Japan has a willingness to try out "weird" one-off policies which I wish more places would emulate. Most recent one, to stimulate consumer demand in face of a consumption tax increase and have most of the stimulus hit smaller, "local" operations / core spending:
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1) Central government delegates to cities/wards responsibility to sell coupon books. 2) Cities/wards send out offer to residents, offering them a booklet letting them purchase (up to five times) 1~5 tickets with face value 5,000 yen (~$50) for 4,000 yen each. 3) Buy at local PO.
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4) These are cash equivalents which are restricted to stores participating in the scheme, which (by my casual perusal of the ones in Meguro) are largely local shops with a smattering of e.g. supermarkets.
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Japan has been burned several times on selling cash equivalents below face value. (c.f. https://www.kalzumeus.com/2018/10/19/japanese-hometown-tax/ … for one notorious example) This scheme appears to have at least considered "Maybe people will turn us into a money pump" by rate limiting, requiring ID, threats, etc.
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The other big offset-the-tax-increase policy is a tie-up with the financial industry where, for ~8 months after the consumption tax went from 8% to 10%, they offered stores a way to give a 2% discount (nets to no increase) contingent on the customer using a cashless payment.
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<personal opinion> The financial industry has trouble making money w/ negative interest rates and said "Look, throw us a freaking bone and help with customer acquisition for payments revenue; we'll help SMBs have... extremely accurate books for tax season." </personal opinion>
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Replying to @patio11
Reading this caused me to read your June essay on discount brokerages. You called the 'Commissions go to zero' 3 months before it happened'
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I was 3 months early but probably 15 years late relative to decisionmakers at, without loss of generality, Schwab. The handwriting had been on the wall for a very, very long time; they were just waiting for a catalyst. (I think with medium-high confidence that that was RobinHood)
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