It’s not great; the rice shortage continues to hit us pretty hard. I don’t eat rice at home anymore really, pretty much only at lunch at my office cause they supply it there.
Wages continue to stagnant (I am fairly lucky my industry has done reasonably well and I have actually got raises) and govt has decided that a slight hike to income tax for childless people is the way to go. Consumption tax continues to go up, food gets more and more expensive; greatly outpacing most people’s wage increases.
I was really hopeful at the beginning of the whole tariff song and dance that we would recognize our future should be with China, not the US, but our politicians seem to be holding to their guns. Though at least with a decidedly less pro-US voice.
That sounds grim, it seems like a very similar situation with Europe where the leadership really wants to continue play vassals to the US, but the US is making it very hard to do that now. A lot of these people still think Trump is an aberration and they just need to hunker down for the next three and a half years until the next admin comes in. They simply don’t understand that material conditions have changed, and US policy isn’t going to reverse. I wonder how bad do things have to get economically before there’s finally acceptance that the status quo isn’t coming back.
Wish we had a better president here in the US so we could help you out. Allies should help allies in their times of need and it’s disgusting how things are going right now.
Stay strong, friend.
Allies? you must mean vassals and the plaza accords should’ve left that very clear to anyone.
Appreciate the sentiment, but a change of leadership wouldn’t be a big change for us honestly. There are plenty of issues with our relationship with the US that have persisted over multiple administrations from multiple parties. Such as the mafia-esque protection money we pay for the honour of providing the US bases.
If anything, there is an accelerationist point of view we could take that the current souring of relations could spur Japan to work with real allies for a change. The LDP has not shown much desire to do so, admittedly.