(upbeat music)
So, is your population getting too old?
I mean, that’s happening
in a bunch of countries.
So, it is actually very possible.
You’re living in a country that is graying.
Population is skewing
to the older generation.
So, there’s a very simple solution to that.
And Japan has come
up with it, which is great.
You just redefine what old is.
So currently, elderly is defined
as someone to 65 and over.
So, the retirement age.
And they’re saying, hey, what we can
do is just redefine that as 70 an older.
And then, we got less old people.
And those people can keep working.
Doesn’t matter how they feel or if
they want to retire or anything like that.
They can keep working ’cause
you know, they’re not old anymore.
The government’s actually
promoting re-skilling for all generations.
And of course, this
is specifically designed
as this new generation of people
who were old who are not old anymore.
Now, they’re not saying specifically
what they’re gonna reskill them too.
So, right now, you’re 65
years old, you’ve worked your
whole life in one industry
or two industries, let’s say.
You’ve probably worked in one
industry, maybe multiple companies.
How are they gonna reskill you as
actually very interesting question?
I’m wondering, yeah, ’cause
what that mean to me,
reskilling is taking
someone who doesn’t know
how to computers and teaching
them how to use computers.
If you’ve ever tried to get older
people to use new technology, it’s tough.
Like, I tried to stay up on technology.
I can see there are elements
and parts that fall away,
certainly like there are
apps where, you know, people
who do use them regularly,
show me how to use stuff.
I was like, wow, I didn’t
know that was in there.
I am approaching the first
old, and then as soon as
I get there, they’re gonna
move it to the second old.
I can tell you, I don’t wanna work now.
Well, I don’t wanna work five more
years after working my whole life.
And I don’t wanna be reskilled.
I’m already, this is very
bleak looking for me.
The government is predicting
a 1% economic growth
as a result of this
scheme, if it is successful.
I’m wondering how much
push back they’re gonna get.
They do talk about
Social Security and stuff,
which, you know, the
only way to keep Social
Security robust is to
have people pay into it.
So if you have too many people
retired and not enough young people,
they’re not paying enough
money into it to support the
old people, and then they
get nothing when they retire.
So I do see that the
Social Security is a big issue,
but I don’t think redefining
old, but making a bunch of
people who’ve retired start
working again is the way to do it.
‘Cause what they’re
actually talking about is,
if you’re 65 and you start
getting Social Security
and they redefine old,
then you might lose it for
five years and have to go
back to some sort of job.
And as a prospect, that makes me very sad,
which makes perfect
sense for our next story.
Global Happiness Report 2024.
The fact that you have to
make a global happiness report,
like you just can’t assume
everyone’s happy has already a bit.
Man, Japan is on a downward trend.
A lot of countries are.
So this isn’t just picking on Japan.
Japan’s a group, a country
of depressed people.
This is a lot of countries
are on a downward
trend, but it has dropped
13 points from 2011.
So the worldwide survey,
this was interesting.
This survey only surveyed
2000 respondents in Japan.
So the entirety of the
Japanese collective happiness
index is based on the
feelings of 2000 people.
There are millions of people in Japan.
If you’d only surveyed last week,
they surveyed like 1,800 foreign people
and used that to represent
all foreigners in Japan.
And I was already like, that
seems like a poor sample size.
Sampling 2,000 people from the country
seems like not enough to
actually call it a fair answer.
So I’m very, I’m gonna put a
big asterisks on the end of this.
I don’t think this is a good survey.
It may not be representative.
Unless, of course, the
other millions and millions
of people in Japan are just
too depressed to answer.
In which case, this is
really, really accurate.
57% said they were very
happy or rather happy.
There were four categories.
There was very happy, rather happy,
somewhat unhappy, and then just miserable.
The happiest country in the world.
Oh, I should have done a quiz.
I gotta work my quizzes in advance.
Bit busy this week.
But what do you think the
happiest country in the world is?
This would be the quiz question.
So I’m gonna pause.
Please lock in your answer now.
Oh, Ignat’s is in the chats.
Let’s do it.
Ignat’s.
What country do you believe is
the happiest country in the world?
They have an 85% of the people who responded
said they were very or rather happy.
It’s one of those scannability places.
It’s one of those scannability places.
I don’t know what scannability means.
Scandinavian, it makes way more sense.
You are on the right track.
Please name a Scandinavian country.
There is a second place
that is very not Scandinavian,
but also, well, I was
gonna make a joke about
that, but please name
a Scandinavian country.
And if you can name, I mean, you’re
gonna get partial points for Scandinavian.
You are correct.
Norway or Sweden?
Norway or Sweden is not
correct, but again, you’re very close.
It’s a good guess.
I didn’t get the whole list.
I only got like the top two in
the bottom few and stuff like that.
So I don’t actually know where
Norway or Sweden rests within this.
The Netherlands, 85% said they
were very happy or rather happy.
83% in Mexico.
Now, my stories, my news
media input from Mexico is all
cartel stuff and murders
and people dying and stuff.
But people in Mexico, 83% said
they are very happy or rather happy.
And I guess if, like, I eat
burritos almost every day,
if you’re eating Mexican food every
day, you’re gonna be pretty happy anyways.
So that’s pretty good.
Japan was 28th on the list.
The lowest two were South
Korean hungry and hungry.
They tied for 48%.
So if you wanna go to, see, I
don’t think this is representative.
If they’re getting these low numbers, 2,000
people don’t represent a whole country.
But I do know that South Korea has
the worst work-life balance in the world.
And that’s gotta say something.
Again, my thing about Japan as a
country has been work-life balance.
I’ve been saying it for years and years and
years and years doing these, news Japan.
The thing to fix the country
is to fix the work-life balance
and then all the other stuff would
start to fall into place afterwards.
But who’s gonna listen to the
number two news Japanese news
entertainment podcast
in the world other than
not politicians ’cause they’re
not smart enough to listen.
Although I do rip on politicians a lot.
I bet no politician would
actually wanna listen to this
’cause if their name came
up, they’d be like, “Ah, he’s
gonna make fun of my apology
“and retracting my statements.
” There is a global trend right now
towards the happiness index going down.
So I would be interested in
checking out the happiness index.
What kind of questions
they actually ask you.
But looking at the
results, not enough people,
but weirdly accurate
for what I would assume
are the countries with
the worst work-life balance.
February 2005, we’re gonna
get all the surveys up from.
I do enjoy my surveys
and my numbers and stuff.
February 2005, survey was done.
Should we have a female emperor?
87% people said yes.
We should have a female emperor
because as I’ve stated
in other emperor-related
stories in the past,
they don’t do anything.
So the fact that it’s a man or
woman does not matter anymore.
That went down to 72% in
2006 when a prince was born.
So they’re like, “Hey, we have a male heir.
“Maybe we don’t need
these ladies anymore.
” I went down to 68% in 2017.
30% of the people back
in that survey in 2017 said,
“We should take someone
from the former imperial lineage
“that left sort of the royal
family line after World War II.
“There is a relationship there though.
“There’s a reason those
people left the royal family
“after World War II, and it might be one of
the reasons “why we don’t want them back.
” Because right now, what
does the emperor’s family do?
They work with the Red Cross.
They do make countries
nice with each other.
They do charity work.
I think that’s great.
I actually think that’s good
work and it’s good to be done.
I just think these people should
have to have jobs and stuff as well.
This year, a different
survey was done last month.
And so it’s related because
the topic is the same,
but it was done, again, I
didn’t want to get too much
into the weeds, but it’s done like different
numbers, different amounts of people.
A different survey was done last week.
81% of those people
said bring on the ladies,
we want a female emperor, or we’re
comfortable with a female emperor.
And I think, yes, either
take whoever is next in line.
I don’t care about
their gender, male, or
female, or any other
aspect of their personality.
They are just part of the royal family.
If you’re gonna have a royal
family, just deal with them.
Do not overcomplicate this.
Or, do maybe the more sensible
thing and just get rid of them?
Like, how are tax payer
dollars being spent on this?
Well, we’re talking
about in our first story,
raising the age of
retirement from 65 to 70?
Like, why are we paying for a royal family
when you have 70 year olds having to work?
Because I’m already done.
I was done probably a few years ago, but I
gotta keep working until I get my pension.
This is like one of those cult movies
where it’s like the day before
my pension kicks in and I die.
It’s the day before my pension kicks in,
they change the rule and I have to
keep working for another five years.
It’s a nightmare.
Those should be horror
movies at this point.
If your country is considering
moving the definition
of elderly from 65 to 70
to keep those people working
and re-skilling those people, which
would mean training, which
mean you have to pay for training.
Maybe the money we spend
as a country on the royal family.
Is it really worthwhile?
It’s like the whisper.
I do like whispering every now and then.
It really brings the tension
in but down in a soft way.
There was that town,
talked about last week.
They installed a big black barrier to
cover a loss in that was undermount Fuji
because visitors, tourists were coming
and they were flocking to this place
and taking this iconic picture
and they were standing in the road
and they were causing problems
and they were being dirty and stuff.
All the stuff they’re complaining
about over tourism right now in Japan.
What has happened as a result?
Well, a lot of people are like, “This
isn’t great because it’s kind of an ice or,
“but, taxi drivers said
the traffic is better.
“It’s a lot safer.
” And what has actually happened is
people have, as I would have guessed,
moved to another loss in location that
is similar in taking a similar picture.
So now you’re gonna
get everyone in this area.
Every loss in this area is
gonna have to put a black barrier.
They are talking about solutions ’cause
this odd view is an imperfect solution.
It has worked for this one location ’cause
people end up moving to other locations
but you’re just taking
the problem in moving
it to some other town
or place that is similar.
They’re saying what
they’re gonna do is put up
the big, a QR code on
the big, big black barrier.
Let’s see if I can say
that five times fast.
Big black barrier, big black barrier,
put a QR code on the big black barrier.
If I practice, it’s not bad.
They wanna put a QR code on the big black
barrier and that will guide you to places
where it’s appropriate to take good pictures
of Mount Fuji, like tourist locations
and stop bothering
locals who are actually
trying to get to loss
and to get their one cup.
It’s interesting, so the complaint now
that this thing has actually been erected
is that the locals are
saying we have a problem
and it’s that we don’t
like the big black barrier.
So they’re talking about replacing
the barrier with a different color.
I did originally say a green
screen, which would be super
problematic because all the
influencers would go there.
Take a video and then put something else
like their anime loss in the foreground
and then take a picture
of them in front of
their anime loss and
in front of Mount Fuji.
Charge ’em for it and
then we have a solution
to the thing that I don’t have
to now retire at 70 instead of 65.
Now all that money
should go into a fund for
me so that I can go
into early retirement.
So they are talking about a different
color to make it more appealing.
But putting this thing
up costs 1.3 million yen,
which came out of the town’s coffers,
which came out of the town’s money.
So they’re like, is this really the solution
to spend more money to get a new barrier
that’s a different color after spending
all this money put up in the first place?
There is no simple solution to any problem.
This is something I’ve found, I
become hyper fixated on solutions.
So the best example from me, is I needed
a bag, a backpack for my judo clothes.
So I wrap up my judo suit and
I measured it and I found the
perfect measurements and I
was like, okay, this would be great.
So I went online and I found a
backpack, I actually have it here.
Right, it’s a sling
black, it’s a sling back,
it’s rated hazard
four, which is the super
durable, it says it
could inhibit a bullet.
It’s not, it can’t say it’s bullet proof
because a bullet would go through it,
but maybe it would slow it down
and it would do less damage to me.
I’m certain there’s a
lot of factors in there.
So I bought this bag, it’s very expensive,
gonna last me for years, I’ve done it,
I’ve got the perfect bag and I put
the judo suit in and it fits perfectly.
I’m hyper focused on the
solution that I immediately
go, I need a water
bottle and that doesn’t fit
because the measurements
are exactly to the judo suit,
not the judo suit plus water bottle and
there’s stuff on top of that, water bottle
and change of underwear
and change of pants,
t-shirt, whatever, like I
go in one set of clothes,
let’s say my work clothes,
I want to come home
and maybe more casual
and more comfortable clothes.
I’m still probably sweating,
so I want to put on a t-shirt
or something, so I
got to bring the t-shirt,
I got to bring a towel ’cause
I want to take a shower, I got
to bring a water bottle, I got
to bring underwear and stuff.
And then if there’s anything
else I need to bring that day,
a notebook, something else like
that, it has to go in there as well.
So I was hyper fixated on a single solution
and I didn’t take into account
the bigger picture around it,
that is a very common
chunk of beef chest way
of having a mistake is I’ve
actually solved a problem
so perfectly, I failed to take into account
other things surrounding that problem.
This is kind of what
they’re doing, we’ve put up
a barrier, we’ve solved
this individual problem,
but we’ve actually just
made different problems.
Now locals are saying that
this thing, this barrier is ugly.
Now locals are saying like, a local’s
in a similar location, maybe close by,
are going, all you’ve
done is move those
people to where we
are, that’s not a solution.
Do I have a solution for it?
No, tear down melt Fuji.
This is very interesting, now we’re gonna
get into news, there’s no more surveys.
So if your survey porn has not been
satisfied, you gotta go somewhere else.
A teacher was being brought to
trial for sexual crimes in real Oklahoma,
we’ve actually done this
kind of story dirty teachers,
I actually have kind of shied
away from dirty teachers
because there’s not much to
make fun of, it’s just gross and awful.
And I do want to be relatively
flippin’ about the stories I talk about.
So I’ve actually not touched these as
much because there’s no joke factor.
The Yokohama school board brought staff in
to the courthouse to occupy all the seats
so they would keep
the public out of the trial.
Now why do you think they did that?
You want, you have a teacher who’s on trial
for doing something dirty,
dirty, dirty, bad and gross.
So you bring in all your staff, and
they’re going to fill up all the seats
so the public can’t take
part or can’t watch this trial.
They have done this
eight times for eight trials.
Well, I guess it’ll be multi
trials in just a single event.
So eight trials, which would be multiple
days, they had 371 staff members.
They used up to 50 at a time to
make sure that all the seats were taken
and they did this for, this
could be 50 people per trial.
The school board even paid travel expenses
for the staff to get
to the trial to take the
seats so the public
couldn’t see the court case,
which means the tax money in
Yokohama that goes to education
is going to pay to keep
the public from seeing
the trial of the teacher
who abused a student.
That’s a lot going on
in one single sentence.
The board of education,
when this was brought
to their attention,
said that this was done
at the request of the victims
to protect their reputation.
Now I think there’s a word
you should swap out there.
If you said the board of
education said this was to,
was done at the request of the board
of education to protect their reputation.
I think that might be more accurate.
They then vehemently
denied, they admitted it
was excessive and they
apologized for doing it.
They did not say they’re going to stop.
So that is an interesting thing.
The school board has
decided to make sure the
public does not have
access to public trials
and they’re claiming it’s for the
victims benefit not to protect themselves.
59 year old man got arrested,
oh, love my 59 year old man.
As soon as I say that phrase, now
we’ve said a tradition in Indonesia, Pat.
If I say 50 something year old man got
arrested, you know it’s gross and dirty.
This isn’t as bad.
It’s interesting though,
he’d been drinking.
So there’s the combination
of 50 year old man,
plus alcohol and you know he’s not
elderly, he’s still defined as a young man.
He wanted to confront his neighbor
about parking in their property.
So his neighbor’s parking
maybe in their parking lot
or going over the middle
line or something like that.
It’s a very get off my lawn scenario.
And I’ve gotten to that age where I’m
like waiting for someone to come out.
So I can charge out and be like,
yeah, my drive, I don’t have a lawn.
I got to drive way.
Get out my drive way.
You can’t park over a rubber.
I don’t know why my accent
changes when I do that.
That’s a certain, I guess that’s the change
from old to elderly is a
significant accent change.
His wife stopped him.
He said, look, honey, your drunk,
you’re being unreasonable, don’t
go confront the neighbor about this.
Let’s maintain some neighborly relations.
We’ll have a conversation with him
when you’re in a better state of mind.
He’s like, no.
And he, he hit her with a banana peel.
Now here’s the problem.
The only bit of information that’s
lacking in the article that I want.
Did he throw the banana peel and
the banana peel hit her in the face?
Or did he actually slap
her with a banana peel?
They’re both funny, but
they’re funny in different ways
because you could throw a banana
peel and it could just sail over them.
But if he threw a banana peel and he sniped
her, that’s actually kind of awesome.
If he slapped her with a
banana peel, it’s like you
want to slap someone but
you don’t want to hurt them.
Did he do it for a hand or backhand?
Did he bit slap her with a banana peel?
Because now what I want
to do more than anything else
is getting to a gentle
argument with someone,
a confrontation, and
then backhand them with a
banana peel, which I
think would be really funny.
The wife on the other hand
didn’t think it was funny.
She calls the police.
The police show up and like, your
wife says you hit her with a banana peel
and he’s like, yeah, I hit
her with a banana peel.
Is that a big deal?
And then he gets arrested for it.
While he’s being arrested, he
said, is this considered violence?
Couples experience this level of violence.
No, actually they don’t.
I’ve never hit any partner
I’ve had with anything.
I’ve never hit any of my
partners in the entirety of my life.
So that is not true.
But at the same time, I’m
kind of, I’m not on his side,
but it seems unreasonable
for her to have called
the police over him hitting
her with a banana peel.
Because the banana peel didn’t hurt.
Because whenever they
have any sort of these assault
or violent statements,
they talk about how long
it takes the victim to
heal from their injuries.
And there’s no mention
of that because getting hit
in the face with a banana
peel doesn’t actually hurt.
So there’s nothing to recover from.
But there is also the
question of escalation.
So once you hit someone with a banana peel,
the next step is obviously
hitting them with a watermelon.
50, 50, 50, 55-year-old man arrested.
Yep.
Two in a row, he was
coming back from Thailand.
I watched a video just
the other day of two British
tourists in Thailand just
getting the crap beat out of them
by some security guards because apparently
they had hit one of the service workers.
I actually don’t know what kind.
I don’t know if it was legit or a
red light district or that kind of thing.
But there was enough
of an area where they
have security workers
and there’s the ladies.
The bar ladies are trying
to stop the security workers
from beating the crap out
of these two British dudes.
But there’s something very satisfying
of watching British men get beat up.
If they had done it with banana
peels, now this is my new high standard.
If you’re going to beat
someone up, you beat them up.
You know, fizzly bump, bump, bump,
bump, bump, and knock them down.
And at the end, you backhand
them with a banana peel.
You can oil you want.
You would get the same
satisfaction of watching two
British tourists get their shit kicked
out of them by Thai security guards.
I guarantee.
I did.
Yeah, there you go.
Yeah, there you go.
I do it.
Everyone, British people
have the same feelings
everyone else about watching
British tourists get beat up.
If you said they were Canadian, I’d be
like, oh, but Canadians are nice people.
I hold this stereotype where my
default stance is Canadians are nice.
And then you would prove
to me that they were bad
people, and they’d be
like, oh, they deserve it.
There is the default is that
British tourists deserve it.
And in Thailand, again, you kind of know.
You kind of know.
I know nothing about
them, but you kind of know.
They deserve it backhand
with a banana peel.
All right, so this guy,
Japanese dude, 55 years old,
he gets on an airplane, he’s
coming back from Thailand.
He’s drunk.
Allegedly.
I can literally guarantee
you this man was drunk.
I don’t need to do any detective work.
While he was on the airplane, he was
yelling and trying to hit other passengers.
I mean, I’ve never been on a
flight where that’s happened.
Everyone’s actually been very–
I guess that’s why those
end up videos on the internet.
I wonder if I would hit him back.
If someone tried to hit
me, would I hit them back?
I probably wouldn’t.
Like, I have a great deal
of violence within me,
but at the end of the day, I’m
like, I don’t want to get in trouble.
I don’t want to go to prison.
I don’t want all these problems.
But I guarantee if one
of those dudes hit one
of my kids, I would
just go ape shit on him.
I’d be like a Thai security guard on
a British tourist with a banana peel.
So he was moved from wherever
he was sitting to a different set place.
Now, I’m wondering
if he was in first class
and was moved back to
economy or vice versa.
I don’t know, because how many places can
you actually move someone on an airplane?
But he was moved.
He was then, he then tried to do
lewd acts towards the flight attendants.
And it says several.
He was hugging and trying to kiss
one flight attendant for up to 10 minutes.
And that is a long time.
And they couldn’t do
anything about it, it seems.
So he was taken off the airplane
when they landed, and he was arrested.
His statement was, I don’t
remember because I was drunk,
which is one of the most classic
Japanese defenses of bad behavior ever.
I do have a counter for
obstruction of business.
I was thinking some of these other
ones I should start a counter as well.
I don’t remember because I was
drunk should be one of them, for sure.
If you have listened to
any of the back catalog
of Ninja News Japan, and you have any
recommendations for a counter we should keep.
Because I’m happy with keeping
counters is actually quite fun.
I think I don’t remember because
I was drunk should be up there.
That is absolutely one that should go in.
We haven’t had a lot of
obstruction of businesses lately.
So I’m waiting for a
tsunami, a wave of obstruction
of business crimes to
come up in the future.
But also, if we could start the trend
if hitting people with banana peels,
I think that’s something
we should actually start.
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(gentle music)