Chapter 1: My Wife’s Morning Flip-Flop
This morning, my wife sighed, "Politics is so complicated." Not five minutes later, she chirped, "Well, if the opposition is handing out 20,000 yen, maybe they’re not so bad!"
Her political ideology seems to set faster than our breakfast eggs. And the news? Japan’s Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) plans to reduce the consumption tax on food to zero starting next April, and hand out a flat 20,000 yen per citizen.
The funding? National reserves. It’s meant as a temporary measure against inflation. "How generous," my wife says. Me? I smell irony.
Chapter 2: Tax Up, Tax Down, and Round We Go
Here’s the kicker: the very man proposing this, Yoshihiko Noda, was the Prime Minister who raised the consumption tax in the first place. Now, he's offering tax cuts and cash giveaways—backfilling lost revenue with government funds.
That’s a policy ouroboros: raise taxes, reverse them, patch the deficit, and toss in handouts—all in the same breath. It’s like watching someone burn a house down just to rebuild it with borrowed bricks.
And the debt? Ah yes, 2 trillion yen here, 10 trillion yen over there, and a whispered promise: “We won’t burden future generations.” Meanwhile, new tax schemes quietly line up behind the curtain.
And my wife? “Even 20,000 yen won’t get me through the week,” she mutters.
Chapter 3: Wallets and Warnings
My wife's wallet is a better economic barometer than any index. She stares at receipts like she's cracking the Da Vinci Code. So sure, 20,000 yen sounds helpful. But what’s the point if prices soak it up immediately?
We were told the consumption tax funds social welfare. Yet pensions shrink, medical costs rise, and care workers cry out. And somehow, budget rivers still flow toward ineffective child policies and a climate narrative we can't even agree on.
It's not about denying real issues. It's about where the money goes—and why nobody seems to ask anymore.
But maybe I’m just old-fashioned.
Chapter 4: Democracy, Looped and Loaded
Election season in Japan has its own aroma—pork barrel with a dash of populism. Both ruling and opposition parties loosen their belts and open the candy jar.
In the end, it’s not “who gives,” but “who receives” that steers our votes. My wife joked, “Maybe it’s our turn to get something.” And that joke? It’s the root of this nation’s political stagnation: a democracy of endless deferments.
We take the gift now, pay the price later, and forget both by next Tuesday. A perfect system—for doing nothing.
That, my friends, is the real inflation: not of prices, but of promises.