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Nonprescription drug sales in Japan take one step forward and one step back from tomorrow

As of Monday morning, sales of most nonprescription drugs in Japan will be allowed at supermarkets and convenience stores due to a revision in the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law. Until today, any store wishing to sell nonprescription drugs was required to have a licensed pharmacist on staff. As of tomorrow, shops will be able to sell most prescription drugs over the counter provided they have a “registered salesperson” on duty.

The revision to the law divides nonprescription drugs into three categories. Category one drugs, which are classified as those that need some form of supervision, cannot be sold unless a pharmacist is on hand to provide customers with an explanation of the drug’s side effects. On the other hand, category two and category three drugs are considered safer, and can be sold by a “registered salesperson.” Category two and three drugs make up about 90% of Japan’s nonprescription drug market. Read more

I LOHAS water now on sale in Japan - guess the producer

New products tend to come and go rather quickly at Japan’s convenience stores, especially in the case of soft drinks and instant ramen (and candies and seasonal alcoholic beverages and…you get the point). A few days ago I wandered into the local Lawson’s to be greeted with a 新発売 (newly on sale) product that surprised me a bit: I LOHAS （い・ろ・は・す） water.

LOHAS, of course, stands for “Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability,” and it is something of a dishonest, soulless marketing scam marketing demographic aimed at assuaging guilt amongst urban yuppie types self-labeled “green” consumers (whose actual consumption patterns and lifestyles tend to resemble anything but sustainability). Click the image for a full-size laugh view.

Of course, I LOHAS water is brought to you by Coca-Cola, that bastion of environmentally friendly, locally produced organic products that are so wonderful for your health. Seriously, LOHAS water: 520ml in a plastic bottle, versus turning on the tap at home. How long will this one stay on the shelves?

Paul Krugman visits Japan

As reported earlier today by Japan Probe, Paul Krugman recently visited Tokyo and offered an evaluation of some of the economic stimulus attempts the Japanese government has made thus far. Krugman gave the lowering of expressway fees to a flat 1,000 yen a score of 40 out of 100, due to the fact that such a measure might increase traffic jams and the sales of gasoline. Krugman scored the 12,000 yen rebate program a 0 out of 100, and reserved judgement on the government’s new program to offer “eco points” to consumers who make purchases of “green” products. Read more

Swine flu a convenient scapegoat? Should the media look in the mirror?

An article published yesterday at the Japan Times opens by telling us that the H1N1 swine flue virus is hurting industries such as tourism and retail, especially in Western Japan. Of course, economists fear that the impact of swine flu will only make a bad situation worse.

Near the top of the article, however, we get this quote:

The outbreak “could pour cold water on the Japanese economy at a time when it just started to bottom out and was about to recover,” said Toshihiro Nagahama, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute Inc.

Emphasis mine. The writers of the article never comment on whether or not this assertion is true, and no figures are provided to back it up. We’re simply supposed to accept the assertion that the economy has “bottomed out” at face value? While it’s certainly hard to imagine seeing anything resembling the previous quarter’s GDP figures coming up again sometime soon, and exports and production figures are looking better, that doesn’t necessarily mean things have bottomed out. Read more

So much for the F-22 in Japan: Gates says the F-35 is good enough

Earlier today, the Nikkei reported that US Defense Secretary Robert Gates recommended that the F-35 fighter jet become Japan’s next generation mainstay to Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada when the two met earlier this month at the Pentagon. It seems as though Gates is looking at ending production of the higher-end F-22, and thus wants to see the F-35 replace Japan’s aging fleet of F-4EJs. Read more

Japan department store sales down 11.3% in April

According to data released yesterday by the Japan Department Store Association, sales at department stores nationwide fell 11.3% in April, marking the fourteenth consecutive month of decline. The survey covered sales at 97 department store operators with 274 shops - 3 fewer shops than existed the previous month.

Here is the breakdown of sales by individual categories: Read more

Massive Fiscal Stimulus Spending Project Proposal #1: Currency Manipulation

This article is the first of a string of proposals detailing how the Japanese government could launch a series of projects resulting in massive fiscal stimulus as well as boosted corporate and consumer spending. It is important to keep in mind that the proposals put forth in this series are essentially insane, but would lead to government, corporate and personal spending on a massive scale.

The first idea in this series should wreak havoc and cause panic spending in all sorts of sectors, while simultaneously creating millions of new jobs. To do this, the Japanese government simply needs to create new banknotes and coins that are all radically different in size to what currently exists. Ideally, notes should be larger and differently proportioned, while the size and weight of all coinage should dramatically change. Read more

Sunday Japan News Roundup: Nintendo, the US, bonuses and Aso’s economic plan

A quick look at some of the big (and not so big) stories on Japan this past week:

First, BusinessWeek asks “Has Nintendo Peaked?” in an article published on Thursday. Essentially, the future worries center on whether or not Nintendo can continue to sell the number of Wii and DS consoles that it has over the past couple of years. Nintendo has done a great job getting people who usually would not buy video game consoles to make purchases, but could they run out of growth steam over the next year? The article points out that sales in Japan seem to be slowing, and that Sony’s Play Station 3 has outsold the Wii in both March and April of this year.

The Financial Times announced on Friday that “US belatedly learns lesson from Japan,” while Arnold Landy at Seeking Alpha published an article entitled “The U.S. Economy: Not a Repeat of Japan.” There has been plenty written on this topic already, and surely more to come as things continue to play out. Read more

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