The Monday Read

Summer is here!

31 degrees with reasonable humidity: summer hit Sendai yesterday. It was nice, then it started feeling a bit too hot. Going to be a long, hot one this year methinks.

Last week I actually forgot to write the Monday Read. Apologies. Hopefully this week’s bumper edition will go some way towards making up for that.

This week’s links:

  1. Found this quite inspiring: IT’S TIME TO BUILD
  2. Japan needs to up its game, and that right soon: COVID-19 puts the squeeze on Japan’s most vulnerable
  3. RJ blog post from the past: Start investing
  4. Money for nothing? Foreign residents can get the Japanese government’s ¥100,000 coronavirus stimulus – here’s how
  5. Good. The Collapse of the Energy Sector
  6. Food for thought: What’s different this time
  7. I don’t like video calls, but these things help: Zoom tips for the modern age
  8. Gosh, really? More support for small businesses, please: Japan downgrades assessment of economy to ‘getting worse rapidly’
  9. This guy is my hero: How do I work?
  10. Interesting video report on Japanese hospitals: Coronavirus: Tokyo hospitals trying to stay ahead
  11. Detailed condemnation of US health insurance: EMPLOYER PROVIDED HEALTH INSURANCE DELENDA EST
  12. Unknowns squared: How things are, in a few short words
  13. I found this quite useful last week: How to Get Out of a Rut in About 20 Minutes
  14. I’m pretty similar: Some Crisis Investing Lessons From My Fun Portfolio
  15. Is Akiya Bank counterproductive? A Solution To Japan’s ‘Abandoned’ Homes?
  16. If the aliens could just take a number and wait in line, that would be great: The Villager And The F-18
  17. Tower manshons never appealed, but I didn’t know they were this bad: The now and future isolated
  18. Hadn’t seen this explanation of why the US stock market has done better than Japan before: Why value died
  19. Peak Japan? Japan to introduce online system for reporting coronavirus

What do you think? Anything good in there? I enjoyed #11 and #17.

3 Responses

  2. A lot of food for thought here. #18’s blog is a great education resource, I started on the first article and just kept clicking in deeper and deeper. Not a bad time to have good reading materials 🙂

  3. #17 is spot on – having worked on office tower buildings the upkeep cost just accelerates as you add floors. Plumbing, HVAC, curtain walls, elevators, etc… the list just goes on.

    Best to stick to 4 floors RC construction “mashoons” or plan on selling every 10 years.

    Some of Tama New Town houses are also seeing some comeback as cheap but convenient places to live. The grinding push down on salaries and higher taxes are pushing people into these units and to be honest, they are thankful for them.