Deflation and Fixed-amount Cash

With the worldwide economic depression, Japanese market is showing the tendency of deflation.

AEON, a supermarket has announced that they will lower the price of 5000 of their commodities. ItoYokado, rival supermarket of AEON owned by Seven&I has decreased the price of 2600 of their items too.

I am writing this post based on an article on Nikkan Gendai and was republished on Netallica [ja] which gives you an idea of the companies that are coping with this deflation.



McDonald's(hamburger), Yoshinoya (beef rice bowl), Zensho (beef rice bowl, Sukiya), Osho (chinese dumpling), Hi Day Hidaka (ramen noodles) are all low price / fast food restaurants.

First Retailing (Uniqlo) and Shimamura are both low price clothings, and ABC mart is low price show shop, and Nitori is low price furniture store.

Nisshin and Toyo Suisan are both famous for cup-ramens (1$ ramen that you can eat if you pour in hot water and stir after 3 minutes...)

So basically these companies are related to people trying to avoid spending.


Trying to make the citizens spend more, the Japanese government passed the bill to send out“fixed-amount cash (Teigaku Kyufu-kin)”to the Japanese citizens. I've got the letter from the local government office for the qualification too, so I should be receiving the benefit soon.... I hope :)

Who would qualify:
1. All Japanese persons recorded in a basic resident register.
2. All non-Japanese persons registered in foreign resident register. (except the person who are staying in Japan with the status of a temporary visitor or illegally.)

Amount:
12,000 yen per person
(20,000 yen for people over 65 years old or less than 18 years of age on 2/1, 2009.)

Many companies started to sell products with 12,000yen recently- 12,000yen hotel room, 12,000yen restaurant dinner course, 12,000yen tickets etc.