High Income Just for Sitting There with Your Eyes Open…

So they say…

According to the news, Kitami City is going to “distribute 4,000 yen worth of gift certificates to all citizens.” Apparently, they are using government grants as a measure against rising prices.
“Distributing paper again?”
I always wonder, how much administrative cost (tax money) is actually spent on this kind of wasteful handout?

I was curious, so I made both “ChatGPT” and “Gemini” compete in a serious cost simulation. Lately, I often use both AIs to get answers. “Three heads are better than one” (lol).

According to the answers they gave, it seems that just to distribute this 4,000 yen, a whopping “approx. 30 to 60 million yen” in expenses will disappear.
Printing costs, envelopes, postage, redemption fees… In short, it’s the “cost of distribution” that never reaches the citizens.

If we had 60 million yen, I think we could do full snow removal (hauling) for the entire city of Kitami at least three times. As a snow country, is this really the right way to spend money…?

Looking across the country, municipal responses seem to be divided into three main groups.
The “Stop-Thinking” Handout Faction (approx. 50%): Same as Kitami. Spending money to distribute paper coupons.
The Smart Cost-Cutting Faction (approx. 20%): Reducing base water charges, etc. Administrative costs are almost zero.
The Indecisive Faction (approx. 30%): Still waiting and seeing.

Why don’t they choose the smartest option, “water bill reduction”? The reason is simple: it doesn’t create a “sense of achievement.”
Even if the amount deducted from the bank account decreases, it’s plain and no one notices. As politicians, they probably want to stuff coupons into mailboxes to appeal to voters, saying, “Look, I did my job!”

Are the administration and the “people who mistakenly think that sitting in front of a computer with their eyes open counts as working” (who are increasing rapidly lately) the same…?

For the sake of that appeal, tax money worth three rounds of snow removal is being thrown down the drain. Kitami City, which is facing a nationally famous financial crisis, is spending 60 million yen just to stage a “performance of doing work.”

Just my fantasy, but…
They don’t need to distribute a flat 4,000 yen to everyone. Why can’t they take that budget, combine it with the saved 60 million yen in administrative costs, and do something bold like “make water bills free for one year for tax-exempt households”?
I believe helping those who are truly in trouble is the job of the administration.
Honestly, I don’t need 4,000 yen. I want them to divert that share to people who are really struggling.

Regarding the current situation of “insufficient living costs” and “poverty” in Japan, here are objective figures based on the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s latest statistics (published 2023-2024), without any bias.
Objectively, about 1 in 6 citizens (approx. 15.4%) are living below the poverty line, and subjectively, about 60% of citizens (59.6%) feel that life is difficult.

Take this,

Spread it out like this,

And use it as a core material like this.

In the old days, we used to save up a lot of scrap wood from the site, glue pieces of the same thickness together like laminated wood, and use them instead of door frames or core materials.
The only thing we bought was the plywood to stick on both sides. Joiners were ridiculed for “doing business with trash,” but that idea of using wood until the very end was what architecture was about.
As you can see in the photo, now frames are laminated wood, and cores are cardboard…
No wonder there’s no profit.

On top of that, kerosene costs… If the glue freezes, it’s game over.
Tens of thousands of yen vanish…

Gasoline tax cuts are appreciated, but kerosene… subsidies… gradually…