Aso’s Latest Gaffe!

[Otto]

According to the minutes of a Nov. 20 meeting of the Council on Fiscal and Economic Policy, Aso said: "Why do I have to pay for medical expenses for old people (who become sick) because they drink and eat all the time and do nothing?" "They were very active when they were students, but now their medical expenses (which the government must shoulder) are much more than mine," he said. "It's because I take a walk every morning and do other things. I pay more taxes than they do."

Unbelievable! In previous a thread I had written about the possibility of a consumption tax hike! I thought, where’s the outrage!? What struck me most was the “elitist” tone to his comments. As if he has ever done a decent job in his life. I saw a documentary yesterday (Close-Up 現代)about the growing number of working poor in this country. Let me tell you, it brought tears to my eyes. These people are treated like garbage, and now with the global market meltdown, large numbers of hard-working Japanese people are being laid off by the hundreds each day. Then to hear this pompous daddy’s boy talk about his taxes being misused only upsets me more. Let me tell you having a family member being disabled, and hearing comments from a rich individual about the physically weak, being a tax burden is quite unbelievable. How can this man steer this country in the right direction again? There was a terrorist attack in India the same day the story broke. This worked out quite well for the Prime Minister. Otherwise his gaffe would have been the top story on the evening news.

[Astroboy]

According to the minutes of a Nov. 20 meeting of the Council on Fiscal and Economic Policy, Aso said: "Why do I have to pay for medical expenses for old people (who become sick) because they drink and eat all the time and do nothing?" "They were very active when they were students, but now their medical expenses (which the government must shoulder) are much more than mine," he said. "It's because I take a walk every morning and do other things. I pay more taxes than they do."
Unbelievable! In previous a thread I had written about the possibility of a consumption tax hike! I thought, where’s the outrage!? What struck me most was the “elitist” tone to his comments. As if he has ever done a decent job in his life. I saw a documentary yesterday (Close-Up 現代)about the growing number of working poor in this country. Let me tell you, it brought tears to my eyes. These people are treated like garbage, and now with the global market meltdown, large numbers of hard-working Japanese people are being laid off by the hundreds each day. Then to hear this pompous daddy’s boy talk about his taxes being misused only upsets me more. Let me tell you having a family member being disabled, and hearing comments from a rich individual about the physically weak, being a tax burden is quite unbelievable. How can this man steer this country in the right direction again? There was a terrorist attack in India the same day the story broke. This worked out quite well for the Prime Minister. Otherwise his gaffe would have been the top story on the evening news.

Well said. :(
It is true that people, calling his name "*** hole" instead of Aso, are increasing today. :p

[Astroboy]

I saw a documentary yesterday (Close-Up 現代)about the growing number of working poor in this country. Let me tell you, it brought tears to my eyes. These people are treated like garbage, and now with the global market meltdown, large numbers of hard-working Japanese people are being laid off by the hundreds each day.

I think I had also watched the same NHK programme some days ago. Then assuming that you live in Japan, what do you think about so-called woring poor or wealth gap in Japan?

For the past years, Japanese media often said that the wealth gap is growing in Japan. But if I check "Gini Coefficient World Human Development Report 2007-2008", Japan is one of the least wealth gap countries in the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Gini_Coefficient_World_Human_Development_Rep ort_2007-2008.png
http://www.jref.com/forum/showthread.php?p=587788

So I am wondering what is working poor... or Japanese media is misleading, or working poor is not working poor in terms of global standard, or All Japan is working poor ?

[JerseyBoy]

So I am wondering what is working poor... or Japanese media is misleading, or working poor is not working poor in terms of global standard, or All Japan is working poor ?
I just don't trust Japanese media (heck, I have not even watched or listened to it for over at least 15 years). But, from what people talk about the current events, it seems Japanese media is reporting stories or events which attract interests, which does not really represent the general trend. It seems Japanese media likes sensationalism to make a Himalaya out of a child's sand mountain. So, that working poor thing is over blown by the media in Japan.

I am quite fine with the wealth gap personally. High achievers should be able to get rewarded without their wealth being distributed by the highly inefficient Japanese bureaucrats (note: I have not been affiliated with the John McCain campaign:blush:).

[Otto]

But if I check "Gini Coefficient World Human Development Report 2007-2008", Japan is one of the least wealth gap countries in the world.

Interesting statistics. Thank you, Astroboy. This might sound strange, but the graph you showed makes me quite optimistic. Perhaps like JerseyBoy said, the information we have been getting through the media has been distorted! I am also very disappointed with Japanese television. Therefore I only watch the “7 o’clock news” and “Close-Up現代” on NHK. For my world news I watch CNN. I believe these are still reliable today. Other channels seem to be engaged in alarmism and sensationalism to increase their ratings. (America’s Fox News and CNN’s Lou Dobbs would also be in this category of alarmists.) It’s not only the Japanese media.^^

Regarding the working poor, perhaps the older generation views society as having less security for the young worker compared to before, and worry the youth won’t have the same opportunities as they did. The media is focused on the large number of part time workers, with low incomes, whose futures are clouded in uncertainty. Therefore referring to them as the “working-poor”. Maybe we shouldn’t worry too much about the “Global –Standard” and think simply, what’s best for Japan?!

[grapefruit]

I think it's dangerous to rely only on the comparison of gini coefficients.
Wikipedia says

General problems of measurement
* Comparing income distributions among countries may be difficult because benefits systems may differ. For example, some countries give benefits in the form of money while others give food stamps, which might not be counted by some economists and researchers as income in the Lorenz curve and therefore not taken into account in the Gini coefficient. The USA counts income before benefits, while France counts it after benefits, making the USA appear more unequal vis-a-vis France than it is.

Also it says,
* The Gini coefficient of different sets of people cannot be averaged to obtain the Gini coefficient of all the people in the sets: if a Gini coefficient were to be calculated for each person it would always be zero. For a large, economically diverse country, a much higher coefficient will be calculated for the country as a whole than will be calculated for each of its regions. (The coefficient is usually applied to measurable nominal income rather than local purchasing power, tending to increase the calculated coefficient across larger areas.)
For this reason, the scores calculated for individual countries within the EU are difficult to compare with the score of the entire US: the overall value for the EU should be used in that case, 31.3[4], which is still much lower than the United States', 45.[5] Using decomposable inequality measures (e.g. the Theil index T converted by 1 － e － T into a inequality coefficient) averts such problems.


But, it is true that there has not been much change in Japan. I'm also curious about what caused France to improve in equality.