This is legitimately what the conservatives believe, that the EU is “free riding” on bailouts by the US.

Actually, they mean Shitamachi 下町, literally “Down Town” /s

Yamanote and Shitamachi - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamanote_and_Shitamachi

I think you misunderstand what the Bank of Japan is. It is a central bank, so it does not take deposits from households, and buys government debt by controlling money supply (i.e. printing money). It holds around 46% of Japanese government debt, far more than domestic insurance companies and domestic banks (~15% each).

The Japanese public are definitely not willing to lend to the government at such low interest rates. The majority holder of Japanese bonds is the Bank of Japan, who needs to purchase large amounts of bonds to conduct its monetary policy. This has lead to some accusations of the two having an incestuous relationship, when central banks are supposed to be independent.

Before the Bank of Japan started hiking interest rates, most Japanese people were stuck in a liquidity trap, where they had to pay to store money in the bank. This was due to a combination of low/negative interest rates, and lots of banking fees due to the oligopolistic banking sector. 7-eleven (the convenience store) bank is unironically the fastest growing bank there, in no small part because they were the only bank with a wide ATM network which didn’t charge fees during business hours.

It is certainly… interesting that the Japanese government, with access to such cheap credit, decides to invest it abroad for higher returns, rather than invest it domestically and pursuing structural reforms to improve its own growth, and in doing so perpetuating the spread between government assets and liabilities.

FYI there are a lot of investors who do this exact trade, i.e. borrow cheap money from Japan, and invest it abroad.

Japanese conservative monarchists are wild.

Look up the Google Maps reviews of the imperial palace. For some context, the majority of the imperial palace is completely off limits to the general public (in stark contrast to most developed countries), and the royal family does a new years greeting.

The reviews are monarchists unironically saying things like that they travelled for days, lined up for hours, caught a glimpse of one of the royal family, were temporarily transported to heaven, and will dedicate their lives hoping for the forever prosperity of the royal family.

Side note, the restaurant analogy is exactly why I hate the seemingly American style of service where the waiter asks how the food is halfway through.

I guess that’s a good analogy for how creepy surveillance capitalism is, it’s like a waiter judging and recording your every move and reaction throughout the entire meal.

Obligatory compilation of the spooky predictions from Revelations about that antichrist, which Trump seems to hit

Could American Evangelicals Spot the Antichrist? Here Are the Biblical Predictions: - Benjamin L. Corey - http://www.benjaminlcorey.com/could-american-evangelicals-spot-the-antichrist-heres-the-biblical-predictions/

Israeli (derogatory)

Denatonoum Benzoate.

Intensely bitter compound used to prevent people from putting them into their mouths. Examples include nail polishes (to help nail biting habits), button cell batteries, and even Nintendo switch cartridges.

Denatonium - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatonium

Israel strikes Gaza

The move away from passive voice is refreshing, even if very late

Immich users flag Google sites as dangerous

Not just “to an extent.” Randomised Controlled Trials (lotteries) are the gold standard for evaluating policy. The political optics for the general public unfortunately aren’t great, but the resulting data will be much more ironclad to refute anyone who argues for repealing such a scheme in the future.

Bloomberg is stock market brained, but more generally China’s extremely high savings rate is regarded as a bad thing, because this is usually due to the combination of high income inequality, low social safety nets, and high housing costs.

Basically, there are too many poor households in China that are saving excessively due to anxieties about lack of safety nets and high housing costs.

Low education/financial literacy and poor regulation of financial markets also make Chinese households very risk averse to consuming, investing, or even taking out loans (credit cards are very unpopular). Everyone is just excessively dumping their savings in assets perceived to be safe.

Once savings are in “safe” assets, they are inaccessible to other productive uses like startups or other loans. This is the exact opposite of a productive economy, and is what the article tried to convey.

China’s high savings: Drivers, prospects, and policy implications - ScienceDirect - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1566014125001049

(which they for some reason keep electing)

Japan’s voting system is FPTP for rural seats, but proportional for urban seats. This means that not only do conservatives sweep rural seats, but also split the urban seats, which would usually would otherwise to progressives under a full FPTP system. This toxic mix has been a longstanding issue in their politics.

Not sure of your specific needs, but I feel that self hosting (i.e. setting up a proper server) is unnecessary. Just pick a local first program and use it with syncthing.

The usual trio (which may be overkill) are Obsidian (admittedly not open source), Trillium, and logseq.

South Korea is infamous for very high cost of living, especially considering the very low salaries.

You can check numbeo for more specific comparisons, but Seoul and Busan are only 20% and 30% cheaper in terms of cost of living compared to Atlanta GA, respectively. Not nearly enough to make up the salary difference.

The fact there there are migrant workers already tells you the situation. People’s behaviour generally follow economic incentives. There’s a reason why South Korea is struggling with emigration.

Because money, sadly.

An automotive factory worker averages around $25/hour in the US, or an annual salary of around 50K.

An automotive factory worker in South Korea averages around 17,000 KRW/hour, or an annual salary of around 36 mil KRW, which is roughly $12/hour or 25K annual.

Date rapists in shambles

For context, these containers are really popular for storing drugs like GHB

Ben Garrison’s comic of Greta Thunberg getting spanked (spoiler for your protection):

It’s a crypto rag, so not at all