Japan's second-oldest museum forced to crowdfund to pay bills

It's a sad story about any country that can not afford to fund it's history and museums like this.

The Japanese government should be ashamed that they can't get their priorities straight and force this institution to beg for funding to pay the light bill!

Don't worry I'm more than sure that the government will step in soon and raise taxes to fund this museum.

Doesn't matter that it was managed in a poor way as many other Japanese companies.

As the issuer of its own currency, the government can’t run out of money and yet it refused to pay just 300 million yen of the museum’s utility bills. This is national disgrace. The cult of balanced budget has wrecked havoc on Japan’s economy for three decades.

@Meiyouwenti, the Japanese government has never registered a truly balanced budget. But I'll agree with your opinion about three decades of havoc on the country's economy being exacerbated beyond belief by the country's government. And its central bank. That's what you get when you print your own money and tell your citizens to believe in the durability of their currency to the point where they behave like financial lemmings.

Good idea by the museum and good idea for its supporters.

It's a sad story about any country that can not afford to fund it's history and museums like this.

The govt can afford it. It collected record high tax revenues in the last fiscal year and turned in a budget surplus, half of which is earmarked for increased military spending. This is about the LDP's spending priorities, not about a lack of funds.

Quote: The cash-strapped Japanese government turned down the museum's request for more funding, and is even reducing its subsidies

Meanwhile, at the Ministry of shiny war toys...

Japan's Defence Ministry to seek record ¥7 tril budget for FY2024.

Its amazing that there isn't enough money in the budget to maintain placrs like this, but there is always plenty of money to move the boundary of the sidewalk 30cm inwards or outwards every 2 years.

Cash strapped? Didn’t the government just increase the taxes on energy and give themselves a raise? The energy companies are now at record profits and tax dollars are continuing to go to them as well.

What is commendable about this (and most other) Japanese public museums is that they keep their admission prices extremely cheap. Entry to this one is free to high school students and younger, and only 630 Yen for everyone else.

Back in my country (Canada), admission prices for a museum like that would easily be 4 or 5 times higher, and high school students would not be free.

The downside is that I think the government restricts their ability to raise prices when costs go up, so they sometimes face problems like this.

I’m glad their campaign has been a success, keeping Japan’s museums accessible is very important.

Charitable giving to support museums is very common abroad and glad it is catching on here.

Wish JapanToday would post a link to the crowdfund.

Sad situation but smart idea to crowdfund. As soon as I find the link I’ll definitely donate

denied additional financial support to cover soaring utility bills

What else do you expect?

The LDP has to pay for Kishida's useless abroad trips and cover Aso's 5 Billion dollar lifestyle or whatever it is.

They can't worry about preserving history or the people.

Priorities people, priorities!!

pathetic.

LDP gov have a lot of cash for not needed outdated US weapons but have no money for...museum.

wondering how many workers from that museum have voted for LDP?

no crowdfunding.we are paying enough of taxes virtually for everything,ask Fumio get funds!

no crowdfunding.we are paying enough of taxes

Your childhood swing set was standing very close to the house wall, wasn't it?

I wonder if the museum has considered in solar panels to reduce energy costs,

Hey, JGovt. Why don't you just take a little bit of the 7 trillion yen (7,000,000,000,000) you have earmarked for weapons and destruction and funnel just a fracton of it to help fund your cultural assets, your history and something positive for your own people?

I hope they invest the extra , so it can pay the bills for a long term, instead of blowing it.

$3.4 million is about 489,530,300円 at todays rate. So i hope they can invest the rest, and reap the rewards in the future when the fuel bills fall.

The government of ‘the rich country’ is showing how it became rich.

The museum needs to install renewable energy. The Glyndebourne opera house in East Sussex UK is a very large site and 100% of its electricity comes from a single wind turbine.

There are 5,738 museums in Japan. All have suffered income loss from the covid and now the increase in energy charges.

Now the museum will have to crowfund its energy bills.

I thought energy in Japan will continue soaring.

It means crowfund level will have to soar too.

Some rich and poor people will give, until they stop and/or can't...

To me, this means the country of Japan is accelerating his way to bankruptcy.

It is not a temporary situation and could get worse if any incident on seas happens with neighbours.

The target was ¥100 million. It achieved ¥300 million.

Should market themselves as DENTSU. Then the funding will flood in.

MeiyouwentiToday  07:46 am JST

As the issuer of its own currency, the government can’t run out of money and yet it refused to pay just 300 million yen of the museum’s utility bills. This is national disgrace. The cult of balanced budget has wrecked havoc on Japan’s economy for three decades.

Come on Japan is the most indebted country in the developed world with a debt to deficits ratio of 263%.

it probably not had a single balanced budget over the past 30 years.

and there is a limit to finance the budget by printing your own currency. This is the depreciation of your currency as currently evidenced with the melting JPY.

Japan's budget for 2023 provides a record 6.8 trillion yen ($50 billion) in defense spending, up 20% from 2022.

moderator - this IS related

I've been to the museum several times and it's a wonderful place to spend a couple of hours... such a shame they've had to resort to crowdfunding. I'm surprised that they haven't applied to the lotteries to help... I'm even more surprised that the JGov has let it adrift... surely national treasures are the responsibility of the culture secretary (assuming they have one)?

I'm even more surprised that the JGov has let it adrift

I'm not sure they can help even if they want to. The budget for this fiscal year has already been allocated several months ago. Every yen (down to an error measured in mere hundreds of yen at most) has already been assigned to one department or another, for use in one month or another.