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Mystery donor gives Japanese city $3.6M in gold bars to fix water system

bbc.com

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Re: Mystery donor gives Japanese city $3.6M in gold bars to fix water system

#41

Post by krisoft »

cyode wrote: post #37
arjie wrote: post #17

It is an outrageously cool thing to give money for an infrastructure project. They must have some faith that the government can deliver on something with $3.5 million. That would be two public toilets in SF, one toilet of which actually cost $300k in paperwork and so on despite two local businessmen signing up to have the work done.

The lone ranger donor route feels severely suboptimal, unless perhaps if the donor is a .001%er pledging a large share of their net worth. Imagine if this anonymous person worked with a foundation pledging to match $3.5M if said amount was raise via crowdfund. Even if say $1M goes to the campaign and NGO bloat, that’s still way more pipe money.

> Imagine if this anonymous person worked with a foundation pledging to match $3.5M if said amount was raise via crowdfund.

Idk man. Thing is where i live we are already crowdfunding to maintain our pipes. It is called local taxes and water utility bills. So if anyone were to ask me for more money for the same task i’m already paying not insubstantial sums for I would be very cross with them. It is just not a good look.

Now i don’t know about Japan. Maybe they don’t pay taxes and utility bills. Somehow doubt it, but who knows.

Re: Mystery donor gives Japanese city $3.6M in gold bars to fix water system

#42

Post by ehnto »

> Osaka recorded more than 90 cases of water pipe leaks under its roads in the 2024 fiscal year, according to the city's waterworks bureau.

I must admit, that seems pretty small given how many roads and many people said infrastructure supports.

Still a good idea to get ahead of maintenance, but I am pretty impressed.

I wonder if Japan is suffering the same issue many western countries are facing, where regulation and wages are becoming too high to get much done with that amount of money. In my country, I would be surprised if you could replace a single roads water pipes for 3.6million.

Re: Mystery donor gives Japanese city $3.6M in gold bars to fix water system

#44

Post by yreg »

argee wrote: post #10
userbinator wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mind went to the founder of Bitcoin.

The actual founder of Bitcoin cannot touch their money without causing a lot of panic in the market. I believe Coinbase's 2021 S-1 prospectus explicitly listed "the identification of Satoshi Nakamoto... or the transfer of Satoshi’s Bitcoins" as a business risk factor.

I would expect Satoshi to make a lot of money on later wallets that are not identified as theirs.

Re: Mystery donor gives Japanese city $3.6M in gold bars to fix water system

#46

Post by yreg »

worthless-trash wrote: post #34
Hamuko wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t that just mean that they’ve been manufactured by Mitsubishi Materials Corporation? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Materials

And I imagine they could trivially track them, like most modern gold bars sold/collected in this volume.

There is no mystery, the donor just donated the money anonymously.

All that means is that the city won't publish the name of the donor. It doesn't mean "no one knows who has paid for this".

Re: Mystery donor gives Japanese city $3.6M in gold bars to fix water system

#47

Post by avadodin »

dcrazy wrote: post #11
userbinator wrote: post #7

More than 20% of Japan's water pipes have passed their legal service life of 40 years, according to local media That is rather low. The US still has some wooden(!) water pipes in use, as well as other plumbing installed in the late 19th/early 20th century.

This is the reason that installing a 2-mile bus lane on Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco took several years. They took advantage of the opportunity to replace the hollowed out logs that had served as one of the city’s most critical water mains since the 1906 quake.

going straight from mycotoxins to microplastics without going through lead speedrun

Re: Mystery donor gives Japanese city $3.6M in gold bars to fix water system

#48

Post by pjc50 »

arjie wrote: post #17

It is an outrageously cool thing to give money for an infrastructure project. They must have some faith that the government can deliver on something with $3.5 million. That would be two public toilets in SF, one toilet of which actually cost $300k in paperwork and so on despite two local businessmen signing up to have the work done.

Japan, a culture so public-spirited that even the local Yakuza decide to contribute to the plumbing.

Re: Mystery donor gives Japanese city $3.6M in gold bars to fix water system

#49

Post by stevezsa8 »

The city has 3m people according to the article. Even if only 10% are tax payers... all they need is a little over $10 per tax payer to equal the donation.

I mean the donation is cool. And will hopefully get the residents thinking about how they can also help their city. But I can't help thinking how it's just a small band-aid on a city that can't manage it's infrastructure budget as needed.

Re: Mystery donor gives Japanese city $3.6M in gold bars to fix water system

#50

Post by fhub »

cyode wrote: post #37
arjie wrote: post #17

It is an outrageously cool thing to give money for an infrastructure project. They must have some faith that the government can deliver on something with $3.5 million. That would be two public toilets in SF, one toilet of which actually cost $300k in paperwork and so on despite two local businessmen signing up to have the work done.

The lone ranger donor route feels severely suboptimal, unless perhaps if the donor is a .001%er pledging a large share of their net worth. Imagine if this anonymous person worked with a foundation pledging to match $3.5M if said amount was raise via crowdfund. Even if say $1M goes to the campaign and NGO bloat, that’s still way more pipe money.

The lone ranger may have actually done something optimal but indirect. There is a lot of press that went global pointing out real problems. Japanese are proud people, this might actually help direct public funds to solve the problems.
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