This has to go down as the strangest piece of public policy ever.
Oh Japan. You’re doing it wrong.
Well, the Japanese government is.
What are they doing?
Well, they’ve launched a competition to encourage people to drink more.
(Be quick, entries close at the end of this week.)
If you’re a young person who comes up with a great idea that gets people drinking more booze, the National Tax Agency is going to fund the commercialisation of your idea.
Japan has launched a national competition to get its young people to drink more alcohol.
The “Sake Viva!” competition seeks ideas about how to boost domestic alcohol sales.
The initiative was launched by Japan's National Tax Agency to combat a drop in alcohol tax revenue.
Alcohol sales in the country have been shrinking due to Japan's aging population and lifestyle changes prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the campaign's website.
Japan's tax revenue from its alcohol sales fell by around 110 billion yen ($813,868,000) in 2020, according to The Japan Times. The rate and size of the drop was the largest decrease in 31 years, per the national news agency.
Now, the “Sake Viva!” competition wants young people aged between 20 to 39 to submit ideas about how to boost the sale of alcoholic beverages. These include Sake rice wine and shochu, a distilled liquor.
The competition is set to run until September 9, with the finalists also invited to a gala awards ceremony in Tokyo on November 10. The tax office said it would support the commercialization of ideas from the competition winner.
There is so much about this that is completely backwards.
You put a tax on booze because you don’t want people drinking too much of it. Then the national tax agency wants to raise more revenue, so you run a campaign to get people do more of the thing you were trying to stop.
It’s like putting fines on speeding, and then realising that you actually like the money that speeding fines generate, so you start encouraging people to drive more recklessly.
Total madness.
This seriously has bureaucrats written all over it. I particularly like this detail:
The competition also seeks ideas about new services and promotions, products and design proposals, and even initiatives about how to use AI and the metaverse to increase domestic sales.
AI and the metaverse? Seriously? The metaverse where we hang out in virtual space eating virtual food and drinking virtual drinks?
How the heck is that going to encourage consumption of booze in the real world?
And why would you even want to?
Governments do a lot of good. We have a lot to be grateful for.
But when the government starts thinking of itself as an end in itself, then you’ve got a problem.
Kampai!
JG.
Deonne Kingsford says
In Australia we have a weird Government advertising Vaccination (so callef) for all; even children. It harms people and depletes the immune system. Our Nation hae never been sicker than in 2022.
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