Word: yen
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...byproduct of Japan's swift rise to economic superpower status is a mildly bizarre cult of the price tag. Some of the best customers of art galleries on Madison Avenue and the Faubourg St. Honoré these days are dealers from Tokyo or Osaka, their pockets stuffed with yen, who are willing to pay astronomical sums for French impressionist paintings. Japanese buyers are equally conspicuous at the yearling auctions in Saratoga and Deauville, bidding handsomely for the best thoroughbreds. In fact, the Japanese seem to have supplanted the stereotype Texans as the world's most eager status seekers...
...shrewdly exploited his compatriots' fixation on expensive luxuries is Keishiro Funakoshi, proprietor of the Akaneya Coffee Shop in scenic Karuizawa, a popular mountain resort 100 miles northwest of Tokyo. There, for 9,900 yen (roughly $38), he serves what must surely be the world's most expensive cup of coffee. Funakoshi readily concedes that it is not so much the quality of his coffee (a home-blended brew of charcoal-roasted grains freshly ground for each customer) or the decor of his establishment (a narrow, dark wooden hut decorated in rustic Mingei style), as the defiantly exorbitant prices...
...weaker brew, served in less ornate cups, costs a steep 495 yen (more than three times the standard price) when taken at the counter. That is where the majority of Funakoshi's customers sit, hoping to see someone come in and order the special $38 cup. Hardly anyone complains about the high prices. As Funakoshi explains it: "Compared to 9,900 yen, 495 is a real bargain...
...Yen For Education; Busing at Harvard...
...slogans have been reversed, and European labor-not Japanese-suddenly seems fairly cheap. Manufacturing costs in Japan rose 19% last year and are likely to go up another 30% this year. This wage inflation at home, coupled with the upward revaluation of the yen, makes manufacturing operations in Europe much more profitable than sending Japanese goods halfway round the world. A second reason for direct investment is that if the European trade deficit with Japan grows much larger, the Common Market may simply clamp on quotas or demand so-called voluntary restraints to keep Japanese goods out. Already those restrictions...