Japan Bitching About Having To Pay Millions For “Extravagant” New Housing For USMC
TOKYO, Dec. 10 (AP) - (Kyodo)—Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba said Monday the United States has estimated some 70 million yen per house will be needed to construct housing for U.S. Marines to be relocated from Okinawa to Guam.
Japan will be required to shoulder a certain part of the housing construction cost, and Ishiba called the estimate “extravagant” at the House of Councillors Committee on Audit.
“Do we have to provide such extravagant houses by using our tax money? It is obviously too high,” Ishiba said, referring to a deal struck between Japan and the United States on sharing the cost of relocating 8,000 U.S. Marines.
Under the deal struck in April 2006, Tokyo will pay 59 percent, or $6.09 billion (720 billion yen), of the estimated $10.27 billion total cost (1.22 trillion yen) through grants, investment and loans.
Ishiba called the housing cost “an asking price by the United States” and said he will ask Washington to show its calculation base.
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Ok, I was just at both Guam and Okinawa in the past month with the AF….the housing in Guam is fairly weak so they need some major upgrades. In fact, besides the scuba diving and jungles and such, Guam is humid as hell and there aren’t many chicks there. 8,000 Marines are going to be bored as hell on that small island and probably fight each other a lot. Okinawa is pretty awesome and actually in civilization so they’re going to need some pretty sweet rooms in guam to have a good time……like free playstations and whatnot…..to start with. I’m just being honest.
December 9th, 2007 at 9:25 pmA deal was struck!
Sounds like the japs are trying to back out of the deal now!
December 10th, 2007 at 6:10 ami hope a deal can be struck-I like the japanese, and don’t want to insult them.
December 10th, 2007 at 6:15 amCome on!
How much can balsa wood and paper cost? I mean, isn’t that what houses are made of in Japan? … /sarc
Woops! Did that sound like a racist stereotype remark?
Just f-ing with ya …
December 10th, 2007 at 7:22 amOUR troops are providing security for THEIR nation. Sounds like they should pay for all of the housing costs.
December 10th, 2007 at 11:11 amHey, if they want to back out of this agreement, we can do the same. We never charged japan or any of th eEuropean countries ofr war reparations from either WWI or WWII. So let’s do it, adjust everything to today’s dollar amount, and add the appropriate interest, like a nice even 10%.
Should be enough to pay off the national debt, and cancel taxes on everyone making under 100K a year for a couple of years. Just imagine what that would do to the economy…
December 10th, 2007 at 11:29 amSomething is wrong with this story.
“70 million yen per house will be needed”
The exchange rate is 110 yen per dollar, so that would mean that “[636k dollars] per house will be needed”
The median price for a house is $155,500 in Guam.
If this story is accurate then I would have to say that I agree with the Japs on this one.
Just because we whipped them in WWII and defend them today, doesn’t mean we can fleece them for what ever we want.
December 10th, 2007 at 11:34 amSOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN DENMARK.IF MY MATH IS CORRECT, IT WOULD COST 1.25 MILLION PER JARHEAD FOR HOUSNG. A BIT STEEP METHINKS.
December 10th, 2007 at 1:26 pmScrew them. If they didn’t want to pay the piper, they should have won when they tried to conquer the world. They didn’t. WE kicked their asses! Lots of good men gave their lives for that cause, to defeat a brutal enemy who started a war with us. They are lucky we don’t MAKE them pay 100%.
December 11th, 2007 at 5:59 pm