Bidding for Information
In the last year, Yahoo! Japan added a category called "JOHO" (information) to their Yahoo! Auctions. Currently, around 5,000 items are auctioned in this category. Most of the prices of them are around 1 ~ 10,000yen but sometimes it's up to 200,000yen (1,890USD). So, what kind of auction is it?
To sum up, almost of these "information" are usual spams. Once when I was looking for some liquid crystal TV in the auction, I found a strange titled item. It said, "You can buy an expensive TV set or anything you want!". I read its description.
I am an ordinary company worker. But I'm slightly different from you. I know how to get my additional income much more than my actual salary. Are you satisfied with your earnings? Don't you want more? If you don't, please leave away. About one year ago, I've found an information about a way to be rich in this auction. Although it was not effective to me, after many trial and error, I've completed my own know-how to earn 1,000,000yen (9,500USD) per month. This is that I would like to let you know...
And long, boring, and pointless propaganda followed after this. This seller seemed to be waiting for some greedy idiot trapped by his honeyed words and pays money out. Since this kind of spams had been spread among the entire auctions, Yahoo made that "information" category to isolate them. These information are sometimes about an useless method of winning slot machine jackpots, or some of them lead their bidders to their multi-level marketing scheme. But, their descriptions are all childish and everyone can find out that they are obvious fabrications. The other item says like this:
I happened on an awesome thing. Don't you think it's wonderful if you can get an information from future? For a long time I had searched for valuable information from others but they are all similar and worthless. Most important point for the information business is a freshness. You can get information from future without charge, and without limitation. Can you believe it?
And another alchemist says:
What do you think if you have a PC which automatically earns 10,000 yen every day? What do you think if your PC earns money instead of you even when you are sleeping? I'm sure you need it. Let's change your own PC into like that!
Then, what will be happened if you bid one of them and pay your money for it? Mostly, a simple email will be sent to you. It is very thing that they call "valuable information". Some victims are showing the contents of the emails which they bought and found that they were frauds.
In our internet business, we can hardly see the faces of our customers. But the important business bases are the same whether it is online or offline. We have to always think about "what we should do to make our customers happy".
It continues this kind of "golden rules for business" which has been already said for the past thousand years. And it ends like this.
Are you thinking that this instruction isn't worthy of its high price? I don't think so. Because you can sell this text to others and earn much more than you paid for this!
...This is why the auctions always look crowded. Can you think of something unproductive than this?
Japanese people like a shortcut. They are always thinking about how they can get max profit with minimum action (or without any action).
You can find that every Japanese bookstore is filled with many "how-to" books, which tell us how to be rich, how to be loved by others, how to become a celebrities, or how to be thought as an intelligent person even if we are actually far from it. The good sales of these books show that people believe these books make them to be what they want to be without any experiences.
On the other hand, people prefer to make efforts to find a way to do something with no efforts. Even if their result of thought brings them only small profit, they seem to be satisfied because they (seemingly) have not spent their time and energy.
So, why did they choose the internet auction? The information sellers must be thinking that the internet is still believed as a gold mine by people. But such dreamers are already only themselves. Becoming rich by only sitting in front of PC may be their heartfelt and sad dream.
Let's go back to the auction. This description of an auction item is the most I like:
This is an indictment! I really got angry! The information which *****(someone's yahoo ID) is listing on auction is a complete lie! I bought it and followed its instruction but I've got no effect at all. I emailed him to ask about it but he has not replied. It must be a resale of someone else's information. His seller's rating is also doubtful. Don't be cheated by him!
So, I fixed its insruction to work better. I'm sure that you will be rich with mine. Please bid this item!
February 10, 2005 in Economy | Permalink | Comments (37) | TrackBack
The Wind Makes Tub-makers Rich
This is a funny example of chain reaction from a rakugo story of Edo period (17th - middle 19th century).
If a strong wind blows, dust will be raised into the air and will make many people blind. In those days, many of the blind persons played music for a living. So if blind persons increase, SHAMISEN, an instrument with 3 strings, will sell fast. Since cat skin was used for SHAMISEN's body, if SHAMISEN sells well, many cats will be hunted and decrease. (poor cats! I'ma cat lover) If cats are gone, mice will increase and they'll gnaw OKE, wooden tubs, in order to eat foods in them. Then people will buy a lot of new tubs. The wind makes tub-makers rich.
People tell this story to explain that all things are related each other, or things are sometimes caused by the reason which seem to have no relation. And I want to add another lesson of the story to them. Sometimes, someone's benefit is made by the damage of others.
About 50 years ago, with the progress of industry, Japanese government forwarded to cut down the natural woods and recommended to plant cedar trees instead. A Japanese cedar takes only about 40 years to grow to adult tree and is good for construction material. Now there are 4.5 million hectare of artificial forests of cedar in Japan. But in 1960's, importation of lumber was liberalized and price of lumber fell. Since taking care of cedar forest became impossible to pay, they have been left alone. An artificial cedar forest needs to thin out because crowded trees shut out the sunlight and it makes low trees and grasses dead. Bare ground without covering by small plants cannot keep rain water from flowing away fast. So the soil became poor in nutrients and the trees have got thin. Since the roots of trees became weak, landslide has been caused easily. Many people are killed by landslides every year.
And in recent Japan, the wind makes pharmaceutical companies rich. In the towns and cities of Japan, one of five people has hay fever. It's an allergy to cedar pollen, to be exact.
Cedar trees bloom and sprinkle their pollens in spring. The wind carries the pollens to cities. Since most of the ground in cities are covered with asphalt, pollens don't return to the ground but continue floating in the air. People who have allergic constitution are bothered by symptoms, such as sneezing, runny nose, or itching of eyes. Japanese hay fever is a kind of pollution because it was clearly caused by the failure of the Government's policy. It is also said that exhaust gas in the air has changed our predisposition to be easy to get hay fever.
Some people said that the market scale of the anti-hay fever medicine in Japan is up to about 100 billion yen (950 million USD). However, the loss of the labor earnings of people troubled with hay fever may exceed it.
A certain volunteer organization releases the information about the expected quantity of pollen every year. According to it, in the next year, cedar pollen will be 10 to 15 times as many as this year. Although I myself am not predisposed to hay fever, I seriously sympathize with people who worry about pollen.
November 6, 2004 in Economy | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Are You Richer Than Japanese People?
Foreign visitors always say "Everything is expensive in Japan". I agree them but it does not mean that I think we are rich. The point that should be considered is the ratio of the prices of things to our income. I think the Japanese personnel is most expensive in the world, and it makes the price of things higher. So we need much money to live and the personnel goes up...it goes around in circles.
I happened on the list of the prices of BigMac in the world, and made the program below. Select your country from the list box then the price of BigMac and average yearly income of your country will be displayed. The amount of income is based on the GDP per capita of each country. (These are not equal though)
And the percentage of BigMac price in your income will be also displayed. This is important. As for Japan, this ratio was 0.0083. The ratio of this number to the Japanese one will be indicated at the rightest column. If this number is larger than 1.0, relatively, the BigMac of your country is more expensive than Japan. And if you are happy with the price, probably you are richer than the average Japanese people.
However, man shall not live by BigMac alone. So I also made the next table. This shows the ratio of the prices of various things to our income. (Oh my god, it takes 11 years or more for us to buy a house even if we didn't buy anything else!)
Japanese average yearly income (GDP per capita) 3,102,000 yen| item | price (yen) | price/yearly income(%) | price/monthly income(%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| indipendent house | 35,000,000 | 1128.3043 | 13539.6518 |
| room rent per month (1 room plus kitchen) | 70,000 | 2.2566 | 27.0793 |
| room rent per month (2 rooms plus dining room and kitchen) | 108,000 | 3.4816 | 41.7795 |
| beer (330ml bottle) | 190 | 0.0061 | 0.0735 |
| coffee | 300 | 0.0097 | 0.1161 |
| coca-cola (350ml can) | 120 | 0.0039 | 0.0464 |
| t-shirt (plain white) | 1,000 | 0.0322 | 0.3868 |
| TV (32inch) | 150,000 | 4.8356 | 58.0271 |
| the lowest rail fare | 130 | 0.0042 | 0.0503 |
| postage (letter) | 80 | 0.0026 | 0.0309 |
| movie ticket | 1,800 | 0.0580 | 0.6963 |
| gas (1 liter) | 110 | 0.0035 | 0.0426 |
