Eat Whale, It's Delicious!

I received a mail from my friend Andrew who lives in cold Northern Japan. Andrew is also a columnist for Lew Rockwell so we are sort of "Brothers in Arms." We are always on "the same page" so to speak (though, often on different paragraphs!)

Here is Andrew's latest on Lew Rockwell (LRC): Yasukuni Shrine Whines Justified? (www.lewrockwell.com/2014/01/andy-sirkis/a-shrine-to-war-and-militarism/)

Andrew sometimes sends me very interesting insights and comments. Here is his latest email:

Hey Mike san,

Here's a fun little story you might want to post on your blog, I don't think its the kind of thing LRC would publish:

My family was in Yamagata City this past weekend.  If you know Yamagata City, you would know its a nice city in the central valley of northern Japan, at the base of some large mountains.  I wouldn't want to disparage Yamagata City, but it's fair to say that its seen better days and isn't one of Japan's most economically dynamic cities.

Even so, near the main train station they have a couple of nice department stores.  One of those stores has a basement area where you can buy a wide assortment of the most delicious foods imaginable.  Literally, I walk around the vast expanse of food stalls drooling all over myself.  After I stop leering at the gorgeous Japanese girls, I look at the food and continue drooling.  Its that good, just looking at the cookies, and cakes, and bread, and snacks, and fried foods, and meat dishes, and sushi, and salads, its endless!

In America, I have never seen such a delicious choice of food to go all in one place,all in a convenient and attractive setting.  In large cities like Tokyo, these basement food markets in department stores are taken for granted.  Even in the smaller cities, you can easily find a department store with this set up.

When at the market in the store in Yamagata City, we bought fresh, raw, minke whale meat.   The minke whale is not endangered and our fine Japanese whalers, engaging in research of course  (nudge nudge wink wink say no more), catch a good number of these delicious cetaceans.  The meat, eaten raw and with a bit of chopped ginger is fresh, and tender, and nutty tasting like the best cut of beef you ever had.

Sorry to all you Americans who live in "the freest country in the history of the world" because it is illegal to buy whale meat in America under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.  Those Green Peace control freaks who love whales and have their own TV show simply HATE Japanese whalers.  They spend millions racing around the world to assualt Japanese whalers, but did they protest at all when Obama and his gang annihilated a group of Afghans on their way to a wedding a few weeks ago?  Some priorities.

Eat whale, it's delicious!

I responded, "Thanks Andrew. But! But! What about Flipper?" (by the way, I have eaten whale! It is delicious!)

Remember, whales are mammals... Some slices of the 

whale bacon even looks like pork bacon 

Japan's Deflation: The Department Store Numbers From 2009 to June 2012

I've been doing a lot of data searching and number crunching for the purpose of making presentations for a new Japanese company to obtain government funding. I sometimes help new companies and entrepreneurs to gain government loans and financing as the rates from the government of Japan are incredibly low, and, if the company goes bankrupt, in many instances, the entrepreneur does not have to pay back the loan as it is government backed. Wow! Free money, right?


Well, it is not as easy as it seems; the presentation must be extremely thorough and, when making a profit and loss chart, every single number input must have some justification and rationale.


In order to help make a realistic profit and loss three year sales projection presentation I searched the Japan Ministry of the Economy, Trade and Industry site for information on sales for typical bricks and mortar shops. 


While doing so, I found information for department stores which I deemed to be very good (to cast things in as positive a light as possible) as Japan's department stores are world famous as a barometer of the shopping and spending habits of the Japanese. Also, since the department stores are very geared to a slightly older and a bit more upper and middle class spenders (rather than young people who are not big spenders), I felt it would represent true Japanese society better. Meaning; it will represent people with money, not those without.


What I found greatly surprised me. Here's the chart and a brief explanation of what really stands out below;

Click on image for larger view:

Data from the Japan Ministry of the Economy, Trade and Industry

In the red circles are the final tallies for sales for each year. Comparing the final annual sales numbers from department stores from 2009 to 2011 show a full -7% drop in revenues and spending by customers (as indicated by the blue arrows). We don't have full data for 2012 yet, of course, but if you compare YoY from 2011 to 2012 it isn't so bad as sales are up +1.88% for the first six months of 2012.


That sounds great! Things are looking up.... Well, not so fast! Comparing 2009 to 2012 we have still experienced a full -10% drop! (Green arrows).


Now some will say, "Not so fast, Mike! This doesn't represent online sales which have grown. And yes they have. But still consider that, according to Nikkei survey results show that only about 60% of all Japanese households have a PC. This points to a still strong market for people to shop bricks and mortar in Japan... And, actually, isn't going out and shopping half the fun?


But let's compare just for fun... Let's look at the dominant player in Japan's online sales and that is Rakuten. Rakuten is Japan's #1 (maybe #2) online "department store." Here are figures from Rakuten's annual sales reports for the sample years of 2006 ~ 2011:


Click on image for larger view:

Data from Rakuten Annual Sales Report


Sales from 2006 to 2011 showed a brisk increase. It slowed down greatly from 2009 to 2011 (which was a bad year all around for department stores and the economy as a whole). Yet Rakuen still showed a healthy increase. Still total annual department stores sales in Japan are well over 173 times that of Rakuten... So, when the department stores are dropping 10% a sales increase of 130% from Rakuten is a drop in the bucket... 


I must add one point too, I go grocery shopping three times a week. I keep close track of food prices (in my world, that's one of the few things that matter). Prices have held steady or dropped over these last few years.


Couple that with the price of land (I keep and eye on that too) there can be no doubt that Japan is mired in deflation as land prices where I lived have dropped ever so slightly and that even with a brand new giant shopping center built within 12 minutes walk from my house just one year ago.


Things do not look well in the Japan retail market at all... Or anywhere else in Japan for that matter.