I also found it incredibly interesting to learn that there is not even a word for "looting" in the Japanese language. They await patiently in line so everyone gets their fair share of food. No one rushes in to take it all. I know much of this has to do with the collectivist culture, compared to individualistic which is more commonly seen in the United States. I think it is a poor quality. You cannot make it too far at all without the support of others. Yet, we continue widening the gap between the rich and poor by upper class tax breaks.
My godmother, a single doctor in her 60s, was not able to make enough money to be allowed tax breaks. If these people are making THAT much money, it is only fair to take an equal amount of money out of their accounts as the poor.
A man has 10 dollars. He has to send in one for taxes.
Another man has 1,000. He has to send in 100 for taxes. Yes it seems like so much more, but it isn't. Relative to their income and prosperity, they are both giving 10%. There is no reason why the people who are well of and wealthy should be able to have it even more comfortable, when people are scraping to get by.
Again, all it does is widen the gap and make it more challenging to come out of the lower class.
This is something I posted a few months ago regarding Japan. By NO means am I saying "I told you so," but it was somewhat predicted. One is predicted in California in the next 30 years. I hope we jump on that...
Tokyo
I learned today that Tokyo is located where 3 tectonic plates meet: the Phillipine, Eurasian, and Pacific Plates. Every 70 years Tokyo seems to have a major earthquake.
Years of earthquakes:
1633, 1703, 1882, 1853, 1925, ____?
11 of the 12 biggest banks in the world are based out of Tokyo. Tokyo is now 6 times as large as it was during the 1925 earthquake which caused many deaths and destruciton. Scary...
Years of earthquakes:
1633, 1703, 1882, 1853, 1925, ____?
11 of the 12 biggest banks in the world are based out of Tokyo. Tokyo is now 6 times as large as it was during the 1925 earthquake which caused many deaths and destruciton. Scary...
There's always a rough estimate when an earthquake can occur, as well as any other natural hazard. Like for floods there are things called 100 year floods. A flood of that certain magnitude is estimated to occur once in a 100 year period. The thing is, if that flood occurs this year it could happen again next year. The occurrence of one doesn't stop the occurrence of more sadly.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing about earthquakes, Utah has been overdue for, like, a long time too. A few years ago in Salt Lake City there was a huge project to strengthen a lot of prominent buildings. The lame thing about earthquakes is that there are no REAL warnings. There might be some preliminary little quakes and some places might have more volcanic activity and they can tell when stress is building up along fault lines but the sucky thing: they can't tell when. Pretty much at all. They just know eventually. Or soon. The amount of research going into this stuff is crazy, though.
(All of this information courtesy of my natural hazards class).