August 18, 2022
"The Japanese government has launched a nationwide competition calling for ideas to encourage people to drink more alcohol..."
"... after a change in attitudes among the young resulted in a slide in tax revenues.... The competition... calls for 'new products and designs' as well as ways to promote home drinking.... 'As working from home made strides to a certain extent during the Covid 19 crisis, many people may have come to question whether they need to continue the habit of drinking with colleagues to deepen communication,' an official at the agency told the English-language newspaper at the time. 'If the "new normal" takes root, that will be an additional headwind for tax revenue.'"
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I think there's also some knock-on secondary benefits for birth-rates being missed here. Alcohol is humanity's mating drug/aphrodisiac of choice.
Especially shochu...that stuff would make me find a porcupine attractive.
When I was in Japan (1990) I was surprised to see vending machines, out on the street, selling beer. In very large cans.
I categorize Japanese alcohol in the following priority from best to worst:
- Whiskey. Seriously, if you haven't tried high-end Japanese barrel-aged whisky, try it. People don't associate Japan with whiskeyproduction, but it's taken them 20 years to get it to this point, and it's paid off.
- Shochu. Especially high-end aged shochu. It will make you feel like your balls are cradled in a chinchilla-lined speedo and is scientifically proven to make your penis larger.
- Asahi Dry Zero. The 7:3 high-abv jockey can. It tastes like liquified beer crystals that were grown in Alpine stream water flowing through secret crevices in the rocks on the walking paths of Bayrischzell. It also makes your penis bigger.
- Saki. Hi....I'm in Delaware.
“Government is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together.”
Here, we made it illegal. Not sure that would work in Japan.
Happens that per capita alchohol consumption in US and Japan almost identical. Both below Europe and way above Islamic countries, natch.
Next up will be to encouraging more purchases of lottery tickets.
The government preys on human weaknesses in order to get more tax money.
Might as well make heroin and coke legal and tax the heck out of it.
The whole world is rapidly becoming Pottersville.
Indian casinos are being built in Omaha and Lincoln. Puke.
I like shochu better than Korean soju, which I think results from the a similar process, but I don't really like either. Because I have the tastes of a child, I prefer umeshu or makkeolli (it's pretty common in Japan in bbq restaurants, and I think it's produced domestically; process is similar to nigorizake) and very occasionally sake. That or imported wine/port/champagne. I think restaurants and the tax man probably get the biggest margins on the imported stuff, though. Maybe that expensive whiskey.
RideSpaceMountain nailed it. My first thought was that Japan should be worrying more about it's low population replacement rate and not it's low alcohol consumption rate, but then...hey...wait a minute.
This could simply be a backdoor way to get people to entwine more often. I know historically, I was always better looking to others when others had been drinking.
Sin taxes were created to reduce consumption. Consumption gets reduced. Government misses the revenue and so attempts to boost consumption. Freshman econ would explain this, but government seems immune to logic.
So...where can I buy Asahi Dry Zero in California? Asking for...myself, actually.
"The competition... calls for 'new products and designs' as well as ways to promote home drinking"
That just doesn't seem to be a problem in the USA. Japan should follow our model, heh?
Too bad about the physical location of Japan. Places where the winters are long and cold, with short daylight hours and long nights are the most ideal for drinking.
"Things I never thought I'd see" for 500, Alex.
You get less of whatever you tax.
Japan is ranked 56th in alcohol consumption. 8.0 per capita. The USA is ranked much higher. 9.8 per capita.
As someone who has spent many nights in Tokyo bars of varying repute, I can tell you that the Japanese don't have any problem with drinking vast quantities of alcohol.
Part of it is the social drink with your workers thing.
But I think it's facilitated by the superb mass transit system.
There is no reason to ever drive a car in the big cities and the trains/busses run on time down to the second.
Combine that with a very low crime rate, and there's no reason not to get bombed after work : )
Good sign at old bar in Lee Vining, CA.
'Get drunk and be somebody'
Sending the ex there COD.
Wine (especially Napa wine) is very expensive in Japan relative to whisky.
I asked a Japanese friend why that was.
She said whisky and Viagra are cheap in Japan because old men run the country, and old men like whisky and Viagra : )
The Chinese had a similar program targeting males in order to compensate for elective abortion, and, as it turned out, excessive abortion of their female babies that threatened to normalize a nonviable population.
'My first thought was that Japan should be worrying more about it's low population replacement rate and not it's low alcohol consumption rate...'
If you have any interest in visiting Japan (it's an amazing place) you probably should have gone ten years ago.
As soon as they are flooded with Philippine and other foreigners to prop up their service industries, the culture will be gone for good...
Art imitates life. This is the major plot conflict of What's So Bad About Feeling Good?
Temujin said, "This could simply be a backdoor way to get people to entwine more often."
I strongly suspect this is giving government more credit than it deserves. My guess is someone looked at the declining alcohol tax revenue and said, "We have to do something about this!" And that was that.
"The whole world is rapidly becoming Pottersville."
We sell hard liquor for men who want to get drunk fast,
Alcohol may help in the making of babies, but it detracts in the raising of babies.
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