标题: Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Jan 6, 2014 [打印本页] 作者: choi 时间: 1-9-2014 10:43 标题: Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Jan 6, 2014 (1) Chikako Mogi and Masaaki Iwamoto, Japan's Micro Farms Face Extinction. www.businessweek.com/articles/20 ... bes-reforms-advance
(Japan’s “Government payments accounted for 56 percent of total earnings for Japanese agriculture last year, behind only Norway and Switzerland, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. * * * Agriculture’s share of gross domestic product is now less than 1 percent, down from 9 percent in 1960, according to [Japanese] government data”)
Note:
(a) summary underneath the title in print: Abe sets policies to spur consolidation and boost efficiency
(b) The BusinessWeek report is abbreviated from English- and Japanese-language Bloomberg News reports (by the same journalists). The latter was
(c) "Takashi NAKAJIMA 中島 高志 makes $100,000 a year growing lettuce on 12 acres in Japan’s Nagano prefecture. The 35-year-old third-generation farmer employs Chinese laborers to pick his crop and takes four months off in the winter to indulge his passion for speed skating. Now his way of life is endangered "
Nagano Prefecture 長野県
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagano_Prefecture
(map; host to the 1998 Winter Olympics)
(d) “Japan’s proliferation of small farms is a legacy of the country’s postwar US occupation, which diminished the power of the land-owning class by distributing plots to the tenant farmers who tilled about one-third of the nation’s fields and rice paddies. As Japan’s industries boomed, villagers quit the fields and went to work in factories. Stringent regulations governing the transfer of arable land have prevented a new generation of farmers from taking their place. A 2010 survey by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries showed that almost 9 out of 10 farmers were over 50.”
The corresponding paragraph in the Japanese-language report (which is not exactly the same) was: “戦後、日本を統治した連合国軍総司令部（ＧＨＱ）は農民解放に着手。国が地主から強制的に買い上げた農地を小作農へ売り渡し、９割が自作地になった。1952年の農地法で確立された小規模・自作農主義の中で、農村は保守政党の大票田に育つ半面、零細農業構造と高コスト体質が固定化していく。” Which can be translated as follows: “After World War II, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP; in Japan: General Headquarters, which is abbreviated as GHQ) engaged in liberation of farmers. Japan forced landowners to sell, transfer to tenant farmers the land, 90% of which became owner farmers'. On the one hand, the small-scale, owner farmers enshrined in the 1952 act 農地法, rural areas came to become LDP strongholds, on the other fragmented/subsistence agricultural architecture and high-cost system were institutionalized.
(i) So Taiwan’s 三七五減租，耕者有其田 originated from Japan--ultimately from US? After all, KMT had done nothing of sorts in the Chinese mainland.
(ii) Taiwan confronts the same agricultural problems. This is so called unintended consequences. However, it is believed those moves created a boom, much like China in early 1980s which unbound the farmers there. 作者: choi 时间: 1-9-2014 10:46
(2) Brendan Greeley, The Biggest, Cheapest Network of All. www.businessweek.com/articles/20 ... cell-phone-carriers
(Wi-Fi Smartphone, buttressed with Sprint cellular--without paying Sprint (at least directly))
Note:
(a) summary underneath the title in print: Upstarts like Republic Wireless pitch phones driven by Wi-Fi
(b) Read only the first two paragraphs, and go to providers’ websites:
(i) Republic Wireless (“a division of Bandwidth”), undated.
(A) How We Do It.
republicwireless.com/meet-republic/how-we-do-it
The middle (horizontal) panel gas three images, represented by three round, white circles and dealing with hybrid calling, Wi-Fi powered, and cellular coverage as a back-up.
(B) FAQs
republicwireless.com/faqs
Quote:
“Can I call International numbers from my Republic Wireless phone?
Unfortunately, you can't make International calls from your Republic phone at this time.
“Can I bring my own phone?
Unfortunately, no. There are some technical challenges we face in enabling folks to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD),
Again, one has to buy its own smartphone (also the Moto brand, same as Republican).
(c) Compare satellite phone
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_phone
(Satphones are popular on expeditions into remote areas where terrestrial cellular service is unavailable)