Tag: fraud

How to swindle your Sugar Daddy

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[Music]

Okay, so any HK is something
I’ve talked about many times.

Any HK is a TV channel.

It’s the National Broadcasting Channel.

That’s fine.

You are obligated to pay for it
if you enter into the contract.

So it gets a lot of heat because a lot
of people don’t want to pay or don’t pay

and then they come after
them and it’s shit like that.

So it’s sort of an antiquated idea, especially
in the age of streaming and whatnot.

And they don’t do a lot to compete.

So I don’t have a lot of love for NHK.

And then I found out that the president of
NHK, I decided to switch the company from

a seniority-based system to a merit-based
system, which is something I really

appreciate because it means one of my
biggest complaints about Japan’s society,

primarily politics, but this
works as in corporations as well.

As a seniority is overvalued.

You have people who are
put in a position because

they’re old or they’ve
been there forever.

They haven’t innovated
or learned anything new.

So the company or in this case, politics
or whatnot does not innovate along with it.

And that’s how you
end up with antiquated

ideas being pushed
through and the minister of

technology not knowing
anything about technology.

That’s all based on seniority.

So he did a lot of things.

So the former NHK
president who retired the

January introduced a number
of new measures such as

eliminating the seniority system
and professional sectionalism.

However, the movement a strong
backlash from within the broadcaster,

including a claim that a
strong of employees have

left due to the abrupt
changes in the system.

The current NHK leadership
has therefore decided

to amend the personnel policy
to replace the system entirely.

Basically what they’re
saying is that you had

all these people in senior positions
and this good dude comes in.

He’s like, you don’t deserve your
senior positions or maybe you do.

Let’s find out.

Let’s create a meritocracy
and you can keep your position.

But anyone coming up,
they’re not going to come

up because they’re your
flunky or because of their age.

They’re going to come up
because they actually have skills.

And all the people who
are probably, now I assume,

not particularly skilled
or didn’t really deserve

their position, they’re
all like, no, that system

sucks because I might
not get to keep my job.

So then as soon as this
guy retires really quickly

right afterwards, they’re
like, we’re going to

bail on that system created and go back to
the old system where I get to keep my job.

And that’s one of the
problems with the senior

people being in charge
and the people in power

being in charge because
what they have to do is

consolidate power to make
sure they can keep their power.

So another quote from
the article during his

tenure made a laid out
policy to cut back on the

ratio of managerial posts
from the 30% range to 20% rate.

So he’s wants to cut 10% of the
managers and put them down or retire them.

He introduced exams for
appointed managerial staffs.

So you couldn’t just be
like, I’ve been here 10 years.

I deserve to be a manager.

You’re like, now you
have to pass a test with

the aim of scrapping
the seniority system by

promoting junior and mid
level career employees.

He also offered an early
retirement plan for those

in their 50s and supported
their reemployment.

He also introduced the
system to relieve staff

from managerial posts after
they have reached a certain age.

This is all stuff that I said
should happen in politics in Japan.

I think it should be universal.

I think there should be an upper
limit of the age of politicians.

A lot of the politicians
when they hit their

70s, they’re not in the right space
to be running countries anymore.

Just like these guys probably aren’t in the
right space to be running new amendments.

Like the guys in their
50s, myself included,

they’re not really the ones we’re
going to be innovating a system.

Maybe they can take a system
and make it work with system.

They already know, but they’re not going
to be innovating and making new things.

They’re not going to be
jumping onto the Internet.

They’re going to not
going to be creating a new

system for NHK to move
forward into the future.

And if they don’t know
the technology, if they

don’t know what’s going
on, if they can’t pass

these tests, they certainly
don’t deserve the position.

So that was very interesting to me.

These are all steps that I think
companies and governments should take.

Sure, the thing that I
actually was most interested

in was it was mid-level
career people with

skills could then surpass
senior level people.

And so you would have the best
people in position to actually do a job.

And that is incredibly
antithetical to the way

Japanese work, culture,
and political culture works.

So I really, really was
excited that this happened.

But of course, I didn’t
learn about it until

that system would have been
scrapped, which is complete bullshit.

According to multiple
individuals close to

NHK, NHK board members
of the executive body

held a meeting in early July to discuss
the personnel system introduced by Meida.

So these are all the people, most at risk.

These are the oldest
people, these are the people

who achieve their
position through seniority.

They’re not necessarily the most skilled
people, but they’re the people with power.

The attendees analyzed the system made
light of senior employees, which it should,

and reported it gave a rise
to promotions in assignments

that didn’t match
personnel evaluations on site.

So what they’re saying
is people are getting

promoted, and they’re not getting
promoted in the way I got promoted.

I got promoted because
I put my time in there,

my time in, and the
time’s what matters.

But the reality is in a business
time is not what mattered.

It’s skill.

So I’ve met many people
who have worked the same

job for many years,
and they will talk to you

about how they have so much experience
at their job at the thing they do.

They fail to take into account.

They’ve never had a good evaluation.

They’ve never done a good job.

So I’ve been working at the same company.

I’ve had the same job for 20 years.

That sounds like a good thing.

But if you haven’t done a good
day in 20 years, that’s problematic.

That’s something to be aware of.

So this guy, Maeda, the
former NHK president,

sounds like the kind
of guy I want in charge,

because he’s like, let’s make changes,
and let’s make the people who come up,

be the best people to
drive NHK into the future.

I want to do the same thing in politics.

Let’s have the people come up, be the
innovators who actually understand technology

and the problems that
society is going to face

into the future, and have
them drive Japan into the future.

But of course, as soon as he stepped
aside a little bit, everyone’s like, well,

you’re into that crap that might make me
lose my job in my bonus and make me retire,

because I don’t do much
work, but I get to sit at my desk.

I don’t know why my senior Japanese
executives have sort of Western exe.

I want a little cowboy there.

But let’s face it, it’s
that cowboy attitude

that’s going to get
you through the day.

Okay, this is weird Japanese politics.

The director of women’s
affairs division has

agreed to step down because of literally
the most Japanese photo I’ve ever seen.

So she went to Paris
on a fact-finding mission

and to do research
into women’s issues and

stuff and to look at
how other countries are

handling it and there’s sort of a conference
and important women leaders are there.

There’s a previous
one I actually didn’t talk

about where it was like G7 countries all
sent a representative for women’s issues.

Japan sent a man.

So they have this
picture and it’s like six, I

assume very powerful women in politics from
their countries and this Japanese dude.

I mean, because of
course, who’s going to speak

on behalf of Japanese women, but at
Japanese man, that only makes sense.

This is the way it’s done.

Found that funny, but I think
they’ve maybe swapped out.

So anyways, this lady
went to Paris and she’s

doing the work she’s
supposed to be doing

and she’s out in front
of the Eiffel Tower and

she’s with two other
ladies and she’s like,

oh, let’s take a picture in
front of the Eiffel Tower.

So they do a very Japanese thing.

They do a goofy picture.

So it’s her and her
two friends and they

steeple their hands above
their heads and stand

in front of the Eiffel Tower mimicking
the Eiffel Tower that is behind them.

It is a very innocent,
quite frankly, very sweet

picture of a woman who’s probably
very excited to be in France.

I mean, I’m going to go
ahead and just guess for the

first time because she
looks very happy to be there.

She posted this on her Twitter
and Japanese media went, Abe shit.

So much so that they’re like,
this is inappropriate behavior.

You shouldn’t be
having, they’re essentially

saying you have
shouldn’t be having fun.

But you go out to a
conference in another country.

That doesn’t mean you can’t also have fun
and you’re not working 100% of the time.

They did this with the
Prime Minister’s son.

The Prime Minister’s son
actually also had to step down.

Now he seemed to have
a little bit more going

on, but they were making
a big deal of him taking

pictures while he was in France
and I’m like, he’s driving around.

He’s picking people up.

He’s doing diplomat stuff, let’s say.

He’s essentially the Prime Minister’s aid.

Let him take some pictures.

This depends really weird about that.

Like you’re there to work.

You should only work,
but you’re still in human

being and you’re not
working 24 hours a day.

So taking a picture
in front of the Eiffel

Tower, it’s not like she was doing anything
dirty or offensive or anything like that.

She’s just doing a very innocent picture.

So I really feel like this one was unfair.

And so after the public backlash of
her being a really normal Japanese lady,

that’s the bit I can’t get over.

I’ve seen so many Japanese
pictures where this is, I was be like,

if you were, if she didn’t do that,
yeah, I can’t say anything more.

It was a nice picture.

And I’m really sorry.

I bet she’s a nice lady
who’s doing a good job.

And I can public out.

I think they’re just looking for shit.

It’s almost like Japan’s
so got so few problems.

It’s not that they don’t.

We like, I mean, that’s what I talk about
every week is all the problems Japan has.

Focus on those.

When people go overseas to take pictures,
I’m going to take a fucking picture.

He has.

That’s just free.

Okay, so Japan has done
something that is terrifying.

The Fukushima nuclear
reactor problem almost blew

up, didn’t blow up, but
cause problems shut down.

And now there’s a ton of
liquid that’s been radiated.

And they’re like, we got to get rid of it.

We’ve been sitting there for years.

They came over the plan.

What we’re going to do is
slowly release it into the ocean.

Sounds very, very scary.

And they did.

They started working sort of last Thursday.

Everyone who wants to freak
out, that was your chance to freak.

Now, other countries have reacted to
this in a neck, which it was expected.

Thing is, two countries in
particular had very strong reactions.

Both Russia and China
said they didn’t want

Japan to release the
wastewater into the ocean.

They both said we would
prefer if you would vaporize it.

So basically create steam and
have it go up into the atmosphere.

And they’re saying that
it would have less sort

of effect or impact on
neighboring countries.

I’m pretty sure the neighboring countries
they were talking about China and Russia.

The issue, and this is one
of the problems between

sort of international
politics is if you’ve

listened to an engineer’s
Japan over the last little while.

Russia and China have been taking a very
particular stance with Japan as a country.

In that particular stance,
I would go so far as

to say is intimidation or bullying
or trying to be the big dog.

The somewhere I come from, it
would be he’s trying to big dog them.

And it hasn’t worked.

So Japan hasn’t really backed down.

In fact, Japan is pushed back, which
is made China freak out once or twice.

North Korea certainly is
freaked out once or twice.

We did have that group
with saying like Japan’s

military, we’re following
the Constitution.

The Constitution says
we can only defend

ourselves, but let’s
redefine defend ourselves as

be able to shoot rockets
and missiles into other

countries and hit things
that are attacking us.

So you can see there is an element of Japan
that is saying like if you keep pushing us,

we’re not going to push
back, but we’re going to make

sure you can’t push
anymore, which is terrifying.

So with that cultural point
that Japan, Russia, China

have a contentious relationship
when Japan or when China

and Russia make a request,
a legitimate request, we

think doing research that this is a better
way to do this, you should listen to us.

Japan’s going to be
like, dude, you just spent,

you just like sent
warships into my ocean,

you shot missiles into my
exclusive economic zone.

We’re not going to listen to you,
we’re going to do what we want.

They actually got approval
from other countries.

And to sort of put
everyone more at ease,

the amount of radiation measured in the
ocean has not changed in any significant way.

So you hear like people hear the
word radiation and they should freak out.

I think that’s fair.

People again sort of forget
that bananas are radioactive.

So as long as there’s
like a little bit, not very

much, it actually has no
negative impact on you.

I mean, we’re all thinking
radioactive fish and stuff.

Who knows, because this is
going to be constant continual

release of the radiated
wastewater into the ocean.

Yeah, it could lead to mutations.

It could lead to lizards
who grow up bigger than

before and have, you
know, maybe extra curricular

powers.
Um, yes, it could lead to Godzilla, but

as we’ve seen historically
in the films that, that

knows how to handle that,
and they take the brunt of it.

So I’m trying to in Russia might want
to just sit back and let Godzilla happen.

That might be the thing.

Some other actual, I almost
said it, and fall out from this.

China has banned import on all
marine products is primarily seafood.

From Japan.

Japan, China is the largest export
destination for Japanese seafood though.

So this is going to have a really
big impact on Japanese business.

But a good thing for me and
anyone who’s actually living in Japan,

there might be an
excess of fish that does

not get exported, which
means fish prices in

Japan may go down, which you’re
like me, you need a lot of fish.

That’s pretty good thing.

It also set off some.

Freakouts.

Any sort of situation like this is going
to have people over react in China,

they started hoarding
salt because they were

thinking that there’s not
going to be an assault available.

All the salt that might
comes out of the ocean

might be irradiated,
something like that.

So they’re all been hoarding salt.

The governments like
don’t do that and they got

really weirdly racist in its own way
by saying like, we are not Koreans.

This is not how we behave.

So apparently China doesn’t just look
down on Japan, it also looks down on Korea.

Not a big surprise.

I’m being honest.

I hate saying China because
it’s not Chinese people.

It’s the Chinese government, which
has to follow a very strict party line.

So I think every now and then I have
to reiterate that as I take digs at China,

it’s not the Chinese
people because honestly,

pretty much every Chinese
person I’ve met has been very nice.

It’s the Chinese government,
which is borderline

dictatorial and the
Communist party is pretty

rough and let’s face it
at the end of the day,

I wouldn’t want to live
there and it’s because

the government and
the racism isn’t exclusive.

It goes back and forth
and China, China, to Korea,

Korea, to Japan and you
can make any combinations

of those and yeah,
it’s pretty accurate.

Structured of business for calling the
police 1,996 times over three months.

Initially this man called
for a legitimate case

and wanted to get
information but then wanted to

speak further the police declined
to chit chat or speak further.

This is what this is the bit
that I would like to know about.

When they say he wanted to speak
further, did he just want to talk to them?

Did he have something
specific to say? Did he

have more information
or was just rambling on?

The police thought they got other
stuff to do than just talk to you all day.

So they hung up.

So the guy started calling
back and saying things

like, “Screw you idiot”
and then hanging up.

He got two warnings to stop
and this is one of those things.

When you get a warning
from the police, you’ve

got to realize you’re
dealing directly with

the people who are going
to arrest you. You’re not

dealing with like, let’s
say I have an argument

with my neighbor and
they warned me to stop. I

can keep going, they can’t arrest me
unless they perhaps be a police officer.

But if you are dealing directly with the
police and the police give you a warning,

stop doing what you’re doing
or we’re going to arrest you.

They know they can do
it. So then they gave him

a second warning, they’re
like, “Stop calling us

or going to arrest you.”
And then they kept doing

it and then they arrested
him because it’s like

they don’t know who
he is. He keeps calling

them. He’s got the name.
They have a open case,

so they have his
name on file. They know

his address. They know
everything about him.

This is very poor criminality. When
he was arrested, he denied the charges.

He denied saying he’d done anything
wrong and he said, “I have my.”

Which is a pretty dark scary thing
to say, which I honestly just wake up.

Cool, but the guy’s clearly an idiot
because he called the police 2,000 times.

Two men were arrested for sending a bomb
threat. We actually went over this once.

when it actually happened. So the two guys
have been found and they’ve been arrested.

They’re suspected to be the
people who sent over 300,000

faxes to schools, firms, and local
governments. Now, most of them just ignored it,

but a music school took
it really seriously. The

fax said there are 334
bombs in and around the

school. You have to pay
us 300,000 yen ransom or

we’re going to blow up
the school. This was the

Tokyo College of Music.
They evacuated the

school. They called the
police. They did all the

things they started
searching, didn’t find any

bombs. 300,000 yen is
not enough money for this.

A monthly salary in Japan would be
between 250 and 400. This is the mid-range

of an average monthly
salary in Japan. For me,

again, I’ve talked to the
last few episodes about

risk versus reward when
it comes to your crimes.

One month’s salary
isn’t enough to risk the

jail term that is coming
your way or making bomb

threats. I am interested
to see what kind of

punishment this gets
sent out with because they

just made the threat,
but it’s obstruction of

business. We know that’s
the catch-all where they

do whatever they want
with it, which is actually

one of the scarier laws in
Japan. These guys turned

out to be part of
Kuchinkyo, which is a group

that is known for harassing people online.
They’re part of a group specifically that

harassed a lawyer. That’s
what their most famous

for, but they’re a group.
They think harassing people

is a form of entertainment.
One of the guys was

arrested, said, “I thought
it would be fun if this

became a big deal.” It’s going to be
a big deal for you as you are arrested.

A woman was arrested.
This was interesting because

it does give a sense of
what you can and can’t

do in Japan and take
responsibility for. A

woman was arrested for
creating a how-to guide

called “How to swindle
your sugar daddy.” It’s not

just how to get a sugar
daddy, someone who will give

you money to hang
out with you and be with

you and just take all
his money. It’s how to

find one of those, get
him, and then get him to

give you as much money
as possible, whereas it goes,

that goes a step beyond the paid relationship
to fraud. There’s a 20-year-old girl.

My mind was like 20 years
old and she’s written a

book and she’s made a
book that apparently works,

that she took 10.65 million yen from two
men in Ichi. This is why she was arrested.

The connection, this is a different. I
have to be clear. I’ve got to start again.

A woman used the book
to scam two men out of

10.65 million yen. The
scam led to her arrest,

a 20-year-old woman. That created, they
were like, “How did you do this? How did you

get to like, how did you
figure out how to scam

these guys?” You said,
“I found this book online,

I bought the book.”
That’s where the book was

revealed to the police.
The police went online.

The book was being
sold from between 10 to

30,000 yen, but if you
could make 10-point size.

That’s a pretty good return on investment.
They went and found the author of the book.

She also has been
arrested because she’s

propagating fraud. I
assume she’s already done it.

She was interviewed on
YouTube. She had her face

covered in stuff, talking
about her success.

I know what’s going
to mean Japanese and

Mike. My Japanese
reading abilities and good,

I really actually want
to get that book and read

it now because I want to
see where there are any

steps that I couldn’t
figure out on how to scam

your sugar daddy because
I think just having a

sugar daddy is part of
the initial scam. She’s

taking it to a next
level where it’s like,

“How to squeeze your
sugar daddy for everything

he’s worth.” More
because she’s multiple

sugar daddy’s and get
your 10.65 million yen.

There’s one more story
and this is the growth story.

Weak. 65 year old man
was arrested for a sexually

assaulting a woman by
tricking her into thinking

that her womb was full
of bad energy and that only

he could fix it by
filling it with positivity.

So I think you know what all that means.
I don’t need to get into the specifics.

It’s interesting because
they’re calling it sexual

assault, which I agree
it is, but in the moment

the woman was actually
eager, not eager, willing,

agreeable, trying to
find the right word.

The woman was agreeable
to this process because she

actually believed what
he was saying. So what he

was doing initially was
committing fraud that

led to sexual assault.
So if she had had all the

facts, she could have
made a real decision,

but because he was lying
to her, she made a bad

decision, which is why it’s sexual assault,
which I think that is a pretty fair charge.

The woman was introduced
to the man last November

by Anna Queens, who
told her that her life

changed for the better
after paying the man for a

change of life. We don’t
know what the change of

life was. It may be the
same thing where he lied

to her in such a way,
created some sort of mystical

situation and then
sexually assaulted her. The

guy, oh no, is believed to
have committed the crime

by telling the woman
that she had bad energy in

her womb and telling her
you need to put a positive

energy in her in there, only I could
give it to you as one connected to God.

When it was investigated,
Ono denied the charges

saying she didn’t do
anything against her will,

but the Metropolitan Police
Department is investigating

the other woman who
suffered similar damage

in full detail, meaning
that because you have

managed to have sex with
her and she agreed to have

sex with you because
you lied to her to get her

to have sex with you
means you committed fraud,

which means what you
did with sexual assault,

which means now, hopefully he’s
going to get punished in a very real way.

Confessions of Vandalism

(upbeat music)

It’s pretty common that old
people struggle with new technology.

And people like to make
fun of that, but you have

to think in the days to
come, you will get old.

And in the days when you get old, are
you going to struggle with technology?

And the answer is yes.

I try to keep up with technology, but
I’ve also already seen that in some ways,

I’ve fallen off like there’s
some things I know about.

And then there are huge swaths of
technology that I don’t understand at all.

I used to think of myself
as fairly tech savvy.

Now I’m functional.

So I’m assuming in the next decade
or two, I’m going to be struggling.

I mean, you have to imagine when
I talk to my grandkids and I’m like,

why in my eyes does my
neural link show that it’s the

time in Greenwich Meridian,
instead of local time.

And my grandkids are like, oh my God,
grandpa, you’re so dumb, you’re so useless.

You don’t even know how to reset
your neural link with the extra net,

because the Internet
is not a thing anymore.

It’s all external.

That we’re all connected to all the time.

And I had my USB in my
neck installed backwards,

making it always very awkward
to put the USB in my neck.

And that’s what’s coming.

And so I’m just trying
to stay abreast of

technology so that I can
not be a complete idiot.

Now because I enjoy technology,
I’m hoping it lasts longer.

Like I play the video games, I make
the podcast, I like to learn things.

If I can just keep that spirit
alive, all at least no stuff.

I maybe I don’t, not proficient,
but I will understand things.

And that’s kind of the most important part.

A lot of older people in Japan, and
that’s most people, for being honest,

they don’t want to apply
for the My Number Card.

My Number Card is basically
a social security card of sorts.

It’s not because you already have
one of those if you’re Japanese.

It’s a different card.

The government wants
to unify its information.

So your health card.

So if I go to the
hospital or I go to a clinic,

I have to bring my
national health card.

I use that to get my national rates.

I’m like, I don’t want to
pay full price for medicine.

I want to get my whatever
percentage I’m supposed to get.

So socialized medicine in Japan, very good.

I can get medicine at reasonable rates.

It’s cheaper to go to the
doctor and get medicine,

and then go to like the proper pharmacist
than it is to buy over the counter drugs.

So if I buy allergy medicine,
something I buy every year,

I can get 30, 40 days worth of
allergy medicine for about 1,000 yen.

If I buy over the counter,
it’s going to be like

10, 15 days for more
than that, probably 1,500.

The reason older people don’t
want to apply for the My Number

Card is they find it difficult
to remember the password.

And so this is it when you create this
card, you have to create a password.

And if you forget it, that could
cause you problems down the line.

So you know what, I
just don’t want to do it.

I just don’t want to create
the card in the first place.

I’m not obligated to.

The government really wants
everyone to have a My Number Card.

From November, you can
choose not to set a password.

Now, as I said, I’m not
a technological expert,

but I do have a base proficiency with
technology, and I do follow the news a lot.

I can see absolutely
no problems with having

a password unprotected
information connected to your knife.

I have to, how do I, how do you phrase it?

I can see no problem with having
your national health insurance

and other personal information
non-password protected.

Now, they’re saying that if there’s no
password, you won’t be able to do stuff.

You won’t be able to use the stuff online,

which these old people
wouldn’t be doing anyways.

But a lot of that in the
news, Japan is scams.

And those scams prey upon old people.

And so if we know the old people have cards

that are unprotected, there’s got
to be a way to abuse that system.

And that is going to be, I
was literally my first thought,

not that I was coming up
with a scheme to abuse them,

but my first thought was
someone’s going to find cards

without passwords and
then try to find a way

to abuse the system to either
get medicine they could resell

or get medicine at such
a discount or something.

It’s scams, that’s what they do.

I’m waiting for this to
go through in November

and then January, the
story start coming out

of old people losing
a bunch of money or

something via the my
number card with no password.

Recently, one of the
problems is the people in charge

of my number were
investigated as some of the cards

were registered with
other people’s personal

information like
they’re addressing stuff.

So that with the password
is already showing, there’s

already problems and mistakes
with the my number card system.

Then a lot of stories recently
about the Pokémon thefts.

And Pokémon cards have become
a common target for thieves.

Stories get broken into
last week, we did the

guy who got scammed,
but like reseller, website.

And the guy who resoled
the stuff had filled real boxes

with juice boxes and I
made like a very extended

joke about just using
the word box too much.

It’s very well done considering
it’s not scripted, very well done.

I think she’ll go back
and listen to that one.

A company executive
sold five fake Pokémon

cards at a second hand
store for 283,000 yen.

They were specifically from
a Tokyo Art Museum event,

which actually shows the
level of Pokémon in Japan that

you, they have Pokémon
events with national museums.

Like that’s, I guess they
would have other events,

but it’s just, it shows the
level of Pokémon in society

when they have like
art exhibits for Pokémon.

It like not just a
museum, like a local one.

Oh, that’s neat.

This is like Tokyo Art Museum.

That’s a big deal.

The owner said these seemed
off, maybe the quality of the paper,

they were little grainy,
something like that.

So he called the police
and he got the police.

The police got the Pokémon
company to send out someone to

appraise the cards, which is a
whole world I was unaware of.

There are people who work
for Pokémon, who’s, I don’t know

about singular job, but
probably primary job is to be able

to appraise the reality
and value of Pokémon cards.

Because of the rarity of
the cards, some of these

cards are selling for 100,000
yen, maybe even upwards.

So you can make a lot of money if
you can get the rare, rare, rare cards.

The suspect was then contacted because
the appraiser for the Pokémon company,

said these were not real,
these were counterfeit cards.

He claims he didn’t know
they were counterfeit

and the police are
still investigating.

I’m interested where this ends up,

because either he
committed a crime and got

caught, or he legitimately
bought these cards,

thinking they were real,
and he got screwed over.

So Japan, Korea, the United States, there,

working together, they’re
trying to work together more.

I’m very happy about South Korea
and Japan working together more,

because I really think these two countries,
I know they have a very hard history,

but I think together they would
be a force to be reckoned with.

And values-wise, they
actually both countries

have very, what I
consider positive values.

And the United States,
sort of that backing of the

United States is making them
more stable in the economy.

We will get better in this.

I just think it’s a good stuff.

A lot of this actually comes down to China,

keeps trying to exert pressure
and create tension in Asia.

So Japan, South Korea
and the United States,

we’re talking to like, hey,
China’s all very up-body.

Maybe we added together
and take care of stuff.

We share information and stuff like that.

And everyone’s like, yeah, this is great.

Except China’s like, hey, that’s not cool.

So recently there was
a summit of some sort.

I actually stopped carrying so many
summers, the G7 summit, all these summers.

I don’t really care anymore.

This Chinese ambassador
guy comes out and he goes,

no matter how blonde you die your
hair, how sharp you shape your nose.

You can never become
a European or American.

You can never be a Westerner.

You must know where your roots lie.

So he’s, oh, I mean, further.

Japan and South Korea
should work with China

to prosper together and revitalize East
Asia, revitalize Asia and benefit the world.

Weirdly, none of them
have taken this seriously.

South Korea and Japan have not
taken this call to their roots seriously.

And it might be because China
keeps more exclusionary attitude.

When it comes to every other instance,

they have flown airplanes
over Japanese airspace.

They have taken like aircraft carriers
and sailed them really close to Japan,

like just right out of
legal limits and stuff.

They’re always banging
heads with everyone in Asia

and then here they
are saying like, hey,

man, why don’t you guys
want to work with us?

And it’s like, dude, you keep
kind of kind of the blow is up.

There have been stories
in Indonesia, Japan of

Chinese diplomats and
high level politicians,

basically threatening
to wipe everyone else

in Asia off the map on
more than one occasion.

They aren’t taking it
primarily this seriously

because of the nature
of China towards Taiwan.

Taiwan is an independent
nation, it’s part of China.

Nobody knows.

Taiwanese people, they think they’re
independent and they want to keep it that way.

That’s not working out for them.

North Korea, very supported by China.

Japan and South Korea may all sort
of have their issues in North Korea.

North Korea keeps shooting missiles
over Japan if you want to be specific.

And there’s the abduction issues.

There was a bunch of
people, this is sort of history.

North Korea abducted a
bunch of Japanese nationals

and South Korean nationals and
brought them back to North Korea

and they haven’t returned
them and no one knows

if they’re alive or dead
and it’s a big problem.

China in its conflict, oh,
China Russia in its conflict

of Ukraine, China’s
kind of on Russia’s side.

And so basically the fundamental
philosophical differences

Japan and South Korea are
diametrically opposed to China.

So this call to remember your roots.

I don’t see how that’s
really going to work out.

I don’t see how you can say, hey,
look, you and I, we disagree on everything.

But we come, it’s actually
like maybe my sister and I.

So if you met me and
then you met my sister,

you would see two people
who are very different.

We are, we just, we have different values.

Now she’s not a bad person.

I hope I’m not a bad person.

I don’t want to talk about it.

And unless I got to get some
like someone to back me up.

But our fundamental philosophies about
life and how you should live life differ.

And I essentially, we just
stay away from each other.

And it works out fine.

Because she doesn’t try to impose
her lifestyle on me and vice versa.

I don’t tell her how to her live her life.

China on the other hand
is telling other Asian nations

how to live their lives and that they
should sort of succumb to China’s power.

But it would be like
going to me and saying,

you, despite the fact
you agree with everything

your sister thinks,
should align yourself

with your sister because
you come from the same family

because you come from the
same house, that kind of thing.

And that’s just not how it works out.

China then went on to declare
that the US is exaggerating

ideological differences to
so confrontation and division.

Now Japan and America have had
a very positive relationship overall.

There’s issues, of course,
there’s always going

to be issues between
two different countries.

But overall, they have a
very positive relationship.

And this sowing ideological differences

in confrontation, again, if you
go back through the vast library

of Ninja Ninja Japan stories
and just go through everyone

where China has
mentioned, I think you’re going

to see a lot of stories of
China almost purposefully

sowing confrontation and division
when they don’t even have to.

So while Baffy did a story
about a kid who had cornrows.

So one of his parents
was black, one of his

parents is Japanese,
he has kind of puffy hair.

And he was going to go to
his high school graduation.

So he said to his daddy,
he’s going to look neat.

What’s a good hairstyle?

He goes to cornrows, sort of
traditional hairstyle for our people.

So let’s do that.

So he went to a salon, got cornrows.

I have never had cornrows.

I think it’s illegal for a man of
my complexion to get cornrows.

But he went to a salon.

I do know it takes a long time.

So he put a lot of effort
into making his hair look good.

He shows up at graduation.

The teachers are like, no,
man, I don’t like that haircut.

So you don’t get to graduate today.

So when they put them
in a different room upstairs,

so when they call your name, you
don’t come downstairs, and he just left.

And then they tried to like,
well, he decided to leave.

Well, he decided to leave
because you guys stuck him

in a room and told him he wasn’t
going to be allowed to graduate.

I really like the follow up
to this story just recently.

A group of volunteers for Juneteenth
decided to have their own ceremony.

And it was better with way cooler hair.

I could get into the details.

You don’t really need–
they basically got up.

They had a graduation.

They had a whole thing going on.

And they’re like, hey, we’d
like to celebrate this kid.

He graduated from high school.

He came to the front.

He said, thank you.

I feel special.

I feel more accepted in his story.

He’s kind of made it clear that,
again, Japan is a country is changing.

You got more and more mixed kids.

Japan is a society’s less homogenous.

And progress is going
to have these hiccups,

but it is going to happen, especially
with supportive people out in the world.

So I think that is a very
nice palette cleanser,

a very nice little story about
people saying, that kid’s important.

Since we’re talking about
schools, the city of Yuruma

doesn’t want to standardize school
uniforms as abolishing schools traditions.

And let me start the whole thing again.

City of Aruma doesn’t want
to standardize school uniforms

as abolishing schools traditional uniforms
would have a negative effect on students.

But I was like, what negative effect?

Because I know school
uniforms in Japan high

school to high school
are technically different.

But for the boys, it’s a blazer.

They might be slightly different colors.

The girls do talk about
the skirts and stuff.

But if you standardize them all, there’s

not really anything you
can play about anymore.

You just need, again, like a symbol or
something to show what high school you go to.

If that’s important, the fact
that you go to high schools

enough, again, this like
tiered system of this high

school is better than
that high school and stuff.

I don’t see any value in that.

So I was like, what are
the negative effects?

And then someone else
actually quite smartly asked

the same question said, it would be
diminishing pride and their sense of belonging.

But again, they could belong to the high
school group, the high school demographic.

The reason they started talking about this

is they were talking about the differences
in price in different school uniforms.

So in 2023, there was
a 16,000 yen difference

between the highest and
lowest priced school uniform.

For boys, the expense of
the cheap end was $50,930.

Yeah, not always.

And the high end was $66,700.

So depending on what uniform you
get or what school you go to, you’re

going to spending more or less
money, these things are expensive.

And so what this is actually about
is if we can standardize the price,

we could buy and bulk, we can
make more, we can make the cheaper.

And that would help out
mid to lower income families.

Not spend a ton of money.

They have another thing
in Japan where all the kids

have to get this backpack,
this leather backpack.

It’s called land sale.

I don’t know where that name come from.

I should actually look into
that because it is interesting.

But now my kids are too old.

They don’t use them anymore.

They’re stupid.

They’re like 50, 60,000 yen.

They’re ridiculous.

Now they do use them for a long time.

So they got to be sturdy,
but– man, give me 20,000 yen.

I’ll get you a backpack
that’s going to last five years.

Girls, the low end is 70,543 yen.

And the high end is 84,838.

So if you are a boy and you get the
cheapest uniform, you get 50,000 yen.

If you’re a girl and you get the
cheapest uniform, it’s 20,000 yen more.

If you are a girl and you get the
most expensive uniform, it’s 84,000 yen.

This was justified
because they all wear vests.

They vests come with the female uniform.

And justified because of the
fabric, the high end uniform.

In another prefecture, they
standardized the uniforms,

and it brought the price
down to 6 to 8,000 yen cheaper.

So the low end, 50,000
yen uniform, you could

drop that by 6,000, even
time for like 45,000 yen.

So, again, these uniforms,
they’re important in one way,

but it’s so stupid because the importance
is constructed, and I don’t believe it.

But I went to a high school or I
wore t-shirts and jeans every day.

So maybe that was my uniform.

I don’t know.

I just don’t put value in this.

I understand.

I actually am okay with the uniform system.

I think the uniform system
should be designed to be affordable.

I like when the school
has decided to go unisex.

So everyone just got
pants in a shirt and a jacket.

And if the girls wanted skirts, that
was extra, but that was a choice.

I liked when they made them from uni-glow,
so they were like 10,000, 20,000 yen.

Because, yes, we paid
for it, but it was expensive.

And it’s soft.

OK, so the story, big international
story, is that a guy vandalized the policy.

And he put his name– I think
him and his girlfriend’s name on it.

I did like when I read
that story that his excuse

was he didn’t know the call of
see him was of historical importance.

That’s what his lawyer said.

So he did it, and he got in trouble.

He’s looking like five years in prison,

and he’s crying, going like, no,
please don’t try and make the prison.

I don’t want to go to prison.

Well, dumb shit.

Not only did you vandalize it,
you put your stupid name on it.

Well, this thing happens
all over the place.

And in Japan, pretty much every
building is a historical site of some sort.

A 17-year-old boy violated the
cultural properties protection law.

So that’s the law of, if it’s
historically important, don’t touch it.

So this is kind of like, keep
your hands to your self law.

He carved letters using his fingernails.

So he was at a temple.

And temples are made of
wood, so if you have a strong

fingernail I was looking
at mine, I couldn’t do that.

But I cut my fingernails
all the way down for

judo, so a different
story, and you don’t care.

So he was used to,
maybe at a long fingernail

or a strong fingernail, and
he started carving his name.

He carved a big J, and then he wrote Julian,
making it incredibly clear who it is.

Now, here’s an idea.

What if you’d written someone else’s name?

So you get the thrill of vandalizing
and making your Mark in a historical site.

OK, so this is something I did.

I, my first year of university,
I fucked up housing.

I didn’t get an apartment.

I thought I was going
to get campus housing,

and then it was full, and I didn’t get
it, and ended up in a lottery system.

It didn’t look like I was going to get it.

My university has a frat
system, the Greek system.

So they had frat houses.

Now, I had no intention of joining
a frat, but they had empty rooms.

And it’s better for them to
have people in those rooms

paying a little rent
than it is to have those

rooms empty and not
making any money at all.

So I ended up for my
first year of university

living in a frat house where I was not a
member of the frat, which is a really weird.

But when I say the whole sentence out loud,

I just think that is one of the
weirdest things that’s ever happened.

They did spend the entirety of the
year trying to get me to join the frat.

I was not interested at all.

And it was a very–
I mean, as far as I yet

to live with another
guy, but it was fair.

I think they pressured my
roommate to get me to join.

So it’s like, hey, Peter likes judo.

You should join the judo
club and be really close

friends with Peter, and
then he’ll join the frat.

And then we’ll get $365 a year.

Because he got to pay a dollar a
day for these guys to be your friends.

That was back when I went to university.

So it’s probably a lot more now.

So this guy joined judo.

But he– I don’t know if he
had any real interest in judo.

And so basically, he
also has a weird attitude.

And I’m now gotten into judo stories.

I explained, don’t do this
step or you’ll get thrown.

And he was looking at me like, ha, ha.

I’m going to do this step.

And then he did this step in my through.

I said, this is just going to get worse.

The more you do this one,
move, the harder the counter gets.

And he was like, ha, I got you now.

And then he did it really big.

And he did it three, four, five times.

And I got really frustrated.

Because I was trying to help him.

And so then I just threw
him super, super hard

and just ran him into the floor
and he lost his breath for a minute.

But he didn’t get hurt.

But he was shaken and put it that way.

He didn’t last very long in judo.

Again, because I don’t think he
wanted to be in there in the first place.

Anyways, I was living this frat house.

Overall, not the worst experience.

Not as bad as I certainly
thought it was going to be.

Because I thought I would live
there and look for another place to live.

And then I ended up just
riding it out for the entire year.

The guys were fine.

They didn’t have any–
it wasn’t like the movies.

Like the Greek system in
American comedy movies.

But I was on– they had a little balcony.

It was wood.

It was really cheap.

And I was standing there.

And I started very much
like this kid just scraping.

I think I had a fork or an knife.

I just took scraping into it.

I was like, oh, I should vandalize this.

Because I don’t really like
the Greek system or whatever.

And someone in the house had pissed me off.

I was like, but if I write my
name, they can track it back to me.

Because it’s my name.

If I write Chuck Me Veest on something,
I’m like, hey, I think I know who did that.

So I wrote Fuzzy
Zellwager, which is a golfer.

I don’t know anything about golf.

I’ve played golf with my uncle once.

And I’ve gone to driving rain.

I’ve gone to driving ranges a few times.

But I don’t really follow golf.

So I don’t know why this golfer’s
name was in my head at that moment.

Maybe it just seemed to connect to
the frat system for me or something.

So I vandalized their house
with the name of a famous golfer

who never had been there, figuring
that if they were like, who wrote this?

And then you can just look at it and go,
well, apparently, Fuzzy Zellwager wrote it.

And that’s my vandalization story.

And I never got in trouble or went to jail.

Because I’m smarter than the two
fucking idiots who did it elsewhere.

Dave just moved in the background.

He was in his little bed.

And it’s hot.

So he goes in the bed.

And then he goes and he
stretches out next to that big pillow.

Sometimes he lies on top of the
pillow, but he stretches out his lines.

He’s a very long dog for how small he is.

He’s got very long sexy legs.

Hurt Everyone Equally

  • Remember that 23 year old who I was very upset with who was going to sail around the world? 23 years old has a job at a company that’s going to take six months off from his job of that company to go on a boat that he’s going to sail around the world in?🎙 00:00:00.000–00:00:21.360
  • I maybe cursed him too strongly because he has given up his plan to sail around the world, which I’m not sad about. I’m not happy about it. Like I don’t want people to not achieve their dreams, but I was so annoyed🎙 00:00:21.360–00:00:34.963
  • at 23 years old. I was still in university and I couldn’t take six months off anything to just dick around So he basically His plan to sail around the world he left and then immediately got caught in a storm on November 12th🎙 00:00:35.843–00:00:55.643
  • And then returned back There were problems with the self-steering system and the power generation system system. So he needed to come back, figure this stuff out. And he wants to try again next year. So how do I feel? Because part of me thinks if you have a self-steering system🎙 00:00:55.643–00:01:18.897
  • and you’re not really sailing around the world by yourself, I don’t know because you got to sleep. So what do you do? I actually never thought about it before. Before we had like automatic systems that could steer🎙 00:01:18.897–00:01:32.377
  • the boat for you, which probably wasn’t that long ago. People sailed around the world. I guess back then you couldn’t do it by yourself. You had to do it in like at least pairs. So one person slept while the other one sailed the boat.🎙 00:01:32.356–00:01:45.116
  • Yeah, it’s a weird thing. And it’s one of those problems that’s a super rich person problem. Because you have to have enough money to buy a boat. You have to have enough money to take six months off work to sail your boat.🎙 00:01:45.116–00:02:02.396
  • with self-steering navigation systems. I couldn’t afford the self-steering navigation system. Never mind the boat that it goes on. Yeah, I’m weirdly bitter about this. People’s success and abilities and being rich and stuff,🎙 00:02:02.457–00:02:19.337
  • usually nothing. I think maybe the combination of being so young and being able to do this is what’s pissing me off because I was never afforded any similar opportunity. in any way. I started working at like 14, I mean nine if you consider delivering🎙 00:02:19.337–00:02:42.151
  • papers but we could skip by that like 1415 I started working summer jobs and I never was not in school. I wasn’t very particularly studious so maybe that counts. But I worked. I was, man, and I’m not gonna get into my work history but🎙 00:02:42.151–00:03:02.131
  • I’m trying to think of the longest amount of time I have had. off and it’s got to be capped out at two weeks. I don’t think I’ve been unemployed while I looked for jobs and stuff. I don’t think that counts.🎙 00:03:02.131–00:03:17.280
  • It’s certainly not in the same vein as I’m going to take time off and sail around the world. So I mean I don’t want him to not sail around the world but I do want to bitch about it. That’s it. That’s where we are.🎙 00:03:17.280–00:03:32.560
  • I’m not angry at him and I don’t want him to fail, but I do want to be able to whine as much as I am. And next year, when we revisit this topic, because I will be following his career with great interest and vile vinegar, malice, I’ll complain about it again next year.🎙 00:03:32.560–00:03:58.423
  • So look forward to that. Okay, I have a set of stories. And at the end of those two stories, I have a- very sort of disturbing conclusion. There’s the two parties called the Constitutional Democratic Party.🎙 00:03:58.423–00:04:13.106
  • I love the Japanese political party names. They’re all very dystopian future. The Constitutional Democratic Party and the Japan Innovation Party want a law that bans donations made to organizations under the influence of brainwashing.🎙 00:04:13.106–00:04:32.346
  • Even the phrasing is already like sci-fi. So I kinda like that. The ruling party wants the law that says religious organizations and corporations have to take care not to solicit donations under certain conditions.🎙 00:04:32.346–00:04:52.528
  • Now, this is Japan and Japanese laws, as I’ve probably mentioned many, many times, are often purposely vague. But this is on purpose, in this case, because what they’re saying is like, you can’t put🎙 00:04:52.528–00:05:05.168
  • a ban on people being brainwashed. making responsibility. So you have to punish the company. But then the problem comes up, how do you prove someone is brainwashed? Because if you walk into that person and go, did🎙 00:05:05.168–00:05:17.753
  • this religious organization brainwash you, they will say, no, that’s part of the brainwashing. And in that moment, they believe it maybe years later, uh, when they’ve been deprogrammed, they will change their mind and say, yes, I was brainwashed back then. This would be🎙 00:05:17.753–00:05:35.233
  • like being on drugs. When you’re on drugs, there’s actually often a very good chance that you don’t. you’re on drugs. Like, so I take let’s say medication and the medication changes the chemistry in my🎙 00:05:35.233–00:05:45.798
  • brain and I am happier or more angry or something. If you said is that the medication, there might be a good chance I say no. That’s just my mood today. But then later on I go, oh, that was really different from what I’m normally like. That was clearly the medication having an impact.🎙 00:05:45.798–00:06:00.198
  • Brainwashing falls into the same category. You can’t rely on the person to take responsibility for their actions in this case. So the state of mind is difficult. proof. This is aimed at the unification church. They have had a lot of things come out over🎙 00:06:00.918–00:06:18.036
  • the last while. We have their influence in politics. We have accusations of brainwashing and the very sort of cult-like way they run their their group is coming to light and they’re saying like we have to cut them off. So we need laws in place to do that. They’re not🎙 00:06:18.036–00:06:36.396
  • targeting them but they’re saying religious organizations are included along with corporations. But corporations don’t brainwash you like a religious organization like. That’s the first story is about the introduction of a new law.🎙 00:06:36.396–00:06:50.961
  • Japanese government is probing the unification church specifically. What they want to do is remove their religious corporation status, therefore losing their tax exemption status. This is very interesting because they’ve got to this point where they’ve caused so much🎙 00:06:50.961–00:07:09.121
  • trouble in Japan that this religious organization is going to lose their tax exemption status. Which is what keeps religious organizations afloat. most of the time. The government wants to come and look at their books, which is probably🎙 00:07:09.121–00:07:26.007
  • the scariest thing for them to do. In conjunction with the previous law, they can say how were these donations made? What was the situation? If they kept that law vague, they can apply that law to this probe. Now they can start shutting them down.🎙 00:07:26.007–00:07:41.747
  • Kishida, he’s very cautious about the probe. But his approval rate has took a huge hit recently. He’s down to like 33% now. He’s worried about basically the right to freedom of religion in Japan. You Japan’s very serious about the Constitution and its freedoms.🎙 00:07:41.747–00:08:01.079
  • This came out during the pandemic when freedom of movement is part of the Constitution, but how can you then put people in lockdown? So that was one of the problems he faced with when he took over as Prime Minister.🎙 00:08:01.079–00:08:14.219
  • But there are currently 22 civil cases going on against the unification church. So action has to be taken. So there’s a law and it’s the right to question law. So the right to question a religious organization.🎙 00:08:14.219–00:08:45.099
  • Organization law and it was introduced after the 1995 AWM attack. So if you’re very young, you might not know. AWM was an occult and what they did, if you look up on the internet, the SARREN gas attack. There’s probably only be one result and it’s these people released🎙 00:08:26.795–00:08:42.915
  • this gas on the Tokyo subway and it killed some people but it had like long-term effects on many people who were on the train, the SARREN gas. And it was one of the most deadly attacks in Japan. It was like a terrorist attack.🎙 00:08:42.915–00:08:58.475
  • founder, the the on leader, their leadership, I think in total was put in prison. Some of them were executed. It was a big change in shift in some of the freedoms available to religious organizations in Japan.🎙 00:08:58.646–00:09:12.526
  • Those laws that were put into place then are now being applied to the unification church. Some of the things that have come out is followers without kids are encouraged to adopt kids from other followers.🎙 00:09:12.526–00:09:28.786
  • But they’ve been doing this internally. So they’ve actually been breaking a law because you need prefectural So you’d state permission For adoption, but they’ve just been like oh you don’t have kids🎙 00:09:29.763–00:09:41.003
  • You have two kids give one of your kids to this couple and they do it and they don’t report it to anybody That’s against the law in Japan 750 kids have been moved or adopted since 1981 So all of that is happening and it’s all coming out now🎙 00:09:41.003–00:09:59.163
  • because of these probes and the problems with the unification church and donations and taxes and money and all this other stuff. It’s all a very complicated web of things to examine. Now the disturbing conclusion🎙 00:09:59.811–00:10:14.811
  • that I mentioned earlier when I started is that this is all started because of the assassination of Abbe. And Abbe was assassinated by a man who made a homemade shotgun and he was angry that the unification church🎙 00:10:14.811–00:10:30.811
  • had basically screwed over his life by indoctrinating his mother. The thing is… Again, the disturbing element of this is what that guy wanted was focused, brought to the unification church. He assassinated Abbe, Abbe was not actually part of the unification church.🎙 00:10:30.811–00:10:51.410
  • He did give a speech. And his grandfather was apparently the guy who brought the unification church into Japan. So there was a relationship there, but he wasn’t like a member. And so the guy was looking for a high level unification church member to assassinate saw🎙 00:10:51.410–00:11:06.870
  • Abbe’s a target of opportunity and took it and killed him. But that has been what has brought all this attention about the unification church to the media. In a very awful and dark way, he was successful. So he’s like🎙 00:11:06.870–00:11:25.345
  • I’m gonna assassinate someone and bring the unification church to the forefront and everyone’s gonna look at it and that is exactly what’s happened. And it sets a very scary precedent for anyone who wants something brought to🎙 00:11:25.345–00:11:37.005
  • media’s attention. I don’t know if it would be, I don’t know how you express it properly. The problem going forward is if it happens a again and again and again, each time it happens, it’s going to lose impact.🎙 00:11:37.005–00:11:51.089
  • So the fact that this was the first one, very impactful. The second, the third, the fourth, it will actually have less impact. So then you have to get more creative in your way of bringing attention to a problem.🎙 00:11:51.089–00:12:02.209
  • Certainly violence is not the way we would prefer it done. I think that’s pretty fair across the board. But it was a conclusion after looking like they’re putting laws into place, they’re examining🎙 00:12:02.209–00:12:13.089
  • them, they’re going to take away their tax exam status. They’re looking at things that have happened since the 80s in this organization. That’s a lot that’s happened and it’s all happened because this guy assassinated that🎙 00:12:13.089–00:12:23.972
  • bay. Since we’re talking about taxes, I mean, this is, this is why you come to a podcast to have those deep tax oriented conversations because everyone loves shooting the shit about taxes. It’s weird the stuff I get interested in because I actually, you know, in the political realm🎙 00:12:23.972–00:12:42.972
  • and very interested in how taxes work and you hear about taxes in other countries, you hear about like you’re like, anyways, I come from a socialist democracy. I do have a buddy. leave in socialism to a degree where I am very oriented towards high taxes, high services,🎙 00:12:42.972–00:13:00.143
  • but you have to get the services for the high taxes. The problem is when you pay high taxes and you get no service back. Japan, the Japan National Tax Agency has said that this year, 83.9 billion yen has been an undeclared taxable income has happened. Basically rich🎙 00:13:00.143–00:13:19.003
  • people have been trying to hide their money with the current default. deflation of the yen The money isn’t worth as much. They’re trying to keep as much as they can to themselves and keep it hidden away from the government🎙 00:13:19.003–00:13:32.673
  • This is 72% up and it’s the highest number since 2009 So 83.9 billion yen in taxable income that has been undeclared 72% higher than previous years there are now currently 2,227 cases of the Japan National Tax Agency looking in🎙 00:13:33.353–00:13:55.513
  • to people’s finances. This is primarily Japanese rich people making investments overseas and then not declaring the money they make off those investments. So if I make an investment, let’s just say,🎙 00:13:55.511–00:14:08.271
  • I just buy a stock market, which is a broad band of stocks. And it’s all American. So I invest in the American stock market, not the Asian one. It goes up. So the yen goes down and the dollar goes up.🎙 00:14:10.351–00:14:25.311
  • And then because all my money is now in the. American stock market in dollars, I’ve made a ton of money if I pull that money out. I’m supposed to declare that income. And basically these rich people who have the ability to do that are not because the money🎙 00:14:25.311–00:14:38.482
  • still sort of floating out there in the stock market. But that means this taxable income isn’t coming back into the tax system, which means, you know, services suffer because they’re not getting the money they’re supposed to get.🎙 00:14:38.482–00:14:54.042
  • And when they say tax the rich, there is a burden there and I think it should happen. Japan is trying to tax the rich fairly. I don’t think again they’re going out of their way to like hurt anybody but tax🎙 00:14:54.042–00:15:07.216
  • people try to hide the rich people try to hide their money the tax people are trying to get that money back. They’re not trying to get more. This does happen probably in every country. Something I think it was Sweden. Sweden’s punishments🎙 00:15:07.216–00:15:20.616
  • are based on your income. I think it’s Sweden is one of these sort of Nordic countries. So basically if I’m driving I’m speeding and I get pulled over by a cop and I get a ticket. And I have like let’s say I have a very mediocre income. I get the average ticket. So it’s like let’s say $100🎙 00:15:20.616–00:15:36.678
  • It’s because I was I was being a bad boy If a rich person in like a Ferrari is speeding which is far more likely because they have a Ferrari It will be measured to their income so it could be up to like thousands and thousands and thousands dollars🎙 00:15:36.678–00:15:50.718
  • There was a story of like a guy you got a hundred thousand dollar Ticket because he was so rich But I mean that’s the only way to have an impact on rich people is to have the pun is so a hundred dollars for me🎙 00:15:50.718–00:16:02.538
  • It hurts $100 for an incredibly rich person means nothing so they can just keep speeding because they’re just going to get these $100 tickets. Their system is it has to hurt for everybody equally so the relationship has to be equal.🎙 00:16:02.538–00:16:16.629
  • It took me to a, oh my God, taxes are so much fun because we’re talking about money now. I did read a thing and it was, so let’s say I’m walking and I drop one yet. Now if I’m going to hurry, it is not worth my time to stop pick up that one yet and🎙 00:16:16.629–00:16:33.909
  • So let’s say I have to catch a train. It’s not worth one yen for me to stop. So I was just like, you know what? Just let it go. I’ll drop the one yen move on What the the story I read was it was a long time ago. What is the equivalency of Jay Z?🎙 00:16:34.044–00:16:47.844
  • What does Jay Z have to drop to? Equal me dropping one yen. So like it’s not worth his time to pick it up And I think I remember correctly the number was a hundred and eighty seven dollars So basically Jay Z he could drop a hundred and eighty seven dollars and if he’s in a rush🎙 00:16:47.844–00:17:04.324
  • It actually isn’t worth his time to stop and pick up a hundred and eighty seven I’m related to Japan or news, but when we get talking about money or taxes and stuff, I mean, that’s actually there’s a lot of interesting stuff in there.🎙 00:17:04.324–00:17:17.304
  • So don’t, you know, don’t stop those tax conversations. Have fun with it. Twitter. I actually don’t want to talk about Twitter. I don’t want to talk about Elon. I’m waiting to see. I’m one of those people who’s really waiting to see.🎙 00:17:17.304–00:17:34.304
  • Will Twitter, which in the social media landscape has been an institution, will it actually? fail because it would be really interesting to see my space. Someone was said to me the other day this would be a great opportunity for my space to come🎙 00:17:34.304–00:17:48.847
  • back but Twitter my space is more equivalent to Facebook Twitter is more equivalent to something else that’s so you need something else so I think it was mastodon and hive are the two main competitors who are up and coming as I🎙 00:17:48.847–00:18:01.567
  • think it was last episode I said Twitter has a massive presence in Japan and Elon Musk has taken notice and he said Elon said that all you know everyone says that Twitter is very America-centric it’s actually very🎙 00:18:01.567–00:18:13.467
  • Japan-centric because roughly the same daily number of users in Japan is in the US, despite Japan having won the third the total population. So percentage-wise, a much larger significant number of people in Japan used Twitter than🎙 00:18:13.475–00:18:29.175
  • in America. But in total, they’re very similar numbers because you have 76.9 million users in the US and 58.95 million users in Japan. Elon’s declaration, which is completely unreasonable. Oh, sorry.🎙 00:18:29.175–00:19:04.155
  • that clear. That’s about one third the population of Japan uses Twitter. It’s not one third the population of America uses Twitter. So he’s so Elon statement based off this was he wants Japanese numbers and Japanese usage in every🎙 00:18:45.413–00:19:01.433
  • country which I think is a very unrealistic goal. I don’t think that’s gonna happen especially because every country has their own sort of social media environment that they prefer that fits what they want. Twitter for some🎙 00:19:01.433–00:19:14.933
  • reason clicks with Japanese. these people, it’s not going to click with every culture around the world. And again, the company may be dead soon. Am I willing to make a prediction? I am because if I’m🎙 00:19:14.933–00:19:26.347
  • wrong, it does not matter. The way it’s been going, like I Facebook, I actually thought would have been dead almost completely by now. I thought Facebook would have been like my space, but it’s such a large infrastructure for so many people. That’s why it’s still🎙 00:19:26.347–00:19:45.227
  • alive. That’s why it’s still going despite it’s dying. It’s just dying slower than I expected. So the death of Twitter should probably mimic that. It should be dead, but slower than you expect. Because he’s fired so much staff,🎙 00:19:45.227–00:19:57.945
  • usage is going to become worse. And that’s what’s good. So right now you have the people who are like, I’m looking for an alternative, I don’t like Elon Musk. Then you have people who are like, the functionality has worsened.🎙 00:19:59.745–00:20:11.585
  • I’m gonna go look for something that’s more functional. That’s gonna be the next group that bails. And then the young people coming up who are going to be, because if you have a social media company.🎙 00:20:11.585–00:20:39.045
  • What you want more than anything else is young people. They’re going to look at something else. They’re going to look at Twitter and go look. All these people have already bailed on Twitter. Why would I start now?🎙 00:20:22.533–00:20:32.773
  • And that’s where the company is really going to die. So it’s really, I guess we’re looking at the next generation. It’s not, I was thinking like two, three years, but it’s probably more like five, maybe six, and then Twitter will just be a wasteland.🎙 00:20:32.773–00:20:43.573
  • It won’t be anything anymore. I could probably afford to buy it. Five mayors went to a meeting. So in Tokyo apparently they have a meeting. It’s a bunch of mayors. from all over Japan. 900 mayors of cities attended this event in Tokyo. This has actually scaled back🎙 00:20:43.573–00:21:02.344
  • over the last two years because of the pandemic. This year it went back to normal. So I guess the pandemic is finished, although we all know it’s not. This kind of attitude and behavior is really weird to me. Like, we got to treat the pandemic like it’s still happening to actually get rid of🎙 00:21:02.344–00:21:21.384
  • it. I think the problem is now people are acting like it’s over. So it’s just going to keep going. going, unfortunately forever. A weird side issue of the pandemic is I wanted to grow a beard, but I have found that if I let my beard grow while wearing a mask, I get really bad🎙 00:21:21.384–00:21:38.792
  • skin. So I can’t grow a beard again until we stop wearing masks. But I now I’m getting to the point where I think we are going to be wearing masks for years and years and years. I don’t feel like I’m going to ever go into work without a mask on again. I walk to the🎙 00:21:38.792–00:21:55.992
  • train station without a mask on because I live in the countryside, but on the train I wear a mask and then once I’m in the city again, I wear a mask. So that’s most of all day when I’m outside of the house I’m wearing a mask.🎙 00:21:55.992–00:22:08.280
  • Anyways, five mayors went to get some food after this event in Tokyo. They all got COVID and they held brought it back to their cities because the pandemic isn’t over. I think anyone who’s listened to Ninja N🎙 00:22:08.280–00:22:19.420
  • Englishphyillonia under those new laws. So this is the first arrest ever in Japan of someone taking online tests for companies. So if you want to join a company in Japan, they probably have some aptitude tests or skill tests or general knowledge tests that you take online. That’s how they🎙 00:22:19.420–00:22:48.838
  • filter out some applicants. So this guy has he’s been asked, this was very specific. He’s been asked to take the tests for 300 people over the last six months. That does not mean he took the test for 300 people. He’s.🎙 00:22:48.838–00:23:31.618
  • He’s had 300 requests. How many he’s actually done was not included in the information, so I can’t make a strong statement on that. As little research as I might do for Ninja News Japan, I do want the things I say to be relatively accurate.🎙 00:23:04.323–00:23:18.963
  • This is the first arrest of illegal production of electromagnetic records. There’s that. Electromagnetic seems out of deal. I think you would just say digital, but whatever. So what he’s doing, he’s taking a test,🎙 00:23:19.963–00:23:33.883
  • and that creates a record. in the system for the company, but that has been falsified. So he’s committing a kind of fraud. Arrested. I did have the secondary question of, let’s say I want this job.🎙 00:23:33.883–00:23:50.295
  • I have my associate take the test for me, essentially the aptitude test. I go in to do the job. What happens then? Because I didn’t pass the aptitude test. I may not have the aptitude for the actual job.🎙 00:23:50.295–00:24:04.295
  • This is a fake it until you make it kind of situation. If it’s technical knowledge that I don’t have, it’s going to be very clear that I do not have that technical knowledge. And that’s where it sort of falls apart.🎙 00:24:04.295–00:24:17.649
  • And I think maybe they’ll figure out really quick that you didn’t pass the test. We have had a series of animal attacks. Most of the other animals, it was monkeys and stuff. We had dolphins. Now it’s gotten to be almost exclusively boars because we have two wild boar stories.🎙 00:24:17.649–00:24:38.649
  • One, quite light, a boar was running around Nagoya sort of the outskirts of the city and there were 10 people sort of having a picnic and the boar charged at the 10 people and the cops had been out looking for the boar.🎙 00:24:38.512–00:24:52.952
  • They’d actually heard reports of the boar doing his damage. So a cop stood in between the people and the boar that was charging drew his weapon, aimed at the boar and said, I’ll shoot you. The boar.🎙 00:24:52.952–00:25:38.952
  • Realizing that the police officer was dead serious turned tail and ran Police officer did not discharge his weapon It was really interesting. So I’m assuming it was actually the stance in the shout that made the Borg of note🎙 00:25:09.916–00:25:25.516
  • Not worth it versus him knowing what a gun was unlike us had seen a gun before But I don’t know how smart wars are they seem to be like see stuff in charge He saw something he was like odds big and it’s not backing down. I’m not charging. This isn’t worth it🎙 00:25:25.516–00:25:38.556
  • That seems like more realistic to me But but In Kanagawa Prefecture, Bohr comes down out of the mountains into a town, starts charging people all over town. It actually hurt two people on record.🎙 00:25:38.556–00:25:53.108
  • Knocked a guy down, and you get knocked down in the street by a Bohr that’s like 80 kilos, that’s big. That’s, I am currently 87 kilos. I’m six foot tall, I’m 87 kilos, that’s like maybe close to 200 pounds.🎙 00:25:53.108–00:26:07.388
  • This is a Bohr that’s one meter long, so almost half my height. And… like lengthwise, if I was lying to, that’s hard to explain. Anyways, it’s one meter long, but it has the same masses me, but I’m like all fat, it’s all muscle.🎙 00:26:07.388–00:26:22.915
  • Yeah, that’s a big animal knocking people over. So you’re getting hurt. It got into an elementary schoolyard, like the field area. Animal control showed up, and they had these electric prods, and they were hitting it with the electric prods,🎙 00:26:22.915–00:26:37.235
  • but it wasn’t actually doing enough to stop the bore. So this dude comes out, I had a Pokemon joke in that. is very ineffective, but I’ve already passed that moment. This is I should maybe script better? Because yeah, I had in brackets, it’s very ineffective. It’s so like electricity🎙 00:26:37.235–00:26:55.736
  • type. I guess the boars earth type and electricity type would be weak. I guess explaining the concept doesn’t do much what I could have just done the joke. But welcome to the life of Chung with beef chest where I have really good ideas and then explain them instead of🎙 00:26:55.736–00:27:11.536
  • doing. Anyways, guy comes out. He’s part of the animal control group. He has a spear, like a full-on traditional big-tipped two-meter-long spear and he runs the bore through and he kills it. Which is like really hardcore. Normally they would use a gun. They🎙 00:27:11.536–00:27:33.034
  • would have a rifle or a shotgun and they would shoot the bore. You know it’s not particularly nice but it’s this bore is running around hurting people so I kind of see both sides. There is a point that has been brought up multiple times is no one has explained why🎙 00:27:33.034–00:27:46.194
  • this guy has a spear. Now he is part of animal control. So, he would have the spear for animal control, but defies the explanation of why do you have a spear for animal control instead of a shotgun or rifle like every other animal control person🎙 00:27:46.194–00:28:06.254
  • would have? No answer. Because who’s going to walk up to the guy who just killed 80 kilo boar with a spear and start questioning his methods. Because it’d be like, do you want the boar out there running around?🎙 00:28:06.254–00:28:23.094
  • Do you want the boar running around? to deal with me and the spear. Those are your choices. So it is a sad animal had to be killed, but an interesting side point is the animal is then taken to a facility cleaned and the meat
    from the boar is then given to local restaurants to serve. So the guy who speared the boar could go to a restaurant and eat the boar he speared, which is I don’t know if that’s the circle of life or just what you get for being such a badass and having a spear and killing an animal with it.