- Opens first page of new book
- Immediately starts crying

Japan has gone from favorite #MMT talking point to #MMT nightmare. You can obviously use your central bank to cap yields. Anyone can do that, including EMs. But that leads to very big debasement of your currency. The Yen is down more than Turkish Lira in real terms since 2019...

Happening now!!

Map of languages spoken in China

JFC

On Thursday!

Jessamyn R. Abel (Pennsylvania State University) on her new book “Dream Super-Express: A Cultural History of the World's First Bullet Train” in conversation with Yuting Dong (University of Chicago), 7-8:30 pm ET.

Register for Zoom here: mjha.org/event-5595362

when me and my honey bunny die you guys had better entomb us just like this

Those who claims US geography is unsuitable for HSR doesn’t know that 80% of China’s HSR network can be replicated in the US, and still be economically viable in the relatively densely populated East coast.

Love love love this Ben Blatt map of Super 8 motel prices for Sunday and Monday...
nytimes.com/2024/04/04/ups…

what's going on here

Love these!

Thanks to nuclear power

For the first time, Hitachi had a free dress code at its new employee welcoming ceremony. The new employees mostly played it safe, with dark suits. mainichi.jp/english/articl…

Amazon billed its 'Just Walk Out' stores as some triumph of AI. In reality, it was powered by thousands of low-paid Indian workers manually adding up items in your cart as you shopped.

How insanely dystopian. gizmodo.com/amazon-reporte…

Mark your calendars!

MJHA presents a roundtable discussion on the history of James Clavell's novel 'Shōgun' and film adaptations past and present, May 2 from 7-8:30pm EDT, featuring scholars of both early modern Japan and England.

Register for Zoom here: mjha.org/event-5672414

Every Japanese person will be surnamed 'Sato' by the year 2531 if the current law requiring married couples to adopt the same surname remains in effect, according to a study at Tohoku University

mainichi.jp/english/articl…

By the GINI index, which measures income #inequality , the US is in the worst quartile of inequality among 178 nations, comparable to many Latin American, African, & Middle Eastern countries and being far more unequal than most European and Asian countries. cia.gov/the-world-fact…

Electric cars passed the 5% tipping point to mass adoption in 31 countries. Top 11:

1 Norway 80% EV market share
2 Iceland 58%
3 Denmark 45%
4 Sweden 40%
5 Finland, Netherlands 35%
7 Ireland 34%
8 Belgium 25%
9 Portugal, Switzerland, China 24%

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

THREAD: What is happening in UK universities is astonishing. Right now about quarter of universities are laying off staff. Almost all universities expect to make a loss this year. And the entire thing is happening in an effort to deceive the population about migration statistics.

Activists in South Korea want to replace all the Japanese cherry trees in the country with an extremely similar 'native' Korean cherry tree.

This disregards the fact that these trees are all hybrids of trees invented in Japan a few hundred years ago.

nytimes.com/2024/03/29/wor…