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The nomad visa has all of the wrong incentives. They should be targeting foreign technical talent to build up their own capabilities. They did a reasonable job of this in the late 90s, early 2000s before the bottom fell out of the currency.

Places I’ve lived in Japan stick in my mind way more than other countries. I still have transformative and happy memories of my shatakus and dorms.

Reluctant integration with grumbling aftershocks.

It’s more of a “have your cake and eat it too” issue. Japan is trying to establish a young short-term foreign workforce without providing any of the long term benefits of citizenship or permanent residency. Historically, I think it will likely end the same way the burakumin and the zainichi did.

… foreign labor pools (mostly south east asia) to fill their labor gaps and are having a hard time attracting the global movers and shakers. I’m cautiously hopeful that things will eventually improve.

The issue is that Japan has a very hard time making the same kind of value proposition that Dubai (cheap taxes, educated expat luxury) and Singapore (English lifestyle, clear options for educated foreign professionals) so they’re —unintentionally— targeting the weakest and most vulnerable….

I’ve thought a lot of this, and my take is that Japan is afraid of taking the necessary steps to allow the immigration and integration that is happening in the big cities (c.f. any city conbini) more broadly and wants to move to a Dubai style multi tiered residency status system.

It's bad but not disastrous so far.

That’s the second time they’ve done that. Interesting that they got jpost and drudge to report it uncritically.

Ranting about "Oppression Olympics" always gets a block. They seemed like an angry variation of the concern troll.

That was an easy block.

That movie is soooo good. I went with high expectations and was still blown away.

I feel like he's experiencing genuine consequences he can't worm his way out of and he's trying to post through the existential crisis. Like the poop plane.

Mamdani seems to have left such a lasting impression on him that his advisors haven't let Mamdani anywhere near him lest Grandpa start echoing DSA talking points on repeat.

That’s way harder than you’d think. Almost all payments from non-state actors (e.g. payroll taxes, treasury purchases by banks) aren’t touched at all by the state. California would have to set up an apparatus to intercept these flows from companies unwilling to challenge the feds.

One of the central ironies of this is just how russiafied the conflict has gotten. Bombing for bombings sake as productivity kabuki.

The attempts to pull up the ladder and exclude exactly the people who would be the most motivated new citizens is incredibly frustrating and short-sighted.

One of the things I really loved about Japan was how easy it was to naturalize in 5 years if you were motivated. My ideal Japanese immigrants are the Nepalis that come, make restaurants and lives for themselves here. They make the country appreciably more fun!

… in regional cities like Kobe/Hiroshima/Nagoya/Toyoma in order to build a more robust tax base outside of Tokyo. One foreign engineer salary can pay 4x the taxes of equivalent salarymen. Too many sticks, too few carrots.

Note that I am not advocating for or okay with this. I’m really frustrated that Japan seems to be moving towards a gulf state model of multi-tier residents. My (selfish) observation is that Japan should be doing everything they can to be encouraging remote work enclaves for high earning immigrants…