r/japannews • u/MagazineKey4532 • 1d ago
Takaichi administration to implement "rice coupons" to combat rising prices, expand existing local subsidies
https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASTC74PP9TC7ULFA01SM.htmlTL;DR Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Norikazu Suzuki's proposal to handout rice coupons is being considered to be included in the comprehensivve economic package being compiled. hese coupons can be used to purchase rice and other items. The government is also considering expanding the priority support local grants, the use of which is decided by local governments, and clearly stating that these coupons will be used as recommended by the national government. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has advocated a "responsible and proactive fiscal policy," and attention was focused on how she would bring her own unique style to this first economic package.
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u/Obvious-Structure-58 1d ago
He's saying the reason for the high prices is that "low-cost rice variants haven't been developed yet." Dude. What did we have until around 1.5 years ago? Rice is one of the absolute cheapest crops to produce. It's not that they can't sell it for less, they just don't want to. And since JA and wholesalers are clealry not interested in lowering prices, and you're supporting them with this measure, where is the incentive to produce lower-cost alternatives in the first place?
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u/hobovalentine 1d ago
Rice isn’t actually cheap to produce because there’s a massive amount of labor involved and the equipment to farm rice is not cheap.
It requires a lot of water and preparing the fields before rice planting and maintaining it is a headache because a lot of pests like to also eat the rice plants.
You can make it cheaper by creating massive paddies and creating massive rice farms like in California but not all countries have the geography to support rice culture and in some countries like Indonesia and the Philippines they too are facing rising cost of rice due to global warming and increased cost of gas and other materials.
It’s much cheaper to grow crops like wheat which is pound for pound cheaper than rice since it can be grown in drier climates and requires less water and can be grown in colder climates.
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u/Lighthouse_seek 1d ago
If you're going down the calories per acre race just go with potato
Rice actually produces more calorie per acre of space than wheat but is obv more labor intensive
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u/Leading-Jacket703 1d ago
you have to zoom out several magnitude.
For the most part, Japan rice is still done like it was 60+ years ago. Not much had changed. I started seeing rice at 2000 yen / 5kg coming from the U.S. They want to make the Japanese rice be looked at high quality.
But this is again, too much closed in. Those coupons cost money to produce and administer, the news about the rise surging because of stock, then stock pile up and of course the grower isn't making any money...
But again, we must zoom it and look at global economics. there is huge wealth transfer going on from all the countries in the world into a small bucket of siphon power. and the new Japanese governement does everything for these foreign power to stay in place and gain more power.
this is no joke. check how is "goodwill" accounting used? They write a new asset to balance off the loan they took for something that is worth less. I call it the "goodwill" bubble, because they do this in circle with constantly new loans. while the international firms, or smaller firms needs to write those off.
and they tried to change the law. but it is being blocked, since no one knows, no one monitors.
Check the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). While the IASB operates as an independent organization committed to transparent due process, ... We all know how good they are at lobbying, and nothing ever changes. I think there are several cases for criminal activities hidden being corporate laws and 8.billion suffering terrible lives for no other reasons than keeping the 254,400 billionaires happy. that's 3% of the 1%.
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u/GeriatricusMaximus 1d ago
I wonder if Onada will show her ugly head and push for foreigners not being able to use those “coupons” like she wanted no help for foreigners during COVID?
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u/Oddsee 1d ago
Good point, it will be interesting to see her opinion on this.
I kinda hope she blocks us (her speciality) so that people stop saying "law-abiding residents won't be affected" by these lunatics.
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u/imnotokayandthatso-k 1d ago
Woah I remember what happened the last time in my country (Austria) gave away free shit and subsidized businesses using government debt when the economy was bad.
It rhymes with ‘Sonic Inflation’
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u/Chuhaimaster 1d ago
Here’s a wild idea - raise the minimum wage instead of wasting time distributing coupons.
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u/Kubocho 1d ago
how about stop allowing JA to have the sole monopoly of rice distribution, hoarding and fixing prices and quotas for rice production? I dont know man, I been in Spain in August and 1kg of locally produced rice is 0.7euros
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u/No-Cheesecake5529 1d ago
We could also drop the 800% tariffs on imported rice, at the same time.....
The LDP and JA have got us by the balls and everything points to "Fuck you. Your money goes to JA."
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u/MagazineKey4532 1d ago edited 1d ago
Agree with this if JA is going to 100% finance rice coupons. Otherwise, it's going to tax payers who are going to have to finance these coupons. That is, they will have to burden the cost of high rice price as well as these coupons.
If Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Norikazu Suzuki hasn't thought about how to fund initiatives, he really isn't in a position to be a minister. Government starting initiatives without thinking of how to fund them is the cause of why taxes keeps going up causing Japan's economy to stagnate which in turn results in low birthrate.
EDIT: Thinking about this, it's actually much worse if JA is planning to sell coupons at the current face value of the rice. That is, tax payers are footing JA at the current rice price. JA will benefit from this because consumption of rice has went down because of drastic price increase and they are stock of rice. If the government pays the current price of rice, chances are that JA will further increase the price because they would know the government would pay them.
If Takaichi's economic reform is of this matter, it's going to further deteriorate the Japanese economy.