The Monday Read

January is over

Very cold in Sendai the last few days -seems like I am feeling it more this year… age? Illness?

No flu yet though, fingers crossed on that one 🙂

Here are this week’s links:

1. How are your plans looking? If your Golden Week trip’s not reserved yet, it might already be too late
2. Good news. This advances electric vehicles and renewable power: Toyota, Panasonic to jointly produce electric car batteries
3. Are banks here overexposed? Time to worry about Japanese banks — again
4. This seems like a total overreaction: because a few hundred bank accounts (out of billions in Japan) were sold to (probably Japanese) criminals, the government is considering implementing new checks and paperwork… 外国人の口座売買、犯罪に悪用後絶たず　対策強化「差別」懸念も　金融機関、対応に苦慮
5. Nuclear energy is not economically viable (was it ever?): Hitachi chief’s remarks on nuclear industry spark debate
6. Seems I need to apply this to my blog posts: How to Be Memorable
7. No brainer? Diversification is (Almost) Undefeated
8. I need to work on five of these six daily habits… YOUR GOALS ARE OVERRATED
9. The obvious next step: European power firms aim to harness electric car batteries
10. Good stories in here (some of which we have featured in the Monday Read): Pocket Top Content of 2018
11. I like Mr Tako’s approach: Growing Dividends In 2019
12. That’s not worrying at all… my flat is less than seven metres above sea level: Greenland’s ice melting faster than scientists previously thought – study
13. Japan needs a lot more of this: sharing records between hospitals and using apps to reduce clinic visits would be a nice start. Healthcare – What We’re Looking For
14. Great Q&A about diet: The Last Conversation You’ll Ever Need to Have About Eating Right
15. I wonder where my blind spots are? With Lifelong Struggles, Effort Isn’t What’s Missing
16. Enough: The Biggest Returns
17. I think this is a bit extreme: Beware, your pension is vanishing
18. This guy is my hero: In smoker’s paradise Japan, 81-year-old Bungaku Watanabe has spent decades leading a war on tobacco
19. This seems like a great idea to keep productive: It or Nothing
20. Found this quite moving: There Is no God, but Gods
21. This simple online game shows why our online environment is so dangerous: The Evolution of Trust
22. This is fine. We’ll just use that other planet we have in reserve: ‘Worrying’ rise in global CO2 forecast for 2019
23. 60% of cases are not prosecuted: Order in the Court: Explaining Japan’s 99.9% Conviction Rate
24. This is great advice: There’s always a next recession, so be prepared
25. I would like to double my money please: Double Your Money
26. These are big numbers, but they’d need ten times as many to make up for the plummeting workforce: No. of foreign workers in Japan triples in decade to record 1.46 million
27. Short- and long-term bonds have very similar yields right now: Shifting Risks in the Bond Market
28. I don’t do this enough: Lincoln’s Axe and Frugality
29. Really quite deep: The Art of Decision-Making
30. LOVE this poem: My Wage
31. Fascinating analysis of Costco’s business model: The Resilience of Costco

Phew. Quite the doorstopper edition today! Anything you liked in there? I was impressed with #8, #14, #18, #23, #30, and #31.

No new books this week. You can pretty much tell how busy I am from the number of books I read 😉