The Monday Read

Climate Madness Edition

I’ve always been somewhat concerned about climate change and environmental issues, but it seems to be accelerating recently even faster than I imagined. One of my daughters lives in Vancouver, which made the whole ‘heat dome’ thing much more real, and then we have the rain/landslides in Japan this week.

I wonder what impacts we’ll see in the future in terms of changes to daily life, etc. Something else to keep in mind when planning for the future, I guess.

Goodbye Facebook

I’m going to shut down the RetireJapan Facebook page. We’ll leave it up as a placeholder (mainly ’cause I can’t find the delete button) but not use it actively any more.

A couple of reasons, mainly that Facebook has ruined the user experience with their new pages thing, and also because I don’t like them as a company and don’t want to support them in any way.

The best way to keep up with RetireJapan is to join the email list on the site, or follow Ben on Twitter.

The forum

The forum was pretty active this week:

This week’s books

I’ve been reading Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius this week. What an incredible work, that it still seems fresh and relevant almost 2,000 years later.

This week’s links

  1. 8.5m akiya! Japan is trying to lure people into rural areas by selling $500 homes, but it’s not enough to fix the country’s ‘ghost town’ problem
  2. Managing risk: Idiots, Maniacs & the Complexities of Risk
  3. Fantastic RetireJapan guest post from the past: Your local bank
  4. Interesting stuff from Vitaliy as ever: How we invest in inflation
  5. FI yes, RE no: More FIRE fighting
  6. A big step backwards: The Vaccination Game: The Self-Defense Forces Vaccination Center was run smoothly but no-appointment days are over
  7. Some ideas on investing for and teaching kids (UK focused): How to future proof your kids’ financial future
  8. Completely agree with this. Sort out the big expenses and pay yourself first, then other spending doesn’t matter very much: Marshmellows
  9. Pretty grim reading: Canada is a warning: more and more of the world will soon be too hot for humans
  10. I’m pretty happy that Sendai didn’t have the same numbers of tourists as other big cities even before Covid: Japan with no tourists: a true blessing
  11. Win-win as long as it isn’t just for show: Japan’s Green Push Opens Path to Talent Outside Old Men’s Club
  12. Really interesting read about why it can take a long time for companies to die: The long slow short
  13. Healthcare, recruitment, food delivery: The Japanese Stocks Shaking Up Daily Life
  14. Obvious enough to those of us who have been here for a while: Real Japan: Why Everything You’ve Heard is Wrong
  15. Probably invest it in dividend stocks… What Would You Do with a Hundred Grand Right Now?
  16. A former colleague of mine, it seems. Haven’t seen many articles like this about Japan: Prejudice against immigrants explained in numbers
  17. Greta still has it but I have yet to see a single major government do anything that resembles taking this seriously: Austrian World Summit 2021 – Greta Thunberg Speech

What do you think? Anything good in there? For me #3, #4, and #12 were the hightlights this week.

6 Responses

  1. With the advent of (Transfer)Wise, online banking and finally getting my investments under my own management, I almost never have to meet anyone from the bank any more. Probably for the best! Thanks for including this again!

  2. Have been concerned about climate since I saw that Al Gore movie some years back. I have a brother back at home in Ireland and he sees first hand the drastic changes in the last few years, this really seems to be accelerating now…
    There is a new documentary in Netflix about this which is very good: Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb6wQtNjblk

    There is a warning from David Attenborough of a significant event within the next few years at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dunm6DF78j4

    I have a young daughter and worry about the future she will experience… Its frustrating to see the waste sometimes by people buying more car than than they need and such. There was a house for sale down from me that has been for sale for the last few years, it was a fine two story house and on a plot of land and the asking price was 80 Mil. Anyway I am not sure if it was sold, or the seller got tired of waiting, but red earth now exists instead of this house, it was totally demolished, what a total waste.. People doing stuff like this in my opinion should pay a carbon tax as we will all in the end pay for this, as well as our children

  4. No 3 , from GoodandbadJapan:
    This sums up the experience of so many of us, I feel.
    Investing = gambling, trust the nice people at the bank or the post office (!), they will keep our money safe for us…

    I have actually spoken to 2 different banks about their NISA line-ups. The first was before I started with Rakuten. My question was ‘what do you offer that I can’t get from an online broker?’ It caused quite the hullabaloo and the lady had to bring in reinforcements to help her. Eventually they came up with ‘you can come to the branch and we can give you advice if you need it.’ They knew it was weak even as they said it.
    More recently, at another bank, I looked through their leaflet. The bank manager, who we have been talking to, said rather apologetically ‘Our NISA plans are really for beginner investors. Since you have already started investing elsewhere, you don’t need our services.’

    That’s it in a nutshell, really. Use the bank to get your salary paid into, and any automated payments you need to make each month. Use a broker for investments.

  5. No. 10 – I really have mixed feelings about this. It is not just Japan, I have read articles or heard praise about the lack of tourists in numerous places. Basically everyone hates tourists and it has made me realize that tourism is a real drain on the quality of life for the residents of tourism hot spots. But at the same time I have been (and hope to be again) a tourist and so while i agree that tourists can be annoying, it is a 2 way street. Tourism also promotes cultural sharing and a greater understanding between peoples.

    Anyway, I really hope that the complete shut-down of tourism over the last 16 months will spur the industry and governments to think more carefully about how to encourage a more sustainable form of tourism. I definitely would like to see the end of cheap package tour tourism and considering the amount of CO2 airplanes produce, fuel tax should be much much higher. The race to the bottom for tourist dollars has been a lose-lose situation in many ways.

    1. Yeah, my understanding is the airline fuel is not taxed at all, something that seems like it should be remedied tout de suite.

      I hope to do some slow travelling in the future, once (if) we get to a post-Covid world.