TAG WARS: RISE OF THE FUCKTARDS (Overtourism and TAG 2025)

For stocks, one way my old man does it is dividend stocks. Basically you get paid a certain percentage each year like interest, so if you are a boomer with like couple mil worth of stocks or more you can basically live off of it from the free money each year.

Downside of course is if the stock market goes to shit so does your retirement so don't put all of your money into one place lol.
I used to do this but I moved to a country where it no longer makes sense for tax reasons (dividends are taxed a lot which compounds a shit ton over years) so just getting a few ETFs and banking on long term market growth seems like the way here.

Although I think in a few decades I will mostly be moving to bonds/real estate.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Alice and Azrael88
Plenty of people will still visit as long as they stay employed, those who can afford to visit Japan in the first place tend to be able to afford it fairly easily

but discretionary spending for fun activities will probably take a hit... I know I would scale back personally but im not quite there just yet
I will be really interested to see how this plays out just from the socio-economic stand point. The last time the market dipped this hard (March 2020, during COVID). I thought for sure that people would cut their spending and be cautious. It ended be being a huge spending boom, first of physical products and then travel once that was available again. I remember reading an analysis, that said that the American public spent its way out of a recession in 2020.

The crux of this whole thing will be what happens when this level of price inflation clashes with the overconsumption epidemic of the West. Many people in the US now haven't known hard times and haven't needed to compromise on their quality of life. Will they? Is my big question.
 
I will be really interested to see how this plays out just from the socio-economic stand point. The last time the market dipped this hard (March 2020, during COVID). I thought for sure that people would cut their spending and be cautious. It ended be being a huge spending boom, first of physical products and then travel once that was available again. I remember reading an analysis, that said that the American public spent its way out of a recession in 2020.

The crux of this whole thing will be what happens when this level of price inflation clashes with the overconsumption epidemic of the West. Many people in the US now haven't known hard times and haven't needed to compromise on their quality of life. Will they? Is my big question.
A lot of people ended up sitting at home for months on end, no spending money going out to eat or getting gas or going to events, etc... People also put off car purchases. Basically everyone who kept their job was just piling up money for months and months.
 
A lot of people ended up sitting at home for months on end, no spending money going out to eat or getting gas or going to events, etc... People also put off car purchases. Basically everyone who kept their job was just piling up money for months and months.
I sold digital entertainment software and remember this well. In the first month of COVID I made 1.5 years worth of normal revenue due to people just shifting their money from physical to digital. People just shifted their purchasing power, they never stopped. It's just that much harder to spend a ton of money digitally versus physical spending for most people.
 
I will be really interested to see how this plays out just from the socio-economic stand point. The last time the market dipped this hard (March 2020, during COVID). I thought for sure that people would cut their spending and be cautious. It ended be being a huge spending boom, first of physical products and then travel once that was available again. I remember reading an analysis, that said that the American public spent its way out of a recession in 2020.

The crux of this whole thing will be what happens when this level of price inflation clashes with the overconsumption epidemic of the West. Many people in the US now haven't known hard times and haven't needed to compromise on their quality of life. Will they? Is my big question.
The only thing good about all these tariffs is possibly reducing all the overproduction and overconsumption of garbage goods.
 
What, you don't have 10-20 games you bought on sale super cheap and haven't even installed them?
200.gif
 
I feel attacked...
To be fair, sales get real cheap and there's a lot of "bundle" things for charity and the like that just make you end up with ~20-50 games you'll never touch.

Unrelated: either I didn't pay attention enough before, or there's legit a larger influx of "wait did none of you read basically anything here" introduction posts the last while...

Edit: come to think of it, is there no "eating popcorn" emoji that can be used in the like/react section :p
 
  • Like
Reactions: gaschdee
Tell this to all Steam users....I think everyone on this platform is guilty of buying a lot more games than actually playing them.
Playing my unplayed games and finishing all my unfinished ones is what will get me through this economic downturn without needing to spend more on entertainment.
 
  • Like
Reactions: zerosupblues
The tourism situation here is hella crazy right now. I was on a subway and realized it was filled with tourists. Not much Japanese in sight. Everything just feels more expensive too.

Yes, I realize the irony of saying this as a tourist too. Haha. But I come here so often it hasn't felt like a vacation in a very long time, it just feels like coming home for a few weeks at a time.
 
  • Sad
Reactions: Icyblu
The tourism situation here is hella crazy right now. I was on a subway and realized it was filled with tourists. Not much Japanese in sight. Everything just feels more expensive too.

Yes, I realize the irony of saying this as a tourist too. Haha. But I come here so often it hasn't felt like a vacation in a very long time, it just feels like coming home for a few weeks at a time.
It is in fact, crazy. We've cutback going out to the more populous areas and been sticking with local neighborhood places.
Things are more expensive, they keep announcing price increases every couple of months. But local salaries are still stagnant compared to the daily living costs rising.
(and if you add in the weak yen on import items, it's pretty harsh...)
 
We've cutback going out to the more populous areas and been sticking with local neighborhood places.

I had the misfortune of walking through the Tokyo station on the weekend. It felt like going through a jungle.

At least in the way that I wanted to have a machete and start swinging it around.
 
We've cutback going out to the more populous areas and been sticking with local neighborhood places.
I had to go to Shibuya on the weekend. Even in the rain they were everywhere like locusts.
 
Amusingly: not just Japan suffering it. Just living out in the "rural orchard area" of the country here means we get overran by the geriatric and inept e-bike crowd that think they're in an ipen-air museum
 
Isn't there like some expo thing in Osaka right now too? I'm coming to Tokyo in about a month and it has been a life long dream of mine to go to Japan and finally have the opportunity to do so.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Alice
Isn't there like some expo thing in Osaka right now too? I'm coming to Tokyo in about a month and it has been a life long dream of mine to go to Japan and finally have the opportunity to do so.
Yes, and ive seen a lot of people recommending to skip the first few days cause its that crowded.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Alice
Isn't there like some expo thing in Osaka right now too?

Well, as you obviously googled it and nothing came out, I don' t think there is anything.

Yes, and ive seen a lot of people recommending to skip the first few days cause its that crowded.

Like to skip the 184 first days?
 
I thought for sure that people would cut their spending and be cautious. It ended be being a huge spending boom, first of physical products and then travel once that was available again. I remember reading an analysis, that said that the American public spent its way out of a recession in 2020.

The crux of this whole thing will be what happens when this level of price inflation clashes with the overconsumption epidemic of the West. Many people in the US now haven't known hard times and haven't needed to compromise on their quality of life. Will they? Is my big question.
That's exactly the issue. The reasons we could spend so much during Covid were because online shopping was the only fun thing left to do, and there were still many fun, cheap deals on internet like cosmetics sets for a steal. Nowadays everything is unavailable, expensive and forget the fun bundles for an extra good price. Especially in the west, shopping is NOT fun anymore. The US failed at capitalism.
 
So I was taking a stroll through Yoshiwara and saw some big clueless obese white dude outside of a shop looking like he's trying his best to mustering up the courage for his first soapy experience.

More interesting was that I been seeing non-punter looking tourists in the area. Not just nearby, but on the main Yoshiwara streets walking through. Just now one pair was a foreign couple, one a solo clueless looking SE Asian lady, and another a Chinese mom and son looking pair of people.

I wonder if one of them got that Airbnb that is the building right next to Dolce. I think I remember another one that was next to old Glaces too. There were another couple Airbnb's a couple blocks outside the main streets though but those outside ones could easily avoid walking through the main soap streets to get to Minowa station. 🤔🤔
 
See, I get if you do that in Sumida, cause like, skytree/train station is p central... But who ends up in Yoshiwara at random.... There's like, fuckall to see there on the actual street :ROFLMAO:
 
  • Haha
Reactions: AsiaHand