throwthisway

The lines for basic goods were often quite long, and waiting in them became a Russian pastime.

Not just Russia, Soviet controlled countries. My mother (we're not Russian) likes to retell the story that when I was born, they received extra ration cards / allotments for food - these were paper "tickets" if you will. The beauty of it was, these were in my name, so she couldn't leave me with a sitter, she had to wait in line for hours with a rather grumpy baby in all sorts of weather, so that I could be present to redeem my tickets.

Another common story amongst the family is that of a 6 or 8 hour (or longer) wait for meat at the butcher's, only to get close to the front of the line (almost making it inside the store) and for the store to just close - "we're out of everything, try again tomorrow - we may or may not get another delivery".

The entire system - from housing, to food, to fuel for heating, etc - was designed to grind people down as much as possible. Resisting the oppressive authoritarian regime was just that little bit more difficult if you were struggling to get through daily life.

How concerned should one be that the companies looking for investment via offerboard were presumably unable to find private money - perhaps for good reason?

Working 4 days a week would make you fall under the 75% cut off of a full timers

Why? Is the standard Japanese work-week 6 days?

Also, my understanding is that knives are a fucking awful method of protection.

There is no winner in a knife fight.

Fair point.