Bad birthday present or worst present ever?

Japanese people are extremely rude about weight. I think it is one of the reasons why they are so small on average. Imagine school yard bullying that lasts your whole life. Well on my last birthday I experienced this first hand. Someone who wanted to buy me a birthday present asked me what I want. I told her I didn't want anything; we aren't exactly friends and frankly I did not want to feel obligated to reciprocate. Although in hindsight the gift I received would be nice to replicate. She asked me if I wanted a belt so I said alright (my current 100 yen shop belt was fraying). Afterward she asked me what my waist size is and I told her 32. It is actually 31 but I prefer 32 belts because they tend to cover the 30-34 range which is where I have been for the last decade. It makes me feel better knowing that I can gain and lose weight without worrying about buying new clothes, I suppose. She then told me that I was lying and bought a 38 belt for me. The smallest hole is a 34 which is currently far too big to be useful. This is not surprising given the fact that she has taken it upon herself to call me "metabolic" recently which is Japanese English for fat. To this I say it is like the cow calling the horse obese. So I ask you bad present or worst present?

My Response to The Economist's Online Debate

"This house believes that retirement in its current form should be abolished."

Dear Madam,

The current pension system is in shambles. Developed nations around the world are slowly going bankrupt trying to cope with more people exiting the workforce through retirement than entering it; less workers caring for more retirees. This is worsened by the fact that life expectancy is rising which means that they are collecting their pensions far longer than before. One option is to abolish the legal maximum age of employment. This would allow people to continue working thereby adding more to government pension plans and withdrawing less. This looks great on paper.
However if we chose to abolition maximum retirement ages there are some caveats to consider. Those who will be least willing to retire are high ranking executives, essentially closing off the best jobs to the more efficient youth. Especially in the world now, everyone needs to be aware that anybody born a few years after them will be more integrated in the global digital system than his or her elder. I am sure everybody under 30 has experienced their boss spending hours explaining how to do some 'new' technique in Excel just to think about how you figured that out yourself in high school or university. Perhaps in the past it was necessary to keep the older people on hand as long as possible because of the nature of education through apprenticeship. Not to mention until about 1800 technology did not change nearly as quickly so the longer a person practiced his or her trade the better they would be at it; they didn't have the concern that at some point down the line everything will be different and they will have to learn the whole system again.
This could also lead to a greater concentration of wealth. If a parent can stay active in a company as a senior executive long enough, it makes it much easier to pass on the position by nepotism to their child; despite a 20 or 30 year age difference. Especially when you add to the fact that salaries and bonuses are quickly rising in their share of the remunerations the wealthy receive. If people were able to collect these funds for an extra 10 - 15 years think about how many more legacies there would be.
Anybody who has given up on his delusions of grandeur but has enough savings to afford him or herself a reasonable retirement will opt to do so instead of working a menial, dead-end job with little chance of further promotion. Add to this list people who work physical labour, or are in decent unions, and have the option to retire early for a percentage of their full pension. Add the people who barely make their respective national governments stipend.
When considering such a radical change one must consider who it will benefit. Simply allowing people the chance to work longer will not necessarily lead to them doing so. Since anybody can chose to retire at any age up to the limit already, perhaps they will still do so. Those who do keep working may not necessarily be the people we had hoped would continue.
Will this measure be fair and proportional? It doesn't appear so. In fact it is likely that this would be the first step in destroying a pension system that millions of people rely on. If the maximum retirement age is raised, will the minimum age to receive a pension decrease? Do we chose to coax people back into working with some tax benefit?

View the whole Debate here.

Stupid Formulaic TV

I recently watched the first episode of a new TV show, "Royal Pains" and boy was I pissed. This had to have been the most formulaic show ever conceived. Basically the plot is this:
A doctor is fired from a New York City hospital because a Trustee died under his care, following this his fiance leaves him and he finds himself poor and alone. His brother decides to take him to some swank party in the Hamptons where he manages to save some person's life. This promptly lands him the role as 'concierge doctor' to the Hamptons.
Or put another way, Time Magazine's 50 Hottest Guy Alum who hates rich people and has an attitude is dragged by his brother, of "Road Trip" fame, to the Hamptons to interact with the rich. His keen skills and inability to play by the rules are 'House-like'. The Hamptons are in the throws of their beach season which makes it appear very much like the "Beverly Hills 90210" of old or "The O.C.". In fact the whiny song at the end falls just short of going "New York here we come" in a complete rip off of Phantom Planet's tune at the start of "The O.C.".
So we have the doctor drama mixing with the rich people with the rebel from out of town genres meeting in what will probably end up being the most popular show in America ever! It's not surprising that this show was written by two staff writers. Clearly no outside creative force was necessary to come up with this. Also the question of how can people get away with this type of drivel is clearly that it is actually what the average person wants.

The Lottery

A young, poor, rancher boy in America has won one of the largest lottery prizes ever. Now in some ways it seems really nice that someone from one of the poorest counties in America has won the lottery but that is just the surface.
The real travesty is that someone who has allegedly had to rely on the kindness of his town's folk for charitable aide would feel it prudent to spend $15 on lottery tickets. In reality if everyone were to be rational only the absolutely wealthy would win the lottery: they are the only people that have the disposable income to waste on things like lottery tickets.