk around the corner to an unmarked storefront and they exchange the prize for yen. That's enough to make the cops look the other way. Like I said, they're experts at looking the other way. Yup. I had multiple adult students when I was teaching English in Japan explain the whole thing to me (so I, a Canadian English teacher, was apparently a more capable crime solver than the Japanese police force), although my interpretation was that the introduction of the middleman made everything pretty much legal. I mean, you can, separately, legally play Pachinko for prizes, and you can take pretty much anything to a licensed pawn shop (well, not like prescription meds and stuff like that, you know what I mean) and sell it for money. So what if the pachinko parlor and pawn shop are right next to each other and owned and operated by the same people? 
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Aug 26, 2014 13:30
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Mercury_Storm posted:So would people freak out if there was an effort to ~~~Legalize It~~~? Gambling, that is. A bunch of my coworkers and friend's coworkers got really uneasy when we mentioned that some states in the US were legalizing weed, but I don't know if people actually care about gambling. I dunno about freaking out. Abe's looking to legalize casinos before the olympics. It's something that's on the table, at least. I really have no idea why Japan freaks out about marijuana to the extent that they do. The punishments are incredibly severe, and they seem to think that places legalizing it are crazy.
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Aug 26, 2014 15:24
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Bakanogami posted:I dunno about freaking out. Abe's looking to legalize casinos before the olympics. It's something that's on the table, at least. It's not just japan, it's all of East Asia.
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Aug 26, 2014 15:26
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Any links to good Japanese/SE Asian reactions to some US states legalizing weed in english? Can't read/speak Japanese and auto translators can only do so (little) much.
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Aug 26, 2014 15:30
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To be fair the prizes are gold and silver. And any other prize is pretty much a 1 to 1 trade for the value of the balls but sometimes you get less than 1 to 1 with the gold/silver. It is kind of insane to see people trading in huge stacks of the gold cases for thousands of dollars.
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Aug 26, 2014 15:33
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I really don't think Americans get to complain about other countries overreacting to drugs just because a couple states have decriminalized or legalized marijuana.
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Aug 26, 2014 15:42
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Bakanogami posted:I really have no idea why Japan freaks out about marijuana to the extent that they do. The punishments are incredibly severe, and they seem to think that places legalizing it are crazy. The gist I got when I was over there (and looking for weed) is that it's illegal and therefore it's bad; they wouldn't have made it illegal otherwise. No further explanation given.
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Aug 26, 2014 15:48
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Bakanogami posted:I dunno about freaking out. Abe's looking to legalize casinos before the olympics. It's something that's on the table, at least. There's not really a history of marijuana smoking in Japan, not even in stories or chronicles. That doesn't mean they didn't have it at all--Japanese clothes used to be made wholly from hemp, for one, which was a total gut-punch to textile manufacturing when it was all banned by the American occupation--but aside from a chuckle or two about the fields smelling awfully funny during harvest season it just isn't there. They were totally aware of the notion of smoking tobacco, though (which the shogunate banned but the emperor was still like "gently caress y'all" and doled it out as prizes). If I had to guess, I'd say native Japanese hemp just doesn't have enough THC to make it worth smoking. As for now, though... Japan Tobacco is still part of the government and they make a ton of money off tobacco products, so keeping people scared of the alternative is pretty much a given. edit PC LOAD LETTER posted:Any links to good Japanese/SE Asian reactions to some US states legalizing weed in english? Can't read/speak Japanese and auto translators can only do so (little) much. As far as I remember not a single station reported on that. Lest anyone think marijuana's less debilitating than a night of highballs! Vice has some videos about it, they should be subtitled. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49pWTyj7ZI4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHKOOh01nhs Reverend Cheddar fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Aug 26, 2014 |
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Aug 26, 2014 15:51
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Reverend Cheddar posted:As for now, though... Japan Tobacco is still part of the government and they make a ton of money off tobacco products, so keeping people scared of the alternative is pretty much a given. This reason for making it illegal has never made the slightest bit of sense to me, be it Japan or the US. They could just easily expand their business to start selling tobacco and weed. It seems as ridiculous as the watermelon farming industry getting cantaloupes or strawberries outlawed because they are edging in on what people might buy and eat.
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Aug 26, 2014 19:48
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I think cigs are like way more addictive than pot, so if people were smoking pot they could quit at will instead of giving the makers a constant income.
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Aug 26, 2014 19:50
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Reverend Cheddar posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49pWTyj7ZI4
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Aug 27, 2014 06:52
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Why isn't the pachinko middleman technique used for any other type of gambling? It sounds like you could run a full Vegas style casino on the principle.
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Aug 27, 2014 07:40
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Bloodnose posted:Why isn't the pachinko middleman technique used for any other type of gambling? It sounds like you could run a full Vegas style casino on the principle.
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Aug 27, 2014 09:07
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Bloodnose posted:Why isn't the pachinko middleman technique used for any other type of gambling? It sounds like you could run a full Vegas style casino on the principle. Pretty much every country's gambling law is hosed up and make no sense.
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Aug 27, 2014 12:43
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quote:Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a written message in April to an annual memorial ceremony honoring Class-A and other war criminals, hailing those executed by the Allied powers as "the foundation of their nation," The Asahi Shimbun has learned.
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Aug 27, 2014 14:29
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I thought Abe was not going to do it this year because he wants to talk to Xi in a up coming economic summit?
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Aug 27, 2014 16:25
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whatever7 posted:I thought Abe was not going to do it this year because he wants to talk to Xi in a up coming economic summit? mystes fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Aug 27, 2014 |
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Aug 27, 2014 16:33
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How the hell do they justify that?
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Aug 27, 2014 16:42
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Koramei posted:How the hell do they justify that?
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Aug 27, 2014 16:47
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How does America justify having war criminals and rapists on our money? Pretty sure the first step is to not think of the people in question as war criminals.
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Aug 27, 2014 17:10
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Wittgen posted:How does America justify having war criminals and rapists on our money? Pretty sure the first step is to not think of the people in question as war criminals. yeah, let's just equivocate out everything here.
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Aug 27, 2014 17:16
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dilbertschalter posted:yeah, let's just equivocate out everything here. Washington and Jefferson maybe, but there is no way a sane person could say that Jackson was not a war criminal.
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Aug 27, 2014 17:27
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I'm not defending Abe. What he's doing is lovely. I just think it's not some weird alien thing that he's doing. Lots of people in lots of countries uphold shameful events or horrible people as important, esteemed parts of their history. Koramei asked how you justify something like this. I think it's easier to understand if you think about how similar justifications closer to you are made. (I don't actually know what country you're from, Koramei, so sorry if it's not actually useful to you.)
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Aug 27, 2014 17:27
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Koramei posted:How the hell do they justify that? Think about who Abe's grandfather is.
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Aug 27, 2014 17:30
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Koramei posted:How the hell do they justify that? He thinks he will get enough right wing votes to ignore the part of the Japan who want to make peace with China/Korea. Also he thinks restarting the military industry including military export is a viable economic strategy. Badger of Basra posted:Washington and Jefferson maybe, but there is no way a sane person could say that Jackson was not a war criminal. whatever7 fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Aug 27, 2014 |
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Aug 27, 2014 18:19
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It's somewhat more despicable and less equivocatable when the people are actually convicted war criminals. Jackson got away with it and is on money. Same with Mao. They were bad, yes. But the fact that they were on the winning side of history means it's Less Bad to honor them.
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Aug 27, 2014 18:31
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Oh for gently caress's sake, Abe.
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Aug 27, 2014 18:49
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I dunno, given Jackson's pure hatred for the Bank of the United States, it seems a fitting irony that he should prominently feature on one of the most common and valuable denominations of yet another central bank. 
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Aug 27, 2014 20:42
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whatever7 posted:Pretty much every country's gambling law is hosed up and make no sense. Gambling is a weird industry because where it's illegal it thrives immensely thanks to organized crime and where its legal its a massive target for people to complain about sin and moral decay. I may be misunderstanding, but the politicians are more or less calling b.s on the Japanese police stance of "We don't know this is going on" and want to legalize it and get a huge boost to tax revenue. Given Japan's economic issues I can see starting to target industries like that for the additional revenue being really popular among politicians but they're going up against insane amounts of inertia from the police. Farmer Crack-rear end posted:I dunno, given Jackson's pure hatred for the Bank of the United States, it seems a fitting irony that he should prominently feature on one of the most common and valuable denominations of yet another central bank. Nothing is more likely to make Jackson roll over in his grave, except maybe for the state of Georgia being given back to the Cherokee.
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Aug 27, 2014 20:51
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How big are Japan's economic issues?
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Aug 27, 2014 20:53
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Kurtofan posted:How big are Japan's economic issues?  Just the loans issue is insurmountable without defaulting, basically. Japan is like Greece or Portugal or Ireland except there's no one to bail them out and also their loan to GDP ratio is even worse. And then you have all of the other structural/cultural issues that combine to make it even more of a clusterfuck than usual. Queue someone chiming in with how "it's mostly privately held" as if that will matter when it's no longer possible to keep their heads buried in the sand and go "lalalala this isn't happening to meeee". Edit: fuckin' lol according to Bloomberg about 43% of Japan's yearly budget is funded by bond sales. That number plus some quick math shows that about 10% of the national budget is spent just on servicing debt interest payments, nice! Sheep fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Aug 27, 2014 |
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Aug 27, 2014 21:35
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Yeah, poo poo is seriously hosed.
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Aug 27, 2014 21:37
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How come Singapore's debt is so high. Are they buying all their high tech submarines and casinos on credit cards?
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Aug 27, 2014 21:43
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whatever7 posted:How come Singapore's debt is so high. Are they buying all their high tech submarines and casinos on credit cards? The reports go by gross debt rather than net debt. Japan is actually pretty far down on the net debt list but they're still sitting at 60% of GDP with a rapidly shrinking and aging population so it's all downhill no matter how you cut it. Sheep fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Aug 27, 2014 |
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Aug 27, 2014 21:47
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Bloodnose posted:It's somewhat more despicable and less equivocatable when the people are actually convicted war criminals. Jackson got away with it and is on money. Same with Mao. They were bad, yes. But the fact that they were on the winning side of history means it's Less Bad to honor them. What makes it feel so silly is that while there are various things Andrew Jackson did that Americans are proud of and the same is true for Mao and Chinese people, the "Showa martyrs" were failures in just about every imaginable way. Japan lost two million soldiers, a million or so civilians, many of its major cities were leveled and after the war it lost its pre-conflict colonial empire and had its system of government rewritten by an occupying power. You can say that Jackson helped usher in a new democratic era and took on predatory financial interests, that Mao modernized China in various important ways (not that that sort of praise is necessarily correct or that it outweighs the bad things, but it's quite common in both cases), whereas with Japan from 1937 to 1945 the big "achievement" is 20 million+ dead Chinese and South Asian civilians. dilbertschalter fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Aug 27, 2014 |
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Aug 27, 2014 23:05
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Kurtofan posted:How big are Japan's economic issues? I do not expect Japan to make it to the 2020 Olympics without some serious poo poo going down. Japan keeps dumping money into the economy to keep it going, but it does so in a really lovely inefficient way due to vested interests. This might be tolerable if Japan's economy was still growing, but due to a lovely women/family unfriendly business culture and a xenophobic populace that prevent much immigration, the population is declining and with it any chance of growth. Combine this with the fact that the populace is aging and it gets even worse. In 20 years, the main export of Japan might be horrifying news stories about the impoverished elderly being eaten by wild dogs while scavenging for food.
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Aug 27, 2014 23:09
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dilbertschalter posted:What makes it feel so silly is that while there are various things Andrew Jackson did that Americans are proud of and the same is true for Mao and Chinese people, the "Showa martyrs" were failures in just about every imaginable way. Japan lost two million soldiers, a million or so civilians, many of its major cities were leveled and after the war it lost its pre-conflict colonial empire and had its system of government rewritten by an occupying power. You can say that Jackson helped usher in a new democratic era and took on predatory financial interests, that Mao modernized China in various important ways (not that that sort of praise is necessarily correct or that it outweighs the bad things, but it's quite common in both cases), whereas with Japan from 1937 to 1945 the big "achievement" is 20 million+ dead Chinese and South Asian civilians. no no no, they died so that many of the rich and powerful responsible for creating the terrible economic conditions which allowed right wing nationalism to blossom in japan could remain there it's the most noble thing a prole can do for its master
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Aug 27, 2014 23:13
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