The Even Greater Tokyo Region

Black Tuesday

The wall street crash of 1929 was a devastating event, which was a cause (or effect) of the great depression. It consists of Black Thursday ( October 24, 1929), the initial crash and Black Tuesday (October 29, 1929), the crash that caused general panic five days later. (thanks Wikipedia).

For anyone who is unlucky enough to know me, this might seem a strange thing for me to be writing about. I hate money. I hate earning it, I hate owing it, I hate spending it, I hate having it. The very thought of money sickens me. I realise that money does make life much simpler. It saves us from having to pay for everything in cattle, produce or daughters.

But then, those were much simpler times. I sometimes wish I were a part of that. You know, I would get paid in cows, and swap it for some vegetables, an apartment, clothes, toilet paper, some drinks at the pub. What a great system.

I wont lie, one of the perks of my job now is the pay. However, the pay has not changed since the Japanese economic bubble. Back in those days, a teaching job in Japan paid better than a New Zealand parliamentarian. The continious slide of the yen makes teaching English here a good option after university, but not a career. Still, I was confident that I could pay off my student loan in a couple of years. Earlier this year, I became a millionaire. That was a great day. That 6th digit made me so proud. It was time to start thinking about sending money back to New Zealand. Especially when the Yen became especially strong against the NZ dollar, at 75 yen to the dollar.

Naturally, I also hate banks. Money lending was a sin in the good old days, and I still think there is some merit in that. Bankers are just glorified office workers trained to empty their cash register to anyone who gives them a little threat while stealing from everyone else. Banks just make everything so unnessecarily difficult. And expensive. One overseas money transfer from Japan is about half a day's pay. So I decided that I would give my mother a dirty pile of cash when she came to Japan. She would then convert it in New Zealand and skip at least one bank.

(oh, so my mother came to Japan. That was great. Hi mother!)

This was my own Black Tuesday. between August and October the rate "recovered", and became even more grim. I lost over half a month's pay in that time. SELL SELL SELL! It was a black day indeed, as the possibility of not being able to repay my loan in this time became a possibility. I mean, everyone hates losing stuff. But you hate it much more when people steal stuff from you. Where did my money go? I'll tell you: Banks and already-rich-people.

I know a lot of you more "economically-minded people" will riddle my argument with holes, but I challenge you: why is it that I could probably bitch-slap you to death with the backs of my hands?

So basically, forget the yen, forget the dollar. Pay me in cattle and your daughters, and I will be much happier.