Duck Leeks are Poisonous: Professor Kamo's Lecture on Human Economics - Vol. 5 Ch. 27 - A High-Profit Business With No Risk (Part 5)

[MangaDex]

 

[soidish]

Seeing how easily elderly people are scammed in this manga really frightens me. What options does an elderly person have if they don't have the support or close relationships of their children or grandchildren? Hiring a caregiver or moving into an elder care facility can also make them vulnerable to scams and exploitation, just like the manga portrays.

 

[capricieux]

Being to hasty with closing the deal (buying out their house)?

 

[solamente]

yeah does anyone wanna try and guess the fatal flaw in advance? I figured the chapters were batched like this because the scanlation team is diligent but mortal, but maybe it's to give ppl an opportunity? that's actually really thoughtful of them if so. time to reread

 

[solamente]

ok right. lots of dominoes. financial asymmetry: the "contracts can't be cancelled by either party after the 30 day period" thing, 300k yen per signup, 20 million yen vs 35 million, Kamagi Trading, the prof is rich. information asymmetry: the "fake roof repair guy" pattern, and the hidden camera. two communication channels: the prof is an employee and can talk to the other employees, the other two are part-timers. this author really likes to lean on these: (1) customers / masses of people banding together and outsmarting the masterminds but the masterminds not realizing because of ego (2) "being too successful" - pushing numbers outside of the parameters the masterminds anticipated - e.g MLM recruit numbers, multiplying reward schemes (3) taking their trap / key method of exploitation, and reversing it against them.

so in this case (1) he almost certainly intends to take advantage of the cashflow issue. they need to pay 30 mil upfront but the rent only pays off after 10 years. (2) he'll probably use the irreversibility of signed contracts to pull it off but there are like 5 different options here for how. (3) he'll eventually use the sudden cash burden to turn the employees and part-timers against the company, no idea how though. (4) I feel like the "fake roof repair guy" is a Chekhov's gun - it would be ironic to use that same tactic to undermine them using a co-conspirator.

the cheap one is alter the contract details, the office rubberstamps it without realising, but that's cheap. the other one is acquiring kamagi trading, that opens up a lot of options like bringing on 200 new leases at once, putting them in trouble then using kamagi as a lure with some kind of instrument with hidden traps, e.g he might pull weird shit with debt refinancing then use that to acquire the business directly then either resell back to the residents or reduce their rent. I feel like that's also too easy - the solution can't just be "I'm a billionaire I'll mess with you by blowing cash" every single time. he'll almost certainly get them on tape saying something evil then use that to get residents on board with the plan he's cooking, but then that would force the story to go with the sequence of: masterminds are crowing, their scheme is working so well, we sure fooled those elderly, in comes him, flashback - the elderly knew and fooled them... but again this is a bit overused.

that's kind of what makes this author worth reading, it's the narrative execution that's hard to anticipate. and it's completely possible I got literally everything wrong here.

 

[I_love_Spring]

Alright, time to bring the rotten business down