The Monday Read: Post 900

Welcome to The Monday Read, RetireJapan’s weekly collection of content, musings, and links related to personal finance and life in Japan.

This is our 900th post on this blog. Yikes! The first post went live on December 4th, 2013. I don’t think anyone read it at the time 😉

Any ideas to celebrate the 1000 post? Should be sometime next year.

YouTube

Thank you for your support of the RetireJapan YouTube channel. We published a new style of video this week, a short interview. I hope you enjoy it!

Choosing Japanese stocks: a conversation with Konichivalue

Please watch, share, like, and subscribe 🙂

The Forum

The Forum is doing well (29,746 posts so far). Here are the latest active threads:

This week’s books

No new books this week, I’ve been binging Stranger Things instead!

Really enjoyed it, but the quality definitely drops as you go through the series: Series 1 is the best, followed closely by Series 2. Series 3 really got sloppy, and Series 4 so far has been pretty bad (I’m a couple of episodes in). Kind of like The Matrix movies: first one definitely worth watching, 2 and 3 maybe, but avoid 4 😉

This week’s links

  1. Is it? The 60/40 Portfolio is Alive & Well
  2. Of course Derek does… Need Some Goats
  3. This is great: I hope there is something similar in Japan (but I suspect not). How I turned prisoners’ misery into reading pleasure: the brilliant story of Bang Up Books
  4. Nice write-up: UR: Tokyo’s Best Kept Housing Secret for Foreigners
  5. More AI scariness (YouTube): Google’s DeepMind Co-founder: AI Is Becoming More Dangerous And Threatening! – Mustafa Suleyman
  6. I would love to talk to these people (400,000 yen a month on whole life insurance premiums): 37歳で金融資産1500万円＋将来1億円超の貯蓄達人。「保険料毎月40万円が正常なのか異常なのか、自分でもわかりません」
  7. This seems like something China would be better at (AI, mass production): Pentagon drone swarm strategy aims to counter Chinese military
  8. This reads close to mental illness… I got my Amex Platinum for the clout — but I’m educating myself about the risks
  9. I’m not optimistic about this: Chasm between climate action and scientific reality laid bare in UN stocktake
  10. This was a good read: Intelligent vs. Smart

What do you think? Anything interesting in there?

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5 Responses

  1. I liked the UR article. I moved into a UR apartment last year and it was a straightforward process and the apartment is well made with no pose from other units. It’s probably the only made for rental housing I would consider renting. For anyone looking to rent, I would recommend either UR or looking for manshons that were built for sale originally (分譲賃貸 -bunjou chintai).

  2. The UR article. So helpful, had no idea, thank you!! Also, regarding AI, if you talk to them regularly, you will feel the “attitude”.

  4. I’ve lived in a UR for the last 10 years and it’s been great! I moved once between apartments, and the cleaning and repair fees were ridiculously cheap. Like less than 4000 yen total. I don’t think I could go back to renting from scummy landlords and real estate agents. The next move will either be with UR or moving into our own place.

  5. #1: Looking 10 years into the future, when I plan to retire, including projected UK and JP pensions and my Apple stock even at current value, my projected bond allocation is too small a proportion to be relevant. So, no, 60/40 has no meaning for me.