Japanese queue for hours as rice shortage deepens
Japanese queue for hours as rice shortage deepens
Rising prices and poor harvest create political pressure for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba ahead of July poll
Clarification: They are queuing for cheap rice.
I can go to any supermarket in my city and buy rice. I just have to be willing to pay four times what I’m used to for it. It is getting harder to find supermarkets still selling 10kg bags because those things are approaching ¥10,000.
Japan has had a more severe shortage of potato chips than this.
Isn't it not just cheap rice, but cheap Japanese rice? People in Asia are very particular about rice. They should be, rice from Japan, China, Cambodia, Taiwan, etc. all have a different taste. Nationalism plays in to it, but they are different. I think rice might be the ultimate Terroir crop.
for cheap rice
But isn’t this just the definition of a shortage? The thing becomes scarce and so what IS available becomes incredibly expensive? I don’t see the differentiation you are trying to make. Wild price inflation happens when there is in fact not enough of the thing to go around.
That is wild! In Denmark I buy rice for 15 kr (~2€) / kg. Granted, it's probably nowhere near the quality of Japanese rice. But still, what a price difference.
That's 22lbs for $69. Yikes
Oh so it's only poor people who are struggling. Not to worry then. Back to it lads.
Japan’s long-standing efforts to protect domestic farmers from outside competition, including limiting imports of foreign rice
Here’s the why in case anyone is wondering. It’s not a global issue.
Was gonna say… Every local store near me has literal pallets of rice available.
Of course part of that is the fact that Western diets don't really involved anywhere near the quantity that the Japanese consume it at.
After all rice pudding was invented to try and use rice up, because no one was eating it.
Maybe they should have had a plan B for situations like this. It's great to take care of your own, but this is a perfect example as to why you can't put all your eggs into one basket.
They do, of course. There's plenty of rice of other kinds.
Self-inflicted crisis
Omg look at their basket on wheels
AKA shopping trolleys
Protectionism. Louisiana makes plenty of rice.
Rice grown in former plantation states tends to be very high in arsenic, a holdover from the cotton-growing days.
For US-grown rice, my understanding is that California-grown is much safer to consume.
So that's why we always rinse the rice. Interesting. Will have to get some Cali rice.
Yeah, but that's all for local gumbo production, oh and Zataran's.
/s
Capitalism everywhere is failing
You can't call it free market capitalism when you're literally restricting who can and can not import rice and then getting upset at yourself for the self-inflicted starvation. This isn't capitalism, it's the very definition of Protectionism, and yes: closed-matket protectionists are failing everywhere, from Brexiteers to MAGA morons, to closed-market rice farmers.
This isn't to say that unfettered Capitalism is the answer, or that all protectionist policies are bad. Any policy taken to the extreme is guilty of the real sin: not learning from the strengths and weaknesses of the systems they rail against and using them to build a more robust and functional middle ground.
Capitalism ≠ Free Market
Capitalism, by definition, is the pursuit and hoarding of wealth at all costs. This is ideologically opposed to the concept of a free market, because it will inevitably lead to captured markets and trusts.
While I agree that this particular scenario is unrelated to Capitalism as it is a matter of national protectionism, I’m simply taking umbrage with using “free market” and “capitalism” in a sentence together. Capitalism will always ultimately kill a free market.
I'm still flabbergasted by everyone still trying to hold onto a economic system designed by elites. Yall would be the 1760s worker arguing for just a few tweeks to a system not ment for the vast majority of people. Or you're just part of the in group that benefits you more than others. Capitalism has reached its logical conclusion just like every form that came before. The sooner we accept and realize it the better.