I’m Saito, the columnist ♪
◇ Economy
A bubble is coming in every area.
◇ Papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan)
It’s true that women’s going rates are falling.
However, genuinely beautiful women are being firmly retained by quality members, so in reality, it’s women who aren’t valued by anyone who are lowering their own worth.
Men who are relatively well-off but can’t retain beautiful women are also starting to take advantage of the situation, claiming that the going rates have fallen.
The result: more financial troubles and consultations
(in other words, more men who can’t resolve things with money).
I suspect the kinds of issues being brought to Universe may be changing as well.
Ah, I had the same view as Mac… lol
I just saw his comment.
To Papuwa:
Students today really are impressive, even without necessarily going to college. Compared with people from the Showa era, they have a different kind of coolness—not the same sort of spirit—but once they understand the realities of business and human emotions, they can assess things from much the same perspective as a company president.
They’re far better than mid-career hires.
I’m Flag Maker, a column writer.
What do you think about Universe Club targeting salaried workers like me as a new customer base—people whose income isn’t drastically affected by economic ups and downs?
Would that be a bit off since it might make the industry seem cheap? lol
I’ve written a column about it, so I’ll ask you to post it once the columns are back.
I’m Seattle, a male member.
Mac, you bought those stocks at exactly the right time. And your timing on taking profits was impressive too.
I don’t have the ability to predict the future, and since I make a little money here and there by thinking things through as they come, regardless of the ups and downs of the economy, I’ll just keep living day to day.
No one could have predicted the COVID pandemic two years ago, and since nobody knows what the future holds, there’s no point worrying about it. My prediction, if you can call it that, is to focus only on today and tomorrow.
I stocked up on retort-packaged curry and somen noodles just in case, and now I’m eating them every day.
I’ve bought a portable gas stove and bottled water to prepare for things getting worse, but that’s about it—just making the minimum preparations for what I can anticipate.
I’m Paper Airplane, a male member.
I feel the media focuses far too much on the negative—namely, people who were negligent.
By mid-February, the government had urged banks to provide emergency loans, and both the banks and credit guarantee associations responded with unusual speed within the month.
By early March, an unprecedented amount of funding had already been made available.
The people making all the noise are those who failed to look ahead and take action.
Most people also received their sustainability benefit payments fairly quickly.
I wish they would report on the positive aspects too…
Some of my own shops were hit quite hard from March onward, depending on their location. But after putting countermeasures in place, many of them achieved higher sales than the previous year last month.
If we had done nothing, I think sales would still be down by more than half, with everything falling apart.
This coronavirus crisis has clearly shown the difference between people who take action and those who do nothing and blame something else. Whether or not they gained that energy and experience of succeeding will likely lead to even greater differences in results going forward.
Taking on something new requires energy and is hard work, but the sense of accomplishment is all the greater.
After all, this was an unprecedented event, and dealing with it was unprecedented too.
In that respect, I thought Universe’s idea for the festival was brilliant.
I believe it brought in a substantial amount of funding. To be honest, I expected the festival period to be extended, but since it wasn’t, I participated right up to the deadline—just barely—using enough offers to cover perhaps the next six months to several years.
Ah, so please keep thriving! I’m sure you will.
Even with similar crowdfunding campaigns, the amounts raised differ by around tenfold to fiftyfold depending on the business. I imagine that if you can’t understand your customers’ psychology, you won’t attract much support.
Also, I feel that this coronavirus crisis has given us a major opportunity.
I heard something on the news:
“Japanese people are highly adaptable.
Whenever they have been forced into a situation, they have responded remarkably well.
Examples include the arrival of the Black Ships and the Constitution and democracy introduced after the war.
Their ability to adapt under such pressure is extraordinary.”
Hearing that made me think this coronavirus crisis is exactly the same. Being forced into a situation means we have to do things we couldn’t do before, even if we have to make ourselves do them.
As we adapt in this way, I have a feeling that business opportunities will continue to open up one after another. It’s also exciting to imagine that happening.
I think this will connect to our club activities as well.
P.S. The media kept going on about the number of tests, but apparently many people didn’t even know that Osaka had been publishing its testing numbers since March.
Governor Yoshimura had also been publishing the number of tests conducted each day since late March, so I imagine many people weren’t aware of that either.
Here’s Governor Yoshimura’s tweet from today.
Every day, people in Osaka eagerly looked forward to checking Twitter.
“Today, 382 tests were conducted on people suspected of being positive. There were zero positive cases, for a positivity rate of 0%.”
P.P.S. Even so, whenever I’m at home, my wife says:
“You’re unemployed! Go work!”
“Why are you still at home?”
