The Monday Read

Don’t GoTo edition

Having been quite lucky with the first few months of the pandemic, the Japanese government has decided that life is not interesting enough, and is pressing ahead with promoting tourism (the GoTo campaign), reopening sports (sumo, baseball, etc.) with spectators, and generally behaving as if the virus has just gone away.

I fear this will end… poorly.

Personal Finance at University

Once again I am teaching a university course on personal finance (it’s supposed to be an English class but I hijacked it). Every time I do this the students blow me away with how well they take to the material.

This is one student’s take on the stock market:

The course is online this time and while I miss the interaction with the students, delivering the content via articles and videos seems to work well enough. I’ve learned a lot, so a RetireJapan online course for adults might be in the works…

This week’s links

  1. Pretty scathing: Covid-19 Creates New Headwind for Abe’s Vow to Promote Women
  2. Not much of a surprise: Bank of Japan downgrades all regional economies due to coronavirus
  3. I’ve been donating to charity:water every month for the last few years: Sixty orbits
  4. Great news! Congratulations StockBeard 🙂 Suddenly FI
  5. I think this is insane right now. Would rather see them put prices up: Shinkansen tickets on sale for half regular price until spring of next year in east Japan travel push
  6. RetireJapan blog post from the past: Personal Finance Ability Scores
  7. I really enjoyed this video, possibly because I have no idea when I’ll be able to travel again: Europe Travel
  8. And I have become midly addicted to this YouTube board game channel, even though there is little chance I will ever play any of these games… Twilight Imperium
  9. This, as written, seems like an incentive to get infected. I hope they can structure it a little better to avoid unwanted outcomes: Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward to give ¥100,000 to each infected resident
  10. As much as possible without making yourself miserable: How much should you save?
  11. This seems extremely optimistic to me: It’s 2022. What Does Life Look Like?
  12. Wait, what? GDP Update: -52.8%
  13. They could have put this money into renewable energy: Make Mine Maglev (2)
  14. We hit 7,000 posts on the RetireJapan Forum this week 🙂
  15. The website to apply for rent support (for businesses/freelancers) is finally up: 家賃支援給付金
  16. It would be nice if the police enforced the existing laws, for all road users: Violators, beware: Police finally put some teeth in cycling laws
  17. Other than having promised the money to their mates, I can’t understand why the government would go ahead with this right now: Local officials fear ‘Go To’ tourism plan will only spread virus
  18. I see this as good news. We need to rethink society anyway, or our children and grandchildren will live in a much less pleasant world: Fertility rate: ‘Jaw-dropping’ global crash in children being born

Quite a substantial Monday Read this week! Anything good in there? I was really pleased to see #4 and enjoyed #7 and #8.

This week’s books

Not much reading this week, unfortunately.

4 Responses

  1. Not much comment this time around. One of our kids and family have decided not to visit the first week of August (their company shuts down for a week). Their smallest doesn’t like riding in the car seat, and it’d be a 6-7 hour drive. The alternative was trains, either changing in Tokyo or Maibara, and they didn’t want to risk the exposure. That would be too early for the discounts (#5), but money/price wasn’t the concern. They have two kids already, so kind of keeping #18 at bay. Maybe I’ll drive over to their place, which would be my first travel for the year (#7). For international, instead of europe, I’d someday like to get back to Vietnam.

    My wife’s decision to retire next March has become public knowledge at her school. The running joke between us is that she should have left this year and avoided the upheaval, along with having to train other faculty on zoom. I guess this is connected a little to #4, in that we’re both going to be retired.

  2. Is there anyway we can invest in “modernizing Japan”?
    Such as more card and less cash.
    Definitely less hanko and more internet solutions.
    Any ideas?

  3. If I could recommend a very new and timely book, “Why Gold? Why Now? The War Against Your Wealth and How to Win It” by E.B. Tucker is first on my list. It’s available on Amazon Japan for a little over 2,000 yen. He claims that we are only in the first inning of the gold bull market.