A princely sum
Well, as expected, all of the newspapers in Japan, including the English ones, were filled with all kinds of news about the latest addition to the royal family. Little of the reporting was truly informative, some was trite, and some of it (including the obviously posed for photo shown here from the Japan Times, which issued an extra in English) was downright dumb.
The first reaction that bubbles up when faced with all this reportage overkill for such a non-story is, “Who cares?” This has nothing to do with me.
But one report I found convinced me that it has plenty to do with me and everyone who is living in Japan. Because we are paying for all it!
According to the report, the new prince from day one of his life will be paid an annual stipend of 3 million yen a year. His sisters also receive the same amount each year, Prince Akishino receives 30.5 million yen, and Princess Kiko gets 15.25 million yen for “their personal use to maintain royal dignity.”
This means that Prince Akishino and his family are getting around 55 million yen a year, tax free, just because they are them.
It’s good to be the king.
September 8th, 2006 at 7:22 amThe Red Queen might disagree…:neutral:
September 8th, 2006 at 8:15 amoveroften:(photo) advance guard of the Barmy Army on its way downunder for some fun & games in the sun..:wink:
September 8th, 2006 at 9:40 amThere’s a way around it.
Give the Imperial family their old lands back (or a bit less if it was a lot) and they can fund themselves. Only then the Japanese Treasury will probably be out of money on average, so that might be a bad idea.
Most republicans fail to realise that a lot of royal families agreed to hand over ancestoral lands to the State in agreement for enough money to look after themselves. If the government then broke that promise, they could be taken to court and have the old lands taken back off them. I’m not sure if that’s the case for Japan, but it certainly would be in the UK over the Crown Estates.
September 9th, 2006 at 7:49 am