Most Japanese cars and electronics are made in Thailand and other countries. Most Japanese companies have moved their manufacturing overseas, so this has impacted on job numbers in Japan and also industrial output. However this is not the main reason why Japan's economy is doing poorly.
The main reason why Japan's economy is in free fall is not because of falling exports. It's actually because of low domestic spending, a decrease in real wages and also because of the huge cost of energy exports due to the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Japan imports the vast majority of their energy and this has resulted in current account deficits since 2011. Japan always used to post current account surpluses in the past.
Japan's GDP has fallen from $5.7 trillion to $4.3 trillion as of Q3 2014. Part of the reason has to do with the falling yen, but also recessions following the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters. But GDP figures are all fake anyway and really they reflect nothing about the health of an economy. Real wages in Japan are decreasing, quality of life is decreasing and the number of pessimistic Japanese consumers outnumber optimists. This highlights that Japanese consumers will not spend any money. Inflation has also slowed down, further curbing domestic spending.
Countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Germany and many other European nations are facing the same problem. I guess South Korea has some sort of back up since it has North Korea which has a relatively high fertility rate and a higher proportion of young people. But it is still a HUGE problem for these countries nonetheless.
Here's an explanation of Japan's debt problem (currently more than twice their GDP):
Just because Japanese debt is held internally does not mean that it doesn't have negative effects on the Japanese economy. Actually far from it. It all has to do with interest rates and government revenue.
Also the increase in consumption tax from 5% to 8% and soon to be 10% was a move by Abe in the name of capitalism. The Japanese public's quality of life suffers, while Japanese investors and companies are happy. The last time Japan raised its consumption tax, it caused a recession.
The Nikkei's level right now is about 60% less than it was 20 years ago. It just reflects how much regression and stagnation that the Japanese economy has endured in the lost 2 decades.
On September 15 2014 23:29 AutoEngineer wrote: Countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Germany and many other European nations are facing the same problem. I guess South Korea has some sort of back up since it has North Korea which has a relatively high fertility rate and a higher proportion of young people.
On September 15 2014 23:29 AutoEngineer wrote: Countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Germany and many other European nations are facing the same problem. I guess South Korea has some sort of back up since it has North Korea which has a relatively high fertility rate and a higher proportion of young people.
This was said in jest, right?
There's been a lot more talk of reunification in the South Korean media recently. Some cable channels are now dedicated to covering only North Korea. I assume this trend could only have been started by the ones in power...
While the scenario pictured in the video could happen, it put aside the fact that Japan can just monetize part of its own debt. Pretty good post by the way, very clear.
The tax increase is actually a lot more than just 3%. Traditionally, stores list prices that include taxes. Instead of redoing all of their price tags, and have the numbers look funny (e.g. 100 yen for a bottle of coke), a lot of stores just put up a bigger sign that says "prices exclude taxes", so in reality, a lot of stores have jacked up their prices by 8%. We aren't talking about shady corner stores, even fking Starbucks did this. So when taxes go up again by 2%, we might actually be looking at another 10% increase in prices. Of course, this is all part of Abe's brilliant strategy to artificially raise inflation. Just because inflation is going up (even excluding the 3% tax increase), it doesn't mean total good purchased have gone up, and recent economics data support this unfortunate finding.
Japan's economy will be fine though. Government of Japan will continue to set up pointless jobs to keep unemployment rate down. Bank of Japan will continue to issue JGB. All the people, corporations, and megabanks will continue to gobble up all the JGB. It's a beautiful cycle that will never burst. We are already looking at sovereign debt of something like 200% of GDP, it'll just continue to rise, until something breaks in the chain, which is highly unlikely.
Are you trying to rally the "StarCraft is dead" crowd to a new cause? Rumors about Japan's demise have been overblown for a very long time now. It's not to say they don't have problems, but the economy is not in "free fall".
It's hilarious how the OP juxtaposes bad GDP news as proof with "GDP numbers are all fake anyways". And do you have a source showing how quality of life in Japan is going down?
The Nikkei's level right now is about 60% less than it was 20 years ago. It just reflects how much regression and stagnation that the Japanese economy has endured in the lost 2 decades.
Or maybe how high the bubble in all Japanese assets reached in the 1980s.
the video seems silly though, debt is again treated just an obligation and not an asset, foreigners are treated like idiots, the last 20 years of japan being able to do something that economics text books say is impossible to do is ignored. Basically the only thing that isnt questionable is the fact that Japan's demographics are kind of bad.
Real GDP per Capita is doing fine. In fact, depreciation relative to the dollar makes their exports cheaper, is actually a good thing for them.
I like the structure of your post, but by simply posting a couple of completely misleading and inaccurate facts, I cannot take your post seriously and don't which to research the other acts myself to check its validity.
Real GDP per Capita is doing fine. In fact, depreciation relative to the dollar makes their exports cheaper, is actually a good thing for them.
I like the structure of your post, but by simply posting a couple of completely misleading and inaccurate facts, I cannot take your post seriously and don't which to research the other acts myself to check its validity.
The problem is not real GDP per capita but potential growth. All estimations before the lost decade viewed Japan way higher than it is now, and then it kinda stagnated. The comparaison with Germany is a bit misleading because Germany never had the economic success everybody believe it have, in regard to growth at least (it's just an export powerhouse). A good way to see the problem with potential growth is to compare real gdp to the US : in 1990 both the US's and Japan's GDP per capita are really close, in 2000 the US had gone from 32k $ to 40k and Japan from 32K to 34K. For economists it means that Japan was not able to use its full potential, for various reasons.
It's true that the depreciation of the yen is a good thing for them. The post is kinda well argumented but fails, like every other discussion about Japan (or any other country nowadays...), in trying to argue that this high debt is some kind of bubble that will explose and create a massive crisis. Meanwhile Japan has no difficulty to endebt itself which contradict everything this theory suggest.
Real GDP per Capita is doing fine. In fact, depreciation relative to the dollar makes their exports cheaper, is actually a good thing for them.
I like the structure of your post, but by simply posting a couple of completely misleading and inaccurate facts, I cannot take your post seriously and don't which to research the other acts myself to check its validity.
The problem is not real GDP per capita but potential growth. All estimations before the lost decade viewed Japan way higher than it is now, and then it kinda stagnated. The comparaison with Germany is a bit misleading because Germany never had the economic success everybody believe it have, in regard to growth at least (it's just an export powerhouse). A good way to see the problem with potential growth is to compare real gdp to the US : in 1990 both the US's and Japan's GDP per capita are really close, in 2000 the US had gone from 32k $ to 40k and Japan from 32K to 34K. For economists it means that Japan was not able to use its full potential, for various reasons.
It's true that the depreciation of the yen is a good thing for them. The post is kinda well argumented but fails, like every other discussion about Japan (or any other country nowadays...), in trying to argue that this high debt is some kind of bubble that will explose and create a massive crisis. Meanwhile Japan has no difficulty to endebt itself which contradict everything this theory suggest.
Yep, I'm a couple months away from completing my Economics degree, so I am well aware of the concepts.
Anyway, I agree there are issues, and frankly few people here would be qualified to argue them. There really is a lot that goes into their problem that they are having, and it's not just a black and white answer, that's why so many economists are split on explanations. I appreciate well developed arguments, even if they are very contested, however when someone with what appears like little economics background attempts to formulate an argument about such a complex topic, it never turns out well.
However, looking at strictly GDP's, the numbers don't look bad for Japan:
They are on point with other developed European countries like France and England (Canada also) in the last fifteen years. The lack of growth as great as USA can be greatly attributed to factors like their lack of land to expand, environmental factors being amplified, and so forth. I looked through every Economic Policy indicator, and none of them scream "Japan is plummeting".
Yes, they need reforms, but I don't think their issues are much worse (if not better), than those in the USA, Italy, Spain, Greece, etc.
On September 16 2014 01:51 FiWiFaKi wrote: Real GDP per Capita is doing fine. In fact, depreciation relative to the dollar makes their exports cheaper, is actually a good thing for them.
Depends on how much that export relies on imported raw materials and energy. Japan imports a huge amount of oil and natural gas (for which they pay about 70% more than most EU countries pay to Russia).
On September 16 2014 01:51 FiWiFaKi wrote: Real GDP per Capita is doing fine. In fact, depreciation relative to the dollar makes their exports cheaper, is actually a good thing for them.
Depends on how much that export relies on imported raw materials and energy. Japan imports a huge amount of oil and natural gas (for which they pay about 70% more than most EU countries pay to Russia).
Also true, but given the nature of the global macroeconomic situation, the type of sectors they compete in on the global market, and the fact that they struggled with low inflation to the point of deflation for a long time, I believe that depreciation is in their best interest. A couple simple "5 minute reads" articles that someone might find interesting:
If the issue is Japanese aren't consuming and leaving so much wealth in saving then can't this be resolved by having the central bank raise interest rates so people will be less inclined to keep their money in savings?
On September 16 2014 06:00 GettingIt wrote: If the issue is Japanese aren't consuming and leaving so much wealth in saving then can't this be resolved by having the central bank raise interest rates so people will be less inclined to keep their money in savings?
Na increasing interest rate is not a solution, quite the opposite (a high interest rate discourage credit). What they need is more inflation, and they're trying hard to respect this 2% inflation target but imo it's still too low.
Japan is not in crisis state, it is just unable to reach its true potential growth because its demand is atone since twenty years.
On September 16 2014 06:00 GettingIt wrote: If the issue is Japanese aren't consuming and leaving so much wealth in saving then can't this be resolved by having the central bank raise interest rates so people will be less inclined to keep their money in savings?
Na increasing interest rate is not a solution, quite the opposite (a high interest rate discourage credit). What they need is more inflation, and they're trying hard to respect this 2% inflation target but imo it's still too low.
On September 16 2014 06:00 GettingIt wrote: If the issue is Japanese aren't consuming and leaving so much wealth in saving then can't this be resolved by having the central bank raise interest rates so people will be less inclined to keep their money in savings?
Na increasing interest rate is not a solution, quite the opposite (a high interest rate discourage credit). What they need is more inflation, and they're trying hard to respect this 2% inflation target but imo it's still too low.
I typed increase but I meant decrease haha.
I'm pretty sure the target interest rate are already at their lowest possible (0 %). That's the reason why Japan situation is textbook for people like Krugman.
On September 16 2014 06:00 GettingIt wrote: If the issue is Japanese aren't consuming and leaving so much wealth in saving then can't this be resolved by having the central bank raise interest rates so people will be less inclined to keep their money in savings?
Because you can't raise, simply put.
Inflation rate is 0 in Japan, which means real interest rate = nominal interest rate...
If Japan makes their nominal interest rate high, they are making their real interest rate really high, all that will cause is bring foreigners to invest money in Japan, and deplete all of Japan's reserves. A similar situation occurred in Australia not too long ago. Artificially changing the interest rate is extremely taxing resource wise for the government, and according to Chicago thought, it should never be done. There is monetary policy, and there is fiscal policy... One deals with money supply, one deals with government spending, that's what we get to control.
Simply put, when you are told you'll get a 1% interest rate in Japan, it's not very tempting to invest, and setting it high will bring foreign investors to make money, but doing nothing for Japan.
But when in a western country the inflation is 3%, and you are offered 4% interest rate, it feels a lot more tempting, even though the real interest rate is effectively the same 1%.
As we know, change in inflation is proportional to change in money supply, and I believe that printing money would help their economy by generating manageable inflation, but the authorities in Japan are opposed to this notion for complex reasons, as they exercise a different economics theory. I think the Japan government is very fragmented, and it's a root of many of it's economic problems, but there are arguments for why you would like to keep money supply constant, so of which are explained here:
edit: Oh, another thing to mention, printing money is not a simple solution as it seems, as currently Japan is in a Liquidity Trap, and by definition monetary policy does not work. So a very expansive monetary policy is needed, but that creates the great risk of hyper inflation.
On September 15 2014 23:29 AutoEngineer wrote: Countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Germany and many other European nations are facing the same problem. I guess South Korea has some sort of back up since it has North Korea which has a relatively high fertility rate and a higher proportion of young people.
This was said in jest, right?
No, I wasn't joking at all.
If you've read the media in the past 12 months, there is a lot of talk about South Korea's plans to reunify and the economic strategies they are currently investigating when a sudden collapse happens in North Korea.
The exact time of reunification is not certain, however it's very clear that when South and North Korea reunify, this will boost the young population, increase fertility rates and Korea's economy may overtake France, Germany and Japan by 2045.
United Korea economy could pass Japan: Goldman Sachs
Korea has HUGE potential to overtake Japan. Japan is the most aged country in the world. You don't know much impact this is having on their economy.
Korea is facing a demographic crisis as well. But North Korea will give Korea much needed man power, young population and natural resources (worth $6 trillion USD according to one report).
Germany is doing far better than Japan because it has lower public debt, it is a bigger exporter than Japan, it doesn't have to import a lot of energy, and their demographics are in better shape.
On September 16 2014 06:37 F1rstAssau1t wrote: All i know is that Japan is a lot like Germany, no matter what happends they always rise.
Germany's economy is doing far better than Japan's.
On September 16 2014 01:29 coverpunch wrote: Are you trying to rally the "StarCraft is dead" crowd to a new cause? Rumors about Japan's demise have been overblown for a very long time now. It's not to say they don't have problems, but the economy is not in "free fall".
It's hilarious how the OP juxtaposes bad GDP news as proof with "GDP numbers are all fake anyways". And do you have a source showing how quality of life in Japan is going down?
IT IS crisis mode in the Kantei, the office of Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister. A succession of awful data has pummelled his economic programme, which consists of three “arrows”: a radical monetary easing, a big fiscal stimulus and a series of structural reforms. On September 8th revised figures showed that GDP shrank by 1.8% in the second quarter, or by 7.1% on an annualised basis, even worse than the initial estimate of 1.7%.
Maybe not in "freefall" but still in crisis mode, give or take. I'm sure you realized that I didn't mean that Japan's economy is going to collapse any second.
On September 15 2014 23:29 AutoEngineer wrote: Countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Germany and many other European nations are facing the same problem. I guess South Korea has some sort of back up since it has North Korea which has a relatively high fertility rate and a higher proportion of young people.
This was said in jest, right?
No, I wasn't joking at all.
If you've read the media in the past 12 months, there is a lot of talk about South Korea's plans to reunify and the economic strategies they are currently investigating when a sudden collapse happens in North Korea.
The exact time of reunification is not certain, however it's very clear that when South and North Korea reunify, this will boost the young population, increase fertility rates and Korea's economy may overtake France, Germany and Japan by 2045.
Korea has HUGE potential to overtake Japan. Japan is the most aged country in the world. You don't know much impact this is having on their economy.
Korea is facing a demographic crisis as well. But North Korea will give Korea much needed man power, young population and natural resources (worth $6 trillion USD according to one report).
Germany is doing far better than Japan because it has lower public debt, it is a bigger exporter than Japan, it doesn't have to import a lot of energy, and their demographics are in better shape.
On September 16 2014 06:37 F1rstAssau1t wrote: All i know is that Japan is a lot like Germany, no matter what happends they always rise.
Germany's economy is doing far better than Japan's.
It's not quite as easy of an equation (North+South=Korea^2) as you make it sound but it's nice to be optimistic about it.
As many of the biggest Japanese companies in the electronics sector are failing it's a valid fear that there's not much that can take these companies place over. Tangentially related, can someone quickly tell me how currently Sony's faring? Last I read about them was cca. half a year ago and their situation was very dire. Thanks in advance
On September 15 2014 23:29 AutoEngineer wrote: Countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Germany and many other European nations are facing the same problem. I guess South Korea has some sort of back up since it has North Korea which has a relatively high fertility rate and a higher proportion of young people.
This was said in jest, right?
No, I wasn't joking at all.
If you've read the media in the past 12 months, there is a lot of talk about South Korea's plans to reunify and the economic strategies they are currently investigating when a sudden collapse happens in North Korea.
The exact time of reunification is not certain, however it's very clear that when South and North Korea reunify, this will boost the young population, increase fertility rates and Korea's economy may overtake France, Germany and Japan by 2045.
United Korea economy could pass Japan: Goldman Sachs
Korea has HUGE potential to overtake Japan. Japan is the most aged country in the world. You don't know much impact this is having on their economy.
Korea is facing a demographic crisis as well. But North Korea will give Korea much needed man power, young population and natural resources (worth $6 trillion USD according to one report).
Germany is doing far better than Japan because it has lower public debt, it is a bigger exporter than Japan, it doesn't have to import a lot of energy, and their demographics are in better shape.
On September 16 2014 06:37 F1rstAssau1t wrote: All i know is that Japan is a lot like Germany, no matter what happends they always rise.
Germany's economy is doing far better than Japan's.
It's not quite as easy of an equation (North+South=Korea^2) as you make it sound but it's nice to be optimistic about it.
As many of the biggest Japanese companies in the electronics sector are failing it's a valid fear that there's not much that can take these companies place over. Tangentially related, can someone quickly tell me how currently Sony's faring? Last I read about them was cca. half a year ago and their situation was very dire. Thanks in advance
Sony is neither faring well or poorly compared to 2 years ago. It's still a tiny company compared to Apple and Samsung though. Their TV market share is now at a record low and their smartphones are doing poorly. The only saving factor for Sony is their entertainment division.
And I may be optimistic about Korean reunification but North Korea really is a demographic savior for the Korean peninsula. Fertility rate in North Korea is about 2 births per woman which is by far the highest in East Asia.
Japan is a special case. No one quite know how to read and know what's going to happen because we haven't seen something like this before. But I am also wary of their economy, their policies kinda worked, until their more recent gamble to boost their spending, it has costed a lot without enough return imo The lack of domestic consumption has so many structural causes to it and they have failed to even tackled one of them.
The study of reunification is about what if nk collapsed, sk has very little interest in reunification. The amount of resources will be needed and the amount of pressure it will place upon the society and public service are too high for them to actively seek reunification.
On September 16 2014 06:00 GettingIt wrote: If the issue is Japanese aren't consuming and leaving so much wealth in saving then can't this be resolved by having the central bank raise interest rates so people will be less inclined to keep their money in savings?
Because you can't raise, simply put.
Inflation rate is 0 in Japan, which means real interest rate = nominal interest rate...
If Japan makes their nominal interest rate high, they are making their real interest rate really high, all that will cause is bring foreigners to invest money in Japan, and deplete all of Japan's reserves. A similar situation occurred in Australia not too long ago. Artificially changing the interest rate is extremely taxing resource wise for the government, and according to Chicago thought, it should never be done. There is monetary policy, and there is fiscal policy... One deals with money supply, one deals with government spending, that's what we get to control.
Simply put, when you are told you'll get a 1% interest rate in Japan, it's not very tempting to invest, and setting it high will bring foreign investors to make money, but doing nothing for Japan.
But when in a western country the inflation is 3%, and you are offered 4% interest rate, it feels a lot more tempting, even though the real interest rate is effectively the same 1%.
As we know, change in inflation is proportional to change in money supply, and I believe that printing money would help their economy by generating manageable inflation, but the authorities in Japan are opposed to this notion for complex reasons, as they exercise a different economics theory. I think the Japan government is very fragmented, and it's a root of many of it's economic problems, but there are arguments for why you would like to keep money supply constant, so of which are explained here:
edit: Oh, another thing to mention, printing money is not a simple solution as it seems, as currently Japan is in a Liquidity Trap, and by definition monetary policy does not work. So a very expansive monetary policy is needed, but that creates the great risk of hyper inflation.
I've decided to latch onto you as the resident expert because you lack the blatant contradictions of some members of this thread and talk like you know what's up.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/japan/consumer-spending I'm looking at the consumer spending chart here and trying to figure out what's up. It looks like consumer spending was rising steadily for a while until this recent insane cliff. I don't understand what's going on here. Some people are saying consumer spending is going down, but it seemed to be going up in recent years until this sudden change. Are drops like this normal? Was there a catastrophe this Spring that I wasn't aware of? Is the graph actually just of spending since June, and I've been reading it wrong? I want to inform myself about this, but details like this aren't making it easy.
this program started out with an ambitious goal of introducing inflation through fiscal and monetary stimulus. but apparently they thought raising consumption tax would be a good idea. the tax raise is blatantly contradictory to the original aim of introducing inflation to fight long term balance sheet debt. i'm not sure why they did this but it is puzzling.
insular japan's demographics problem is nothing new and isn't really a part of abe economics. it's going to exacerbate the probelm of domestic consumption and industry flight though.
in some perfect world the political leadership probably wanted to raise demand via fiscal stimulus, upward wage through increased exports thus company hiring via devaluation of yen and monetary stimulus. but the tax raise has fucked the demand branch quite a bit and it turns out japanese companies are not so in abe's corner with regards to wage raise and hirings. one could say they should have relaxed labor market regulations and so on first, in order to prevent companies from taking their ball and going (away from) home.
On September 16 2014 01:29 coverpunch wrote: Are you trying to rally the "StarCraft is dead" crowd to a new cause? Rumors about Japan's demise have been overblown for a very long time now. It's not to say they don't have problems, but the economy is not in "free fall".
It's hilarious how the OP juxtaposes bad GDP news as proof with "GDP numbers are all fake anyways". And do you have a source showing how quality of life in Japan is going down?
IT IS crisis mode in the Kantei, the office of Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister. A succession of awful data has pummelled his economic programme, which consists of three “arrows”: a radical monetary easing, a big fiscal stimulus and a series of structural reforms. On September 8th revised figures showed that GDP shrank by 1.8% in the second quarter, or by 7.1% on an annualised basis, even worse than the initial estimate of 1.7%.
Maybe not in "freefall" but still in crisis mode, give or take. I'm sure you realized that I didn't mean that Japan's economy is going to collapse any second.
It is in "crisis mode" in much the same way that the Fed, BOE, and ECB are in crisis mode. It isn't the fear of a sudden collapse that scares everyone but the worry that this news is bad and the solutions aren't working out the way the models said they would. Which might mean the problems are glacial and not reparable by fiscal or monetary policy, and these countries might be stuck with low-growth demographic problems for a long time.
So I can believe the Japanese government is very worried and they should be because the economic outlook is not improving and might indeed be worsening, but I think it is an exaggeration to write as though they're in the war bunker bracing for the worst. You can say that's not what you were trying to say but that is the image your words create.
The lack of qualification to talk about this really makes it hard for me to take anything said here credibly, its just people talking with little to no socratic ignorance in the thread.
Korea is facing a demographic crisis as well. But North Korea will give Korea much needed man power, young population and natural resources (worth $6 trillion USD according to one report).
1. North Korea's demographic picture is only marginally better South Koreas. The only reason it doesnt have as many very old people, ie 60+, as South Korea is that life expectancy in North Korea doesnt allow for it. http://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/north-korea.south-korea/demographics 2. That population right now is literally 16x poorer than South Koreans, who is going to pay to equvalize that? Or do you genuinely think South Koreans are going to tolerate having their standard of life decline by over 50%? No they will not. Germany still hasnt finished digesting East Germany, and East Germany was a fraction of the Federal Republic's population. 3. North Korea's military will have to be disarmed and recycled, and you will have large population of long lost males who have no uses.
Unless of course you are taking about where the South just rules the North like a complete colony, keeping the Norther separate from the Southern economy.
On September 16 2014 06:00 GettingIt wrote: If the issue is Japanese aren't consuming and leaving so much wealth in saving then can't this be resolved by having the central bank raise interest rates so people will be less inclined to keep their money in savings?
Because you can't raise, simply put.
Inflation rate is 0 in Japan, which means real interest rate = nominal interest rate...
If Japan makes their nominal interest rate high, they are making their real interest rate really high, all that will cause is bring foreigners to invest money in Japan, and deplete all of Japan's reserves. A similar situation occurred in Australia not too long ago. Artificially changing the interest rate is extremely taxing resource wise for the government, and according to Chicago thought, it should never be done. There is monetary policy, and there is fiscal policy... One deals with money supply, one deals with government spending, that's what we get to control.
Simply put, when you are told you'll get a 1% interest rate in Japan, it's not very tempting to invest, and setting it high will bring foreign investors to make money, but doing nothing for Japan.
But when in a western country the inflation is 3%, and you are offered 4% interest rate, it feels a lot more tempting, even though the real interest rate is effectively the same 1%.
As we know, change in inflation is proportional to change in money supply, and I believe that printing money would help their economy by generating manageable inflation, but the authorities in Japan are opposed to this notion for complex reasons, as they exercise a different economics theory. I think the Japan government is very fragmented, and it's a root of many of it's economic problems, but there are arguments for why you would like to keep money supply constant, so of which are explained here:
edit: Oh, another thing to mention, printing money is not a simple solution as it seems, as currently Japan is in a Liquidity Trap, and by definition monetary policy does not work. So a very expansive monetary policy is needed, but that creates the great risk of hyper inflation.
I've decided to latch onto you as the resident expert because you lack the blatant contradictions of some members of this thread and talk like you know what's up.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/japan/consumer-spending I'm looking at the consumer spending chart here and trying to figure out what's up. It looks like consumer spending was rising steadily for a while until this recent insane cliff. I don't understand what's going on here. Some people are saying consumer spending is going down, but it seemed to be going up in recent years until this sudden change. Are drops like this normal? Was there a catastrophe this Spring that I wasn't aware of? Is the graph actually just of spending since June, and I've been reading it wrong? I want to inform myself about this, but details like this aren't making it easy.
It's not an insane cliff, it's important to be looking at the scale of the graph, and we can see the spending is what it was 30 months ago, so it's not a depression like event. I would look at the 322,000 point as an anomaly, and rather consider looking at the previous period spending. That would relate to a drop from 315,000 to 305,000, which just doing in my head is 3.2-3.3% decrease.
A 3% decrease in consumer spending would align very well with the 5% to 8% consumption tax increase. Upon a little research, that's exactly what the economic analysts say also, and they state that the expected increase in taxes made people purchase more in the previous quarter (to save on the tax), which follows the exact trend you see. I feel quite comfortable stating that is the overwhelming factor.
On September 15 2014 23:29 AutoEngineer wrote: Countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Germany and many other European nations are facing the same problem. I guess South Korea has some sort of back up since it has North Korea which has a relatively high fertility rate and a higher proportion of young people.
This was said in jest, right?
No, I wasn't joking at all.
If you've read the media in the past 12 months, there is a lot of talk about South Korea's plans to reunify and the economic strategies they are currently investigating when a sudden collapse happens in North Korea.
The exact time of reunification is not certain, however it's very clear that when South and North Korea reunify, this will boost the young population, increase fertility rates and Korea's economy may overtake France, Germany and Japan by 2045.
United Korea economy could pass Japan: Goldman Sachs
Korea has HUGE potential to overtake Japan. Japan is the most aged country in the world. You don't know much impact this is having on their economy.
Korea is facing a demographic crisis as well. But North Korea will give Korea much needed man power, young population and natural resources (worth $6 trillion USD according to one report).
Germany is doing far better than Japan because it has lower public debt, it is a bigger exporter than Japan, it doesn't have to import a lot of energy, and their demographics are in better shape.
On September 16 2014 06:37 F1rstAssau1t wrote: All i know is that Japan is a lot like Germany, no matter what happends they always rise.
Germany's economy is doing far better than Japan's.
It's not quite as easy of an equation (North+South=Korea^2) as you make it sound but it's nice to be optimistic about it.
As many of the biggest Japanese companies in the electronics sector are failing it's a valid fear that there's not much that can take these companies place over. Tangentially related, can someone quickly tell me how currently Sony's faring? Last I read about them was cca. half a year ago and their situation was very dire. Thanks in advance
Sony is neither faring well or poorly compared to 2 years ago. It's still a tiny company compared to Apple and Samsung though. Their TV market share is now at a record low and their smartphones are doing poorly. The only saving factor for Sony is their entertainment division.
And I may be optimistic about Korean reunification but North Korea really is a demographic savior for the Korean peninsula. Fertility rate in North Korea is about 2 births per woman which is by far the highest in East Asia.
How much of that is due to the current sociopolitical situation there though and how might it change if there was reunification? Sure maybe their demographics are solid for a while but if cultural trends from the South creep into the North (or if there was pressure by the N government to have more kids disappears) would that really only be a temporary fix?
Japan has historically excelled at the Giant Public Works project and have a Giant Public Debt to match their Giant Private Savings.
Perhaps, Japan might have found something better to do with their money. A host of alternatives like M&A foreign companies, buying up foreign re-estate, other capital expenditures at home, or even slow deflation and steady appreciation of the yen would have signaled capital reallocation and retooling to target the home market rather than export markets.
This most recent episode of fiscal spending has curiously been hedge with a consumption tax as if Japanese government was afraid of getting into even more debt. If you're going to worried about that, why even bother with the stimulus? The whole point of stimulus is fiscal irresponsibility. Mortgage the future to make the present look better. If you are going to raise taxes, then it's simply taxing and spending, and do you really think the Japanese government is making better spending decisions than private individuals?
Korea is facing a demographic crisis as well. But North Korea will give Korea much needed man power, young population and natural resources (worth $6 trillion USD according to one report).
1. North Korea's demographic picture is only marginally better South Koreas. The only reason it doesnt have as many very old people, ie 60+, as South Korea is that life expectancy in North Korea doesnt allow for it. http://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/north-korea.south-korea/demographics 2. That population right now is literally 16x poorer than South Koreans, who is going to pay to equvalize that? Or do you genuinely think South Koreans are going to tolerate having their standard of life decline by over 50%? No they will not. Germany still hasnt finished digesting East Germany, and East Germany was a fraction of the Federal Republic's population. 3. North Korea's military will have to be disarmed and recycled, and you will have large population of long lost males who have no uses.
Unless of course you are taking about where the South just rules the North like a complete colony, keeping the Norther separate from the Southern economy.
The idea of North Korea as a demographic saviour is laughable. Even assuming it is full of fertile young people, most of them are completely useless as labour in a market economy since most of them would have worked in the army or in farms for all their lives and have little applicable skills.
In fact the influx of a huge low skilled and poor population sounda like a demographic disaster in the making. It will create a hugely divided society.
You know, what really gets me is why there was no uprising in North Korea after the fall of the Soviet Union while other cult like nations like Albania and Romania fell.
On September 16 2014 12:30 NotSorry wrote: So does this mean I'll get a good deal on a house if I move to Japan?
Same as anywhere else - if you're willing to live out in the boonies, then yes, you can find bigger houses at low cost. If you need to live near central Tokyo, then you will struggle to find any bargains.
On September 16 2014 17:02 Shiragaku wrote: You know, what really gets me is why there was no uprising in North Korea after the fall of the Soviet Union while other cult like nations like Albania and Romania fell.
This isn't surprising as North Korea is basically an authoritarian government with an army first principle.
I mean japan will be fine nevertheless but I don't know how they solve the "aging" population since average lifetime expectation for Japan is 84 for women & 78 for man afaik.
Korea is facing a demographic crisis as well. But North Korea will give Korea much needed man power, young population and natural resources (worth $6 trillion USD according to one report).
1. North Korea's demographic picture is only marginally better South Koreas. The only reason it doesnt have as many very old people, ie 60+, as South Korea is that life expectancy in North Korea doesnt allow for it. http://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/north-korea.south-korea/demographics 2. That population right now is literally 16x poorer than South Koreans, who is going to pay to equvalize that? Or do you genuinely think South Koreans are going to tolerate having their standard of life decline by over 50%? No they will not. Germany still hasnt finished digesting East Germany, and East Germany was a fraction of the Federal Republic's population. 3. North Korea's military will have to be disarmed and recycled, and you will have large population of long lost males who have no uses.
Unless of course you are taking about where the South just rules the North like a complete colony, keeping the Norther separate from the Southern economy.
North Korea's demographic picture is only marginally better than South Korea's? North Korea has a total fertility rate of 2.0 per woman, the highest in East Asia. South Korea has the 2nd lowest fertility rate and the 3rd lowest birth rate in East Asia.
Only 14.1% of South Korea's population (about 7.5 million) is made up of people in the 0-14 year old age bracket. 23.2% of North Korea's population (about 5.6 million) is made up of people in the 0-14 year old age bracket.
South Korea has more than twice the population of North Korea. Yet it only has 25% more young people.
With a fertility rate of 2.0 children per woman, North Korea's young population is increasing whereas the elderly population is quickly decreasing. This is due to the high elderly mortality rates and high elderly suicide rates.
On September 16 2014 14:54 levelping wrote:The idea of North Korea as a demographic saviour is laughable. Even assuming it is full of fertile young people, most of them are completely useless as labour in a market economy since most of them would have worked in the army or in farms for all their lives and have little applicable skills.
Are you saying that 6 million young people will not be able to do basic manufacturing labor like fitting doors, following basic instructions and working at mostly labor intensive jobs? Think about it for a second. South Korea will be able to have the cheapest labor in the world. Cheaper than China, Vietnam and Thailand. Plus, it will boost the incomes of North Koreans several fold. It's a win-win situation for both South Koreans and North Koreans. This is the exact reason why Goldman Sachs predicts that a unified Korea can overtake France, Germany and Japan by 2045. That's a very short period of time if you look back at Korea in the 1950s, the poorest country in the world (poorer than all African nations).
On September 16 2014 14:54 levelping wrote:In fact the influx of a huge low skilled and poor population sounda like a demographic disaster in the making. It will create a hugely divided society.
I agree with this. There will be enormous socio-economic-demographic problems and this presents a huge challenge to Korean reunification.
It is expected to cost South Korea at least 7% of its GDP. However the economic benefits in the long term are enormous. There is even a theory that South Korea is delaying reunification in order to North Korea to increase its population to around 35 million and this represents the peak young population of North Korea.
I mean japan will be fine nevertheless but I don't know how they solve the "aging" population since average lifetime expectation for Japan is 84 for women & 78 for man afaik.
I don't understand what is so hard to believe here? Inflation target has been missed and Japan increased its sales tax. Of course it will create a huge dive in consumer spending.
I mean japan will be fine nevertheless but I don't know how they solve the "aging" population since average lifetime expectation for Japan is 84 for women & 78 for man afaik.
It is probably true but the y-axis scale is terribly misleading. It represents about a 8% drop but they make it look like a 80% drop.
I am surprised not because the graph , rather the reaction speed of the people to the adjustments on taxes. It is like people bought things they don't need and easily cut when necessary.
Re-unification is not a win-win. Free movement of capital and labor between north and south would create massive problems. Flow of capital from south to north and workers from north to south. Massive drop in average productivity (captial-worker ration) and therefore downward pressure on wages for the south plus wage stickiness would cause massive unemployment. Keynesian nightmare pretty much.
The south has graduated from a low-cost manufacturer to a high-skill economy, but would be sent back to primary school. This isn't even considering most of the huge social problems of reintegrating vastly different cultures. Reunification would need to be phased and take decades to complete, they would not be an economic union overnight.
Having low labor costs is not something a country should boast about.
On September 16 2014 17:02 Shiragaku wrote: You know, what really gets me is why there was no uprising in North Korea after the fall of the Soviet Union while other cult like nations like Albania and Romania fell.
half the country is in the army. you can revolt against confused moderates not hardliners. they'll actually shoot you
I mean japan will be fine nevertheless but I don't know how they solve the "aging" population since average lifetime expectation for Japan is 84 for women & 78 for man afaik.
they don't have to solve it per se on the demographics front. just maintain and build upon your high productivity economy. these old people are mostly rich but save all of their money.
I know nothing about economics, but it has always seems weird and risky as hell to me that we have an economical system that is based on constant growth. When shit goes bad it just gets worse since people won't spend money.
Japan has the most effecient healthcare system for elderly people in terms of cost however, not that it's strange considering the huge strain the large amount of old people puts on their system. Any idea why there are so many old people in Japan?
On September 16 2014 14:54 levelping wrote:The idea of North Korea as a demographic saviour is laughable. Even assuming it is full of fertile young people, most of them are completely useless as labour in a market economy since most of them would have worked in the army or in farms for all their lives and have little applicable skills.
Are you saying that 6 million young people will not be able to do basic manufacturing labor like fitting doors, following basic instructions and working at mostly labor intensive jobs? Think about it for a second. South Korea will be able to have the cheapest labor in the world. Cheaper than China, Vietnam and Thailand. Plus, it will boost the incomes of North Koreans several fold. It's a win-win situation for both South Koreans and North Koreans. This is the exact reason why Goldman Sachs predicts that a unified Korea can overtake France, Germany and Japan by 2045. That's a very short period of time if you look back at Korea in the 1950s, the poorest country in the world (poorer than all African nations).
On September 16 2014 14:54 levelping wrote:In fact the influx of a huge low skilled and poor population sounda like a demographic disaster in the making. It will create a hugely divided society.
I agree with this. There will be enormous socio-economic-demographic problems and this presents a huge challenge to Korean reunification.
It is expected to cost South Korea at least 7% of its GDP. However the economic benefits in the long term are enormous. There is even a theory that South Korea is delaying reunification in order to North Korea to increase its population to around 35 million and this represents the peak young population of North Korea.
This is incredibly superficial analysis. Yes, you will get 6 million young people, and this will create a big cheap labour pool. Well too bad that South Korea isn't in the business of fitting doors (honestly? - i sure hope that South Korea has 6 million doors to fit on a daily basis) or manufacturing cheap products which require low skilled labour. If you look at the major South Korean exports and products it is all in high tech, high skilled industries and these are not things that a farm hand is going to pick up immediately.
Labour needs to be used productively in order to be useful. Otherwise it's just more mouths to feed and more social problems to deal with. And a high tech economy like South Korea is designed in large part to reduce the reliance on labour. I have no idea how a big huge influx of low skilled workers is going to be useful to this.
On September 16 2014 20:00 unkkz wrote: Any idea why there are so many old people in Japan?
It's not a situation wildly different from western countries that experienced a baby boom after WW2, just on a somewhat different scale due to a higher life expectancy and faster decrease in birth rates. As to why their birth rates have decreased as much as they've had is a can of worms of its own and most likely there are just as many reasons as there are young adults not having children
On September 16 2014 20:00 unkkz wrote: Any idea why there are so many old people in Japan?
I had a conversation in Japan with one of my friends about that issue. Mostly the low carb Japanese cuisine, genetics & superb health care system.
That's not the answer, though, because the question isn't "why are people getting so old." It's "why are the demographics so old." People aren't remarking on a normal age distribution with an exceptionally long life expectancy, they're remarking on an abnormal age distribution. The direct cause for an abnormal age distribution is a lowered birth rate, and the reasons for that are what people speculate about. The life expectancy may be because of what you stated, of course, but it's not what people are worried about.
On September 16 2014 17:02 Shiragaku wrote: You know, what really gets me is why there was no uprising in North Korea after the fall of the Soviet Union while other cult like nations like Albania and Romania fell.
half the country is in the army. you can revolt against confused moderates not hardliners. they'll actually shoot you
What you usually have is people in the military and lower rungs of power revolting. Which is exactly what happened in Romania. The hardliners couldn't shoot because the people who were supposed to order the shooting were supporting the revolution/coup. And they were by no means confused: they wanted a bigger piece of the pie and many of them did get it.
On September 15 2014 23:29 AutoEngineer wrote: Also the increase in consumption tax from 5% to 8% and soon to be 10% was a move by Abe in the name of capitalism. The Japanese public's quality of life suffers, while Japanese investors and companies are happy. The last time Japan raised its consumption tax, it caused a recession.
On September 16 2014 17:02 Shiragaku wrote: You know, what really gets me is why there was no uprising in North Korea after the fall of the Soviet Union while other cult like nations like Albania and Romania fell.
half the country is in the army. you can revolt against confused moderates not hardliners. they'll actually shoot you
What you usually have is people in the military and lower rungs of power revolting. Which is exactly what happened in Romania. The hardliners couldn't shoot because the people who were supposed to order the shooting were supporting the revolution/coup. And they were by no means confused: they wanted a bigger piece of the pie and many of them did get it.
the question was why there was no uprising in NK. answer is they are more hardline or should i say hardcore at controlling the people.
On September 16 2014 17:02 Shiragaku wrote: You know, what really gets me is why there was no uprising in North Korea after the fall of the Soviet Union while other cult like nations like Albania and Romania fell.
half the country is in the army. you can revolt against confused moderates not hardliners. they'll actually shoot you
What you usually have is people in the military and lower rungs of power revolting. Which is exactly what happened in Romania. The hardliners couldn't shoot because the people who were supposed to order the shooting were supporting the revolution/coup. And they were by no means confused: they wanted a bigger piece of the pie and many of them did get it.
the question was why there was no uprising in NK. answer is they are more hardline or should i say hardcore at controlling the people.
Agreed. As long as by people you mean the second tier of bureaucracy and military leadership, not the actual people.
On September 16 2014 20:00 unkkz wrote: Any idea why there are so many old people in Japan?
I had a conversation in Japan with one of my friends about that issue. Mostly the low carb Japanese cuisine, genetics & superb health care system.
Low *calorie*, not carb, diets. Big difference. Lots of Fish helps for a few other bits.
As for why there are so many "old people", the better answer is: the Japanese have as many children as the Wife wants. When you're living in a 40 sq meter or less apartments, how many kids do you want? Also, everything is horribly expensive.
And they didn't even legally allow the "pill" until 2000, I believe it was. Lack of children is by mass choice & economic realities. Or someone made most Japanese men infertile. One or the other.
On September 16 2014 20:00 unkkz wrote: Any idea why there are so many old people in Japan?
I had a conversation in Japan with one of my friends about that issue. Mostly the low carb Japanese cuisine, genetics & superb health care system.
Low *calorie*, not carb, diets. Big difference. Lots of Fish helps for a few other bits.
As for why there are so many "old people", the better answer is: the Japanese have as many children as the Wife wants. When you're living in a 40 sq meter or less apartments, how many kids do you want? Also, everything is horribly expensive.
And they didn't even legally allow the "pill" until 2000, I believe it was. Lack of children is by mass choice & economic realities. Or someone made most Japanese men infertile. One or the other.
Japan and Germany are really close in this regard. When the recovery and employment is "achieved" by an increase in precarious jobs and control of wage, the demand don't grow and not only it has impact on growth (which is what is happening in germany and europe) and on natality. All in all, it's a failure of a economic model that put exports and labor costs before everything else.
On September 16 2014 01:29 coverpunch wrote: Are you trying to rally the "StarCraft is dead" crowd to a new cause? Rumors about Japan's demise have been overblown for a very long time now. It's not to say they don't have problems, but the economy is not in "free fall".
It's hilarious how the OP juxtaposes bad GDP news as proof with "GDP numbers are all fake anyways". And do you have a source showing how quality of life in Japan is going down?
2) The lower the metabolism of an organism, the longer it will live. As in if you starve yourself you will live longer, there is lots of research in this field. In simple terms it is due to faster metabolism --> faster cell division, and faster cell division mean you start snipping useful genes in DNA quicker, which of course means quicker death. Japan has a very low calorie diet, only 3.5% percent of Japanese population are Obese (vs 27.7% in USA)... And Japan is also a country where physical activity is not very stressed, which can quite effectively show how they little they eat calorie wise. Due to the biology stated above, they live longer.
This is 90%+ of the reason for the aging population, no buts, I have studied this topic extensively, and from what I can tell it's almost a fact in the scientific world. There are minor deviation in healthcare systems, primary food that is eaten (rice vs bread vs potatoes), amounts of meat eaten, etc. But at the end of the day, the main cause is point #2, and that can be attributed to several factors like culture/history, geography (fish vs lots of land), etc.
Are you saying that 6 million young people will not be able to do basic manufacturing labor like fitting doors, following basic instructions and working at mostly labor intensive jobs
This is silly, if Korea wants cheap young labor why not join with Egypt. 85 million! Mostly youths!
Think about it for a second. South Korea will be able to have the cheapest labor in the world. Cheaper than China, Vietnam and Thailand.
Yes. If the North Koreans magically turn into South Koreans, including a sudden transfer of knowledge then great for everyone...except all the South Korean labor who will take a massive hit to their personal income, causing a downward shift in consumption.
Are you saying that 6 million young people will not be able to do basic manufacturing labor like fitting doors, following basic instructions and working at mostly labor intensive jobs
This is silly, if Korea wants cheap young labor why not join with Egypt. 85 million! Mostly youths!
Think about it for a second. South Korea will be able to have the cheapest labor in the world. Cheaper than China, Vietnam and Thailand.
Yes. If the North Koreans magically turn into South Koreans, including a sudden transfer of knowledge then great for everyone...except all the South Korean labor who will take a massive hit to their personal income, causing a downward shift in consumption.
Gosh, I'm not sure why I am trying to argue with someone who doesn't understand simple economics.
Transferring all manufacturing plants to Egypt (or Africa) will be more expensive for Korea considering shipping all the materials to Africa and then exporting the finished goods back to the USA and China (the 2 biggest markets for Korean products) compared to manufacturing them in North Korea.
2) The lower the metabolism of an organism, the longer it will live. As in if you starve yourself you will live longer, there is lots of research in this field. In simple terms it is due to faster metabolism --> faster cell division, and faster cell division mean you start snipping useful genes in DNA quicker, which of course means quicker death. Japan has a very low calorie diet, only 3.5% percent of Japanese population are Obese (vs 27.7% in USA)... And Japan is also a country where physical activity is not very stressed, which can quite effectively show how they little they eat calorie wise. Due to the biology stated above, they live longer.
This is 90%+ of the reason for the aging population, no buts, I have studied this topic extensively, and from what I can tell it's almost a fact in the scientific world. There are minor deviation in healthcare systems, primary food that is eaten (rice vs bread vs potatoes), amounts of meat eaten, etc. But at the end of the day, the main cause is point #2, and that can be attributed to several factors like culture/history, geography (fish vs lots of land), etc.
Somatic Theory of Gene Mutation is...not entirely implausible (though far from fact...hell, my geriatric rehab book lists at least 12 theories of aging...), but the part about physical activity vis a vis caloric intake is patently false. All the evidence points towards exercise (and yes, that means a higher caloric intake) is a major indicator for not only longevity of life (as in you will live longer), but quality of life as well (for a shit ton of physiological reasons). Also, take average lifespan statistics with a huge grain of salt. Almost all methodologies I've seen have not accounted for all the non-natural deaths and so societal factors impact the range hugely. I mean, it's not like the civil wars and genocides in Africa have anything to do with their lower lifespans...
The point being - you're far better off continuing to exercise (and by this I mean progressive resistance) until the day you die.
2) The lower the metabolism of an organism, the longer it will live. As in if you starve yourself you will live longer, there is lots of research in this field. In simple terms it is due to faster metabolism --> faster cell division, and faster cell division mean you start snipping useful genes in DNA quicker, which of course means quicker death. Japan has a very low calorie diet, only 3.5% percent of Japanese population are Obese (vs 27.7% in USA)... And Japan is also a country where physical activity is not very stressed, which can quite effectively show how they little they eat calorie wise. Due to the biology stated above, they live longer.
This is 90%+ of the reason for the aging population, no buts, I have studied this topic extensively, and from what I can tell it's almost a fact in the scientific world. There are minor deviation in healthcare systems, primary food that is eaten (rice vs bread vs potatoes), amounts of meat eaten, etc. But at the end of the day, the main cause is point #2, and that can be attributed to several factors like culture/history, geography (fish vs lots of land), etc.
Somatic Theory of Gene Mutation is...not entirely implausible (though far from fact...hell, my geriatric rehab book lists at least 12 theories of aging...), but the part about physical activity vis a vis caloric intake is patently false. All the evidence points towards exercise (and yes, that means a higher caloric intake) is a major indicator for not only longevity of life (as in you will live longer), but quality of life as well (for a shit ton of physiological reasons). Also, take average lifespan statistics with a huge grain of salt. Almost all methodologies I've seen have not accounted for all the non-natural deaths and so societal factors impact the range hugely. I mean, it's not like the civil wars and genocides in Africa have anything to do with their lower lifespans...
The point being - you're far better off continuing to exercise (and by this I mean progressive resistance) until the day you die.
point isn't really to compare africa / japan average lifespan x_x
On September 17 2014 17:37 vndestiny wrote: We actually have a funny opinion in the thread that a unification will benefit SK more than harming them. Interesting...
True. I think it would be a net benefit, but it's worth pointing out that it took 20+ years for East Germany to hit par with West Germany and become active contributors to German growth. North Korea is MUCH weaker than East Germany ever was and South Korea has a far lower capacity for the extra burden than West Germany had. You could tentatively guess that it would take closer to 30 years for North Korea to build the infrastructure and soft resources to contribute to innovation and productivity.
One unknown is that Korea had always been unique among poor countries in that it put a high cultural premium on education. It's not clear if they maintain high rates of literacy and especially good technical skills, which would help enormously. If it turns out North Korea has been teaching rubbish in math and science too, then it could be a much heavier social burden and take much longer to properly educate new generations of North Koreans to meet global standards, much less be world-class as South Korea is aspiring to be.
2) The lower the metabolism of an organism, the longer it will live. As in if you starve yourself you will live longer, there is lots of research in this field. In simple terms it is due to faster metabolism --> faster cell division, and faster cell division mean you start snipping useful genes in DNA quicker, which of course means quicker death. Japan has a very low calorie diet, only 3.5% percent of Japanese population are Obese (vs 27.7% in USA)... And Japan is also a country where physical activity is not very stressed, which can quite effectively show how they little they eat calorie wise. Due to the biology stated above, they live longer.
This is 90%+ of the reason for the aging population, no buts, I have studied this topic extensively, and from what I can tell it's almost a fact in the scientific world. There are minor deviation in healthcare systems, primary food that is eaten (rice vs bread vs potatoes), amounts of meat eaten, etc. But at the end of the day, the main cause is point #2, and that can be attributed to several factors like culture/history, geography (fish vs lots of land), etc.
Somatic Theory of Gene Mutation is...not entirely implausible (though far from fact...hell, my geriatric rehab book lists at least 12 theories of aging...), but the part about physical activity vis a vis caloric intake is patently false. All the evidence points towards exercise (and yes, that means a higher caloric intake) is a major indicator for not only longevity of life (as in you will live longer), but quality of life as well (for a shit ton of physiological reasons). Also, take average lifespan statistics with a huge grain of salt. Almost all methodologies I've seen have not accounted for all the non-natural deaths and so societal factors impact the range hugely. I mean, it's not like the civil wars and genocides in Africa have anything to do with their lower lifespans...
The point being - you're far better off continuing to exercise (and by this I mean progressive resistance) until the day you die.
point isn't really to compare africa / japan average lifespan x_x
You've completely missed the point. Do you know what a simile is?
2) The lower the metabolism of an organism, the longer it will live. As in if you starve yourself you will live longer, there is lots of research in this field. In simple terms it is due to faster metabolism --> faster cell division, and faster cell division mean you start snipping useful genes in DNA quicker, which of course means quicker death. Japan has a very low calorie diet, only 3.5% percent of Japanese population are Obese (vs 27.7% in USA)... And Japan is also a country where physical activity is not very stressed, which can quite effectively show how they little they eat calorie wise. Due to the biology stated above, they live longer.
This is 90%+ of the reason for the aging population, no buts, I have studied this topic extensively, and from what I can tell it's almost a fact in the scientific world. There are minor deviation in healthcare systems, primary food that is eaten (rice vs bread vs potatoes), amounts of meat eaten, etc. But at the end of the day, the main cause is point #2, and that can be attributed to several factors like culture/history, geography (fish vs lots of land), etc.
Somatic Theory of Gene Mutation is...not entirely implausible (though far from fact...hell, my geriatric rehab book lists at least 12 theories of aging...), but the part about physical activity vis a vis caloric intake is patently false. All the evidence points towards exercise (and yes, that means a higher caloric intake) is a major indicator for not only longevity of life (as in you will live longer), but quality of life as well (for a shit ton of physiological reasons). Also, take average lifespan statistics with a huge grain of salt. Almost all methodologies I've seen have not accounted for all the non-natural deaths and so societal factors impact the range hugely. I mean, it's not like the civil wars and genocides in Africa have anything to do with their lower lifespans...
The point being - you're far better off continuing to exercise (and by this I mean progressive resistance) until the day you die.
point isn't really to compare africa / japan average lifespan x_x
You've completely missed the point. Do you know what a simile is?
Reunification will not turn Korea into a "happy go lucky utopian society". I don't want to side-track this thread from Japan, but OP whatever sources you are getting your information on the subject of the Koreas, I urge you to please change them.
Not that I believe in the NWO, however the recent global economic trends seem to be correlating to the collapse of two economies, Japan and Russia.
With the population of Japan seen shrinking to 87 million by 2060, the fact that more than 1/4 of its population are seniors and also that Japan's population is shrinking by half a million each year, means that Japan's economy will see negative economic growth from domestic consumption alone.
The problem with Japan's demographics is that its fertility rate has been low for 4 decades, much more than its neighbors. For example, South Korea only entered the low fertility phase in the 1990s, much later than Japan's 1970s. Japan is serving as a failed model to South Korea and Taiwan, two economies which are very export oriented, similar to Japan's.
Real wages in Japan have shrunk, and Japan has turned into a nation with a negative savings rate. Exports, tourism and other industries will not do anything to help Japan, since Japan's domestic economy is the biggest factor for Japan's economic survival.
The Keynesian End Game Crystalizes In Japan’s Monetary Madness If the BOJ’s mad money printers were treated as monetary pariahs by the rest of the world, it would at least imply that a modicum of sanity remains on the planet. But just the opposite is the case. Establishment institutions like the IMF, the US treasury and the other major central banks urge them on, while the Keynesian arson squad led by Professor Krugman actually faults Japan for being too tepid with its “stimulus”.
Now comes several new data points that absolutely confirm Japan is a financial mad house—-even as its policy model is embraced by mainstream officials and analysts peering from a distance. Front and center is the newly reported fact from the Cabinet Office that Japan’s household savings rate plunged to minus 1.3% in the most recent fiscal year, thereby entering negative territory for the first time since records were started in 1955.
By the same token, the public debt burden has been climbing relentlessly since the early 1980s owing to the embrace of Keynesian fiscal policies, as so vividly demonstrated in the graph below. And now owing to Abenomics, another 7-10% of GDP will be added annually to the public debt in the years just ahead.
Currency collapse, in turn, means that the cost-of-living on an economic archipelago that imports 100% of its energy and most of its raw materials is bound to rise, causing real wages to fall. In fact, that marks another fraught in-coming data point. In November, real cash wages plunged by 4.3% on a year/year basis, marking the 17th straight monthly decline and the steepest slide since December 2009.
Thus, the Keynesian disaster is complete. Massive BOJ money printing to fund the deficit is eroding real wages, thereby mitigating against tax increases capable of closing the fiscal gap and reducing the financing burden. The mad men at the BOJ are also, and simultaneously, obliterating the domestic saver with ZIRP and warding off international investors with a plunging exchange rate. Consequently, there is no honest way to finance the public deficit, meaning that the printing presses will continue to run red hot.
That this policy amounts to a financial suicide mission is obvious enough. But what is truly scary is that Japan’s policy model has been greenlighted and adopted in one form or another by governments and their central banking branches all around the world.
that's quite a spin on things. japan's long term private debt problem is not keynesian. it's more about asset bubble and private debt taking at low interest rate in the early 90's.
seamless transition to the govt debt graph too, as if the two are the same problem. they are not.
abenomics could have worked in conjunction with an opportune economic growth period, basically an increase in employment base. but alas. also dumb as fuck tax hike.
On December 30 2014 00:09 oneofthem wrote: that's quite a spin on things. japan's long term private debt problem is not keynesian. it's more about asset bubble and private debt taking at low interest rate in the early 90's.
seamless transition to the govt debt graph too, as if the two are the same problem. they are not.
abenomics could have worked in conjunction with an opportune economic growth period, basically an increase in employment base. but alas. alsodumb as fuck tax hike.
If you constantly devaluate your currency through expansionary monetary policy,and thus become unattractive to foreign investors and you are drowning in public debt because of expansionary fiscal policy then there are only so many options left to balance the budget.
currently the bonds are at 1% over 30 years(3% for American bonds), which is among the lowest yields in the word, as your article itself states. Japans economy is largely domestically financed.
just gonna say your post was straight up non sequitur and also not describing reality
japan does not need to balance its budget. it already has a hard time dealing with a shortfall in domestic consumption. why is 'balancing the budget' a priority for them atm
first off Japanese government bonds actually offer the second lowest return on investment close behind Switzerland, and direct foreign investment in the country is lower than in Turkey or Poland, so I don't see how what I'm saying is not describing reality. Japan has largely financed itself through the money press over the last twenty years, I didn't even know anybody was disputing that.
japan does not need to balance its budget. it already has a hard time dealing with a shortfall in domestic consumption. why is 'balancing the budget' a priority for them atm
Well because not balancing the budget has resulted in a permanent fiscal and monetary hangover that is completely ruining their economy.
again, distinguish between govt debt and private household debt. the latter is the problem in japan.
foreign investment is low in japan because of its somewhat closed financial and corporate finance world. govt bond is not investment. when you are talking about financing government debt they do not need to rely on foreign capital.
obviously the huge pile of public debt is a problem because it's a symptom for what is wrong with Japan's economy. The only one financing Japan's businesses is Japan's government and they are getting financed by the central bank printing money. But just more money out of nothing isn't actually going to solve anything, as we can see over the course of the last twenty years or whatever.
you are just reciting general platitudes without thinking it through. how is it a burden when japan bond is yielding so low. how do you not address the difference between private and govt debt?
It's a problem because the debt has to be paid in someway, and now we are back to taxes. As Japan is not able to finance their debt through foreign investment they have to resort to increased taxes which puts a strain on tax payers further reducing demand and effectively increasing inequality within the country.
Also what do you want me to address about private and public debt? As I already said both are closely related as one of the biggest reasons for an increase in public debt was actually Japan's government financing indebted businesses after the bubble burst to help the economy recover.
On December 30 2014 12:46 oneofthem wrote: you are just reciting general platitudes without thinking it through. how is it a burden when japan bond is yielding so low. how do you not address the difference between private and govt debt?
I'd like to point out that one kind of debt can be converted into the other by the government.
private->public: The government pays for a certain amount of debt from each household at a certain time. So the amount of debt is transfered from private to public debt. There are many ways to do similar things. The government could also just hand out money to every household for nothing in return...
public->private: Increase taxes or make people to buy government bonds for example through forced loans on their property (houses etc.).
On December 30 2014 12:53 Nyxisto wrote: It's a problem because the debt has to be paid in someway, and now we are back to taxes. As Japan is not able to finance their debt through foreign investment they have to resort to increased taxes which puts a strain on tax payers further reducing demand and effectively increasing inequality within the country.
No they don't have to increase taxes or something similar. They could alternatively just print the money they need to repay their debt.
On December 30 2014 12:53 Nyxisto wrote: It's a problem because the debt has to be paid in someway, and now we are back to taxes.
Why are we back to taxes? The market for Japanese bonds -- as indicated by the low rates it is prepared to accept and by the lack of inflation in the Yen -- seems pretty content to be paid with more Japanese pieces of paper.
As Japan is not able to finance their debt through foreign investment they have to resort to increased taxes which puts a strain on tax payers further reducing demand and effectively increasing inequality within the country.
They dont have to finance their debt through foreign investments. Again as youve yourself said, Bank of Japan prints more money, hands it over to Treasury, Treasury gives them Japanese Bonds. No hyper inflation in sight.
Which is why gold promoting websites like zerohedge have a particularly, almost Korean-channeling the OP of the thread need to 'prove' Japan is doomed. Whats been happening in Japan for now 30 years no one has actually been able to explain well at all. No economist at all. Japan is literally breaking macro text books on the monetary side.
japan does not need to balance its budget. it already has a hard time dealing with a shortfall in domestic consumption. why is 'balancing the budget' a priority for them atm
Well because not balancing the budget has resulted in a permanent fiscal and monetary hangover that is completely ruining their economy.
You are channeling the emotional sentiment but not understanding the mechanism that is supposed to underlying it. A monetary hangover would be something like Japanese bond yields starting to rise rapidly because the market expects the deficit to continue -- ie something that happened to Greece or Spain. But here it has not happened -- ever. People have been betting on the rise of Japanese bonds yields for like 20 years, and they have been losing that bet. The fiscal overhang concept comes from the idea that 'stimulus doesnt work' because present spending does not trick the market/consumer/whatever because they realize that sometime in the future fiscal stimulus has to be paid off and if the multiplier is less than 1 -- ie if debt spending now doesnt generate enough new income to cover itself then the market will appropriately 'bake in' the stimulus, in other words disregard it. This might be visible in Japan with the raised consumption tax, but the other signal -- the disbelief that 'new economic activity will increase' is not showing itself in the bond market. (I mean, we can get philosophical here and actually say it IS evidenced in the bond market because the bond market doesnt believe the economy will ever inflation grow, ie the US T bond yield reached a really low yield in 09 before the Fed began its massive bond buying because everyone expected a long depression but thats another whole thing) Where again, the idea that the government is now permanently increasing its deficit and that it will have to do something it doesnt want to would be evidenced in the bond yields.
2) The lower the metabolism of an organism, the longer it will live. As in if you starve yourself you will live longer, there is lots of research in this field. In simple terms it is due to faster metabolism --> faster cell division, and faster cell division mean you start snipping useful genes in DNA quicker, which of course means quicker death. Japan has a very low calorie diet, only 3.5% percent of Japanese population are Obese (vs 27.7% in USA)... And Japan is also a country where physical activity is not very stressed, which can quite effectively show how they little they eat calorie wise. Due to the biology stated above, they live longer.
This is 90%+ of the reason for the aging population, no buts, I have studied this topic extensively, and from what I can tell it's almost a fact in the scientific world. There are minor deviation in healthcare systems, primary food that is eaten (rice vs bread vs potatoes), amounts of meat eaten, etc. But at the end of the day, the main cause is point #2, and that can be attributed to several factors like culture/history, geography (fish vs lots of land), etc.
The lower calorie count (compared to average American diet) is true, but Japanese people don't starve themselves, their diet of veggies and pulses contains a lot of fiber which helps keep them full.
On December 30 2014 17:01 Sub40APM wrote: Which is why gold promoting websites like zerohedge have a particularly, almost Korean-channeling the OP of the thread need to 'prove' Japan is doomed. Whats been happening in Japan for now 30 years no one has actually been able to explain well at all. No economist at all. Japan is literally breaking macro text books on the monetary side.
With all monetary theory aside I think one can make the observation that whatever it is that Japan has been doing, it is not working very well. The OP doesn't need to proof anything. It's the economists that need to show why their models are not working for Japan.
On December 30 2014 15:44 Banaora wrote: No they don't have to increase taxes or something similar. They could alternatively just print the money they need to repay their debt.
Well why doesn't every government just print all their debt away instantly and we're all happy?
On December 30 2014 17:01 Sub40APM wrote: Which is why gold promoting websites like zerohedge have a particularly, almost Korean-channeling the OP of the thread need to 'prove' Japan is doomed. Whats been happening in Japan for now 30 years no one has actually been able to explain well at all. No economist at all. Japan is literally breaking macro text books on the monetary side.
With all monetary theory aside I think one can make the observation that whatever it is that Japan has been doing, it is not working very well. The OP doesn't need to proof anything. It's the economists that need to show why their models are not working for Japan.
They done a bunch of different things. The idea that they've been doing the exact same thing is false. In the 90s when the government tried to do stimulus the BoJ would do contraction moves. Most recently when BoJ tried to do stimulus Abe raised taxes. Lets not move the goal posts here though, the claim that 'if Japan doesnt raise its taxes now then it will go bankrupt' is just wrong -- the bond market fundamentally disagrees with it and has for the last 20 years.
I hear everyone saying the 3% VAT tax hike is whats causing this recession. I have a hard time believing a tax increase as small as that in april is still responsible for a sluggish economy. In NL weve had a vat tax hike like that and the effect wasn't that big at all. Is there any particular reason why it would affect Japan more than NL?
Edit: while Abe increased a tax he's also loosening fiscal policy tot say he's doing the oppositie of the central bank isn't true.
it's a pretty substantial increase, with a further increase to 10% written into law at the time the 8% increase was made. there's psychological effect to it, and with already stagnant income making people poorer and letting them know about it too led to a spiral. it also works with a deflationary spiral to depress spending and investment. various articles on this you can google
the link between the tax and the result, -2% quarterly contraction on -5% domestic consumption, is very strong. you are going off theory but here we have empirical data, and data > theory.
No monetary policy is going to change the fact that Japanese corporations are getting their asses handed to them.
A better idea would be to encourage Japanese students to study abroad do they know how to sell products outside of their home market. Worked well for the Koreans.
On December 31 2014 05:58 oneofthem wrote: it's a pretty substantial increase, with a further increase to 10% written into law at the time the 8% increase was made. there's psychological effect to it, and with already stagnant income making people poorer and letting them know about it too led to a spiral. it also works with a deflationary spiral to depress spending and investment. various articles on this you can google
the link between the tax and the result, -2% quarterly contraction on -5% domestic consumption, is very strong. you are going off theory but here we have empirical data, and data > theory.
Do you have a source for that?
All those reasons except the further increase to 10% were also the case in NL. In fact we had the tax increase while we were in a recession caused by our housing market and our government had an austerity policy. I'm not just going off theory I'm going off my experience closer to home.
Anyway I'm not doubting the effect it had the quarter before and after the tax increase. Since consumption was a lot higher before as well so a dip after it is only expected. What I don't really believe is that it's still causing a sluggish economy now considering all his other fiscal stimulus.
The Japanese economy is screwed, and has been since the 90s, but there's a difference between being stuck in the doldrums for the next 20 years and complete collapse. We're not looking at an event like Russia post-Soviet break up or some of the other, historical collapses.
Side point: Hyper Inflation is a political, not economic, event. The economic event is actually a functional bankruptcy, it's that hyper-inflation is a route taken to achieve it.
What the Japanese are up to, whether they realize it or not yet, is simply a partial default on Government Bonds. Which, considering in roughly 5 years that Bank of Japan will own everything short of 30s (and most of those as well), will land Japan in a weird area. The "damage" of a default, by a government, is normally the loss of access to capital markets. However, the BoJ is part of the "majors" (i.e. they are in the "club" as far as the Central Banks are concerned) and the only thing that would really happen is news stories. And maybe some investor perception. But the actual damage of 200% of GDP in misallocated resources has already been done. That's simply what we are seeing, now, and have been for the past decade.
Everything that's happened as a result of the tax increase and other changes are simply blips on 25+ years of policies that haven't worked. The unfortunate issue is that Europe and America are playing down the exact same path. That's the biggest worry.
On the fundamental aspects of the Japanese economy, the main issues are this: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/japan/employed-persons Set the Left-hand scale to 1990 or earlier. The Employed population peaked in 1998. It's been on a slow decline since. Which also means there's less & less young employees, which is really important, as the younger set drives productivity growth. So growth is expected, on net, to be stagnant from here out. (Even if there's a bump in the total income of those still working, in a "flat net growth" environment. Shrinking populations do odd things to most major statistics)
The other issue is always that Japan has to import its Energy and a significant portion of its food. Both are constant drags on the economy, irrespective of other structural issues.
So, while Japan its going to blow up, it's going to be stuck in the doldrums for a rather long time to come. There may be a currency crisis, but that's less likely than people thing. There's no true way out of the problem short of a major cultural shift in Japan and 30 years. The "Japanese Miracle" was the weird result of a Debt-fueled Asset bubble and wacky set of currency interactions. It's not coming back. South Korea is in the process of attempting to avoid the same fate.
On December 30 2014 17:01 Sub40APM wrote: Which is why gold promoting websites like zerohedge have a particularly, almost Korean-channeling the OP of the thread need to 'prove' Japan is doomed. Whats been happening in Japan for now 30 years no one has actually been able to explain well at all. No economist at all. Japan is literally breaking macro text books on the monetary side.
With all monetary theory aside I think one can make the observation that whatever it is that Japan has been doing, it is not working very well. The OP doesn't need to proof anything. It's the economists that need to show why their models are not working for Japan.
They done a bunch of different things. The idea that they've been doing the exact same thing is false. In the 90s when the government tried to do stimulus the BoJ would do contraction moves. Most recently when BoJ tried to do stimulus Abe raised taxes. Lets not move the goal posts here though, the claim that 'if Japan doesnt raise its taxes now then it will go bankrupt' is just wrong -- the bond market fundamentally disagrees with it and has for the last 20 years.
I agree with this sentiment and I think a lot of the commentary on giving Japan simplistic solutions is insulting because it treats the Japanese as if they were too stupid or stubborn to see the obvious and as though they haven't already tried all the textbook solutions. Or they amount to kill the elderly, gut their own culture, and force women to have more babies.
On December 31 2014 11:57 T.O.P. wrote: No monetary policy is going to change the fact that Japanese corporations are getting their asses handed to them.
A better idea would be to encourage Japanese students to study abroad do they know how to sell products outside of their home market. Worked well for the Koreans.
The Nikkei is up 8.5% for the year and corporate profits were up from the weakening yen. That doesn't look like having their ass handed to them to me.
Your idea of foreign education is a long term plan. The time for someone to learn basic skills abroad, gain experience, then come back to Japan and understand how to meld the new ideas and then to gain the credibility to have anyone listen to them is measured out in decades, probably somewhere between 30-40 years if we are talking about sending out teenagers now. It doesn't fit with your logic of Japan needing solutions far earlier than that.
However corporate profits mean almost nothing to Japan's domestic economy.
Most Japanese companies (except a minority) have their manufacturing overseas like Thailand and Vietnam.
Furthermore, I'm not sure what some of you are thinking when you say it wasn't really Japan's lost 2 decades bla bla bla. Yes from the 1990s until now, Japan's economy has been stagnant with barely (if any) growth.
How is this not bad? Real wages have dropped, savings rate has turned negative, quality of life is falling. The Japanese are just beginning to feel the effects of all this, on top of more expensive electricity, higher costs of living in general. Japanese people are more and more reluctant to spend, not just because of low inflation but also because they are struggling to buy what they want.
The Fukushima nuclear disaster has drastically lowered the quality of life of Japanese, however these are not factored into quality of life measurements. This is because the world is very pro-nuclear power due to General Electric and Co. These gangsters will do anything to lobby the bodies which conduct quality of life measurements and compile statistics to make it seem that nuclear accidents don;t do much to health and quality of life, when it actually does.
Fukushima and Chernobyl are two nuclear disasters which should never be forgotten. It's very sad to see that the majority of fish in Japan are probably heavily contaminated with nuclear radiation but fish is a staple in the Japanese diet. Yes, the economy matters less, health and quality of life matters much more than the economy.
On December 31 2014 05:58 oneofthem wrote: it's a pretty substantial increase, with a further increase to 10% written into law at the time the 8% increase was made. there's psychological effect to it, and with already stagnant income making people poorer and letting them know about it too led to a spiral. it also works with a deflationary spiral to depress spending and investment. various articles on this you can google
the link between the tax and the result, -2% quarterly contraction on -5% domestic consumption, is very strong. you are going off theory but here we have empirical data, and data > theory.
Do you have a source for that?
All those reasons except the further increase to 10% were also the case in NL. In fact we had the tax increase while we were in a recession caused by our housing market and our government had an austerity policy. I'm not just going off theory I'm going off my experience closer to home.
Anyway I'm not doubting the effect it had the quarter before and after the tax increase. Since consumption was a lot higher before as well so a dip after it is only expected. What I don't really believe is that it's still causing a sluggish economy now considering all his other fiscal stimulus.
does NL have heavy private sector debt too? japan has been on a decades long deflationary spiral
On January 01 2015 00:14 AutoEngineer wrote: However corporate profits mean almost nothing to Japan's domestic economy.
Most Japanese companies (except a minority) have their manufacturing overseas like Thailand and Vietnam.
Furthermore, I'm not sure what some of you are thinking when you say it wasn't really Japan's lost 2 decades bla bla bla. Yes from the 1990s until now, Japan's economy has been stagnant with barely (if any) growth.
How is this not bad? Real wages have dropped, savings rate has turned negative, quality of life is falling. The Japanese are just beginning to feel the effects of all this, on top of more expensive electricity, higher costs of living in general. Japanese people are more and more reluctant to spend, not just because of low inflation but also because they are struggling to buy what they want.
The Fukushima nuclear disaster has drastically lowered the quality of life of Japanese, however these are not factored into quality of life measurements. This is because the world is very pro-nuclear power due to General Electric and Co. These gangsters will do anything to lobby the bodies which conduct quality of life measurements and compile statistics to make it seem that nuclear accidents don;t do much to health and quality of life, when it actually does.
Fukushima and Chernobyl are two nuclear disasters which should never be forgotten. It's very sad to see that the majority of fish in Japan are probably heavily contaminated with nuclear radiation but fish is a staple in the Japanese diet. Yes, the economy matters less, health and quality of life matters much more than the economy.
I know you're always down on Japan but a lot of this is exaggerated or nonsensical.
It's probably not worth my time to argue because you would be down on Japan regardless. When Japanese companies do badly, you'll say it's evidence Japan is collapsing. When Japanese companies do well, you say it means nothing.
But I will say that I live in Japan and I think you do not, because otherwise you would know that "quality of life is falling" is an exaggerated statement at best. But I guess you know that too because otherwise you'd have more than resorting to cheap shots about Fukushima and you would be aware that they catch fish from more places than just around the leaking reactor. I don't know about the rest of the world, but 2/3 of Japanese are opposed to restarting nuclear power plants. They are quite interested in the effects of Fukushima on quality of life, so if it were having a real and measurable effect, they would include it in the models.
It's the New Year, man. Relax a little and try to enjoy yourself.
On December 31 2014 05:58 oneofthem wrote: it's a pretty substantial increase, with a further increase to 10% written into law at the time the 8% increase was made. there's psychological effect to it, and with already stagnant income making people poorer and letting them know about it too led to a spiral. it also works with a deflationary spiral to depress spending and investment. various articles on this you can google
the link between the tax and the result, -2% quarterly contraction on -5% domestic consumption, is very strong. you are going off theory but here we have empirical data, and data > theory.
Do you have a source for that?
All those reasons except the further increase to 10% were also the case in NL. In fact we had the tax increase while we were in a recession caused by our housing market and our government had an austerity policy. I'm not just going off theory I'm going off my experience closer to home.
Anyway I'm not doubting the effect it had the quarter before and after the tax increase. Since consumption was a lot higher before as well so a dip after it is only expected. What I don't really believe is that it's still causing a sluggish economy now considering all his other fiscal stimulus.
does NL have heavy private sector debt too? japan has been on a decades long deflationary spiral
We have heavy private sector debt and a lot of savings at the same time. The debt is mainly in residential mortgages because of government subsidies making it attractive to hold as much mortgage debt as possible for as long as possible. A Nice article about our private debt from our statistics bureau, it's in english. private debt
On the other hand we have a lot of savings in our pension funds. Around €1.1 trillion iirc. A lot of that money gets invested in foreign countries though.
Japan isn't actually in a deflationary spiral anymore though right? Just a long periode of very low inflation.
On January 01 2015 00:14 AutoEngineer wrote: However corporate profits mean almost nothing to Japan's domestic economy.
Most Japanese companies (except a minority) have their manufacturing overseas like Thailand and Vietnam.
Furthermore, I'm not sure what some of you are thinking when you say it wasn't really Japan's lost 2 decades bla bla bla. Yes from the 1990s until now, Japan's economy has been stagnant with barely (if any) growth.
How is this not bad? Real wages have dropped, savings rate has turned negative, quality of life is falling. The Japanese are just beginning to feel the effects of all this, on top of more expensive electricity, higher costs of living in general. Japanese people are more and more reluctant to spend, not just because of low inflation but also because they are struggling to buy what they want.
The Fukushima nuclear disaster has drastically lowered the quality of life of Japanese, however these are not factored into quality of life measurements. This is because the world is very pro-nuclear power due to General Electric and Co. These gangsters will do anything to lobby the bodies which conduct quality of life measurements and compile statistics to make it seem that nuclear accidents don;t do much to health and quality of life, when it actually does.
Fukushima and Chernobyl are two nuclear disasters which should never be forgotten. It's very sad to see that the majority of fish in Japan are probably heavily contaminated with nuclear radiation but fish is a staple in the Japanese diet. Yes, the economy matters less, health and quality of life matters much more than the economy.
I feel like I am getting baited here heavily... 'How is this not bad'? Is anyone arguing that Japan has not performed suboptimally in the last 30 years? No. But the comparisons are Germany in the 30s, Soviets in the 80s, South East Asians in the 90s and Europeans now. Compared to all those cases the Japanese are (a) living longer (b) still richer (c) still pay almost nothing on their debt. The only ones who handled a liquidity crisis are the Americans and (a) they have an inbuilt bias towards consumption (b) the population growth thanks to immigration continues and (c) for now its still the most dynamic economy in terms of innovation Even your vaunted Koreans are still poorer, and live shorter lives than the Japanese. Although I am sure once they annex North Korea with its 'treasure trove' of natural resources that the Communists on the verge of collapse were too stupid to actually exploit its going to be party time.
On January 01 2015 00:14 AutoEngineer wrote: However corporate profits mean almost nothing to Japan's domestic economy.
Most Japanese companies (except a minority) have their manufacturing overseas like Thailand and Vietnam.
Furthermore, I'm not sure what some of you are thinking when you say it wasn't really Japan's lost 2 decades bla bla bla. Yes from the 1990s until now, Japan's economy has been stagnant with barely (if any) growth.
How is this not bad? Real wages have dropped, savings rate has turned negative, quality of life is falling. The Japanese are just beginning to feel the effects of all this, on top of more expensive electricity, higher costs of living in general. Japanese people are more and more reluctant to spend, not just because of low inflation but also because they are struggling to buy what they want.
The Fukushima nuclear disaster has drastically lowered the quality of life of Japanese, however these are not factored into quality of life measurements. This is because the world is very pro-nuclear power due to General Electric and Co. These gangsters will do anything to lobby the bodies which conduct quality of life measurements and compile statistics to make it seem that nuclear accidents don;t do much to health and quality of life, when it actually does.
Fukushima and Chernobyl are two nuclear disasters which should never be forgotten. It's very sad to see that the majority of fish in Japan are probably heavily contaminated with nuclear radiation but fish is a staple in the Japanese diet. Yes, the economy matters less, health and quality of life matters much more than the economy.
I feel like I am getting baited here heavily... 'How is this not bad'? Is anyone arguing that Japan has not performed suboptimally in the last 30 years? No. But the comparisons are Germany in the 30s, Soviets in the 80s, South East Asians in the 90s and Europeans now. Compared to all those cases the Japanese are (a) living longer (b) still richer (c) still pay almost nothing on their debt. The only ones who handled a liquidity crisis are the Americans and (a) they have an inbuilt bias towards consumption (b) the population growth thanks to immigration continues and (c) for now its still the most dynamic economy in terms of innovation Even your vaunted Koreans are still poorer, and live shorter lives than the Japanese. Although I am sure once they annex North Korea with its 'treasure trove' of natural resources that the Communists on the verge of collapse were too stupid to actually exploit its going to be party time.
When you say "poorer" you're being vague. By PPP GDP/capita terms South Korea and Japan are about equal, and South Korea will surpass Japan in nominal GDP/capita terms by 2020 according to most forecasts.
Furthermore, the minimum wage in South Korea is higher than that of Japan.
You're joking when you said that the Japanese are richer than Europeans right? Germans, Swedes, Norwegians, British, Italians, etc are all "richer" than Japanese.
Also living longer does not mean better health. It could mean elderly people's lives are being prolonged artificially through more medical treatment.
The average Japanese person is getting poorer and poorer and the quality of life index of South Korea is higher than Japan's.
On January 01 2015 00:14 AutoEngineer wrote: However corporate profits mean almost nothing to Japan's domestic economy.
Most Japanese companies (except a minority) have their manufacturing overseas like Thailand and Vietnam.
Furthermore, I'm not sure what some of you are thinking when you say it wasn't really Japan's lost 2 decades bla bla bla. Yes from the 1990s until now, Japan's economy has been stagnant with barely (if any) growth.
How is this not bad? Real wages have dropped, savings rate has turned negative, quality of life is falling. The Japanese are just beginning to feel the effects of all this, on top of more expensive electricity, higher costs of living in general. Japanese people are more and more reluctant to spend, not just because of low inflation but also because they are struggling to buy what they want.
The Fukushima nuclear disaster has drastically lowered the quality of life of Japanese, however these are not factored into quality of life measurements. This is because the world is very pro-nuclear power due to General Electric and Co. These gangsters will do anything to lobby the bodies which conduct quality of life measurements and compile statistics to make it seem that nuclear accidents don;t do much to health and quality of life, when it actually does.
Fukushima and Chernobyl are two nuclear disasters which should never be forgotten. It's very sad to see that the majority of fish in Japan are probably heavily contaminated with nuclear radiation but fish is a staple in the Japanese diet. Yes, the economy matters less, health and quality of life matters much more than the economy.
I feel like I am getting baited here heavily... 'How is this not bad'? Is anyone arguing that Japan has not performed suboptimally in the last 30 years? No. But the comparisons are Germany in the 30s, Soviets in the 80s, South East Asians in the 90s and Europeans now. Compared to all those cases the Japanese are (a) living longer (b) still richer (c) still pay almost nothing on their debt. The only ones who handled a liquidity crisis are the Americans and (a) they have an inbuilt bias towards consumption (b) the population growth thanks to immigration continues and (c) for now its still the most dynamic economy in terms of innovation Even your vaunted Koreans are still poorer, and live shorter lives than the Japanese. Although I am sure once they annex North Korea with its 'treasure trove' of natural resources that the Communists on the verge of collapse were too stupid to actually exploit its going to be party time.
Life expectancy in SK is also higher than the US or UK and almost the same as the Netherlands. Japan is the outlier, rather than SK being low. Get it the right way round.
So yeah, nearly equal PPP and SK life expectancy is normal rather than unusual like Japan's.
Japan probably reached full development and has been stagnant because an economy does not go up any further. Obviously an economy cannot grow indefinitely, though economists and politicians like to think otherwise, or at least make an exception for the short term.
All other countries can only hope to reach this stage.
On December 31 2014 05:58 oneofthem wrote: it's a pretty substantial increase, with a further increase to 10% written into law at the time the 8% increase was made. there's psychological effect to it, and with already stagnant income making people poorer and letting them know about it too led to a spiral. it also works with a deflationary spiral to depress spending and investment. various articles on this you can google
the link between the tax and the result, -2% quarterly contraction on -5% domestic consumption, is very strong. you are going off theory but here we have empirical data, and data > theory.
Do you have a source for that?
All those reasons except the further increase to 10% were also the case in NL. In fact we had the tax increase while we were in a recession caused by our housing market and our government had an austerity policy. I'm not just going off theory I'm going off my experience closer to home.
Anyway I'm not doubting the effect it had the quarter before and after the tax increase. Since consumption was a lot higher before as well so a dip after it is only expected. What I don't really believe is that it's still causing a sluggish economy now considering all his other fiscal stimulus.
does NL have heavy private sector debt too? japan has been on a decades long deflationary spiral
We have heavy private sector debt and a lot of savings at the same time. The debt is mainly in residential mortgages because of government subsidies making it attractive to hold as much mortgage debt as possible for as long as possible. A Nice article about our private debt from our statistics bureau, it's in english. private debt
On the other hand we have a lot of savings in our pension funds. Around €1.1 trillion iirc. A lot of that money gets invested in foreign countries though.
Japan isn't actually in a deflationary spiral anymore though right? Just a long periode of very low inflation.
well we are still dealing with hard data of -5% domestic consumption after the tax increase. various factors may contribute to comparative difference between europe and japan, including culture and demographics, but the fact is that the tax increase led to depressed consumption and economic slowdown.
Can't speak for the economy but healthwise its definitely not artificial inflation through medical care. That's important but hardly the primary case when you adjust for it and compare it to other countries with similar levels of healthcare.
Also living longer does not mean better health. It could mean elderly people's lives are being prolonged artificially through more medical treatment.
What do even mean by this? That's just as true if life expectancy is 50, but medical treatment 'artificially prolongs' their lives to 55. When life expectancy goes up then better health at an older age is exactly what happens. Medical treatment does not usually prolong people's lives at deaths door for forty years. It means a significant portion of the population is living healthily into their 60's and maybe even 70's before sharply dropping off. Those that live to their 90's are typically very spry in their 80's. And if you argue the opposite, then that sword cuts the same way for anyone else with a modern healthcare system as it does for the Japanese.
I dot know why I started typing up a reply to AutoEngineer, now he's arguing that living longer is bad for you too. You win AutoEngineer, Koreans the master race will take over the world sometime in 2100 powered by the world's most richest resources base, North Korea.
On January 01 2015 00:14 AutoEngineer wrote: However corporate profits mean almost nothing to Japan's domestic economy.
Most Japanese companies (except a minority) have their manufacturing overseas like Thailand and Vietnam.
Furthermore, I'm not sure what some of you are thinking when you say it wasn't really Japan's lost 2 decades bla bla bla. Yes from the 1990s until now, Japan's economy has been stagnant with barely (if any) growth.
How is this not bad? Real wages have dropped, savings rate has turned negative, quality of life is falling. The Japanese are just beginning to feel the effects of all this, on top of more expensive electricity, higher costs of living in general. Japanese people are more and more reluctant to spend, not just because of low inflation but also because they are struggling to buy what they want.
The Fukushima nuclear disaster has drastically lowered the quality of life of Japanese, however these are not factored into quality of life measurements. This is because the world is very pro-nuclear power due to General Electric and Co. These gangsters will do anything to lobby the bodies which conduct quality of life measurements and compile statistics to make it seem that nuclear accidents don;t do much to health and quality of life, when it actually does.
Fukushima and Chernobyl are two nuclear disasters which should never be forgotten. It's very sad to see that the majority of fish in Japan are probably heavily contaminated with nuclear radiation but fish is a staple in the Japanese diet. Yes, the economy matters less, health and quality of life matters much more than the economy.
I feel like I am getting baited here heavily... 'How is this not bad'? Is anyone arguing that Japan has not performed suboptimally in the last 30 years? No. But the comparisons are Germany in the 30s, Soviets in the 80s, South East Asians in the 90s and Europeans now. Compared to all those cases the Japanese are (a) living longer (b) still richer (c) still pay almost nothing on their debt. The only ones who handled a liquidity crisis are the Americans and (a) they have an inbuilt bias towards consumption (b) the population growth thanks to immigration continues and (c) for now its still the most dynamic economy in terms of innovation Even your vaunted Koreans are still poorer, and live shorter lives than the Japanese. Although I am sure once they annex North Korea with its 'treasure trove' of natural resources that the Communists on the verge of collapse were too stupid to actually exploit its going to be party time.
Life expectancy in SK is also higher than the US or UK and almost the same as the Netherlands. Japan is the outlier, rather than SK being low. Get it the right way round.
So yeah, nearly equal PPP and SK life expectancy is normal rather than unusual like Japan's.
Yes...Japan's is unusual...because its ...higher. Thats like saying 'Norway's GDP PPP is unusual'. Its literally the only way you could frame it to make it sound suspect instead of something to aspire to.
Japan handled their crisis better than the European countries that are in a crisis like Italy, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus, Greece.
Also living longer does not mean better health. It could mean elderly people's lives are being prolonged artificially through more medical treatment.
What do even mean by this? That's just as true if life expectancy is 50, but medical treatment 'artificially prolongs' their lives to 55. When life expectancy goes up then better health at an older age is exactly what happens. Medical treatment does not usually prolong people's lives at deaths door for forty years. It means a significant portion of the population is living healthily into their 60's and maybe even 70's before sharply dropping off. Those that live to their 90's are typically very spry in their 80's. And if you argue the opposite, then that sword cuts the same way for anyone else with a modern healthcare system as it does for the Japanese.
I think he's referring to the fact that Japan rates very poorly compared to other OECD countries in self-reported surveys of health. OECD methodology admits that cultural bias can and in Japan's case probably plays a big biased role, but across all countries is a fairly good measure of life expectancy and quality of life in a combined function. It fits with his narrative of Japanese living long and unhappy lives, even though japanese self-rate their happiness separately as slightly above the OECD average.
On January 02 2015 12:19 Alcathous wrote: Wow even young Asians growing up in the US still hate each other. Amazing to see as a European. So brainwashed by their parents.
On January 02 2015 12:19 Alcathous wrote: Wow even young Asians growing up in the US still hate each other. Amazing to see as a European. So brainwashed by their parents.
On January 02 2015 12:19 Alcathous wrote: Wow even young Asians growing up in the US still hate each other. Amazing to see as a European. So brainwashed by their parents.
On January 02 2015 12:19 Alcathous wrote: Wow even young Asians growing up in the US still hate each other. Amazing to see as a European. So brainwashed by their parents.
Come on are you trolling him? Your initial point: I am shocked that despite all growing up in America, Asian-Americans retain historical prejudices from their ancestral homelands His point: His assistance does not support your statement because he is not an Asian-American Your point: It is possible to be a white person and hold the citizenship of an Asian state. And then the edited in sentence suggests that the first sentence implies some kind of negative judgment of coverpunch's argument
Look, in Asia they had 1 or 2 wars, small wars. In Europe we had 200 fucking wars, including all the biggest wars the medieval world has ever seen, including 2 big ones fairly recently..
Germany fighting it out with France or the Netherlands or the UK, it doesn't even come up. But when I take to the internet where there are Asian-Americans, they are always debating China vs Korea vs Japan and the politicians always offend each other.
I don't know what Islam has to do with all this. Not like Korea or Japan took up a lot of Syrian refugees the last couple of years...
On January 02 2015 17:05 Sub40APM wrote: Come on are you trolling him? Your initial point: I am shocked that despite all growing up in America, Asian-Americans retain historical prejudices from their ancestral homelands His point: His assistance does not support your statement because he is not an Asian-American Your point: It is possible to be a white person and hold the citizenship of an Asian state. And then the edited in sentence suggests that the first sentence implies some kind of negative judgment of coverpunch's argument
I still think he is hating on Japan just because he is Korean/his parents are Korean, or maybe Chinese. The American part is just a guess because I have to admit that Caucasian Koreans are pretty rare.
By the way, he might also be lying. I know! People do that sometimes. Especially when trolling like this guy.
Anyway, saying he can't be Korean or Chinese because he is Caucasian is racist. That's like saying you can't be an American because you are black.
On January 02 2015 17:12 Alcathous wrote: Look, in Asia they had 1 or 2 wars, small wars. In Europe we had 200 fucking wars, including all the biggest wars the medieval world has ever seen, including 2 big ones fairly recently..
Germany fighting it out with France or the Netherlands or the UK, it doesn't even come up. But when I take to the internet where there are Asian-Americans, they are always debating China vs Korea vs Japan and the politicians always offend each other.
I don't know what Islam has to do with all this. Not like Korea or Japan took up a lot of Syrian refugees the last couple of years...
On January 02 2015 17:05 Sub40APM wrote: Come on are you trolling him? Your initial point: I am shocked that despite all growing up in America, Asian-Americans retain historical prejudices from their ancestral homelands His point: His assistance does not support your statement because he is not an Asian-American Your point: It is possible to be a white person and hold the citizenship of an Asian state. And then the edited in sentence suggests that the first sentence implies some kind of negative judgment of coverpunch's argument
I still think he is hating on Japan just because he is Korean/his parents are Korean, or maybe Chinese. The American part is just a guess because I have to admit that Caucasian Koreans are pretty rare.
By the way, he might also be lying. I know! People do that sometimes. Especially when trolling like this guy.
Anyway, saying he can't be Korean or Chinese because he is Caucasian is racist. That's like saying you can't be an American because you are black.
I agree with you that he might be lying, but I think he would have said if he were white but Korean. His OP in that post seems to clearly indicate that he's a white guy from America because he went to Asia on a tour. I don't know what you're going on with the rest of this nonsense except being stubborn to stick to an original narrative that was pretty dumb.
In my experience, Jews are quite distinct about bringing up the Holocaust as a defining part of their history. That is the kind of thing where it strikes me as offensively dismissive to tell them to just get over it and to "not bring it up". And on Top Gear at least, they bring up the war (usually as a joke) every couple years or so when they talk about or go to Germany in any depth. The last couple seasons of Downton Abbey have had its context defined by Britain's reaction to the Great War and the rise of Nazism (which to be fair, its historical context makes it unavoidable).
But it's a dumb thing to say because AutoEngineer has not brought up the war in either of his two OPs. He quite clearly has a grudge against Japan and mostly very negative things to say about Japanese culture and policies, but he isn't trying to provoke a debate about Japan's wartime atrocities.
EDIT: But I do have to ask, since you seem European and possibly German. Since this is the century anniversary of the start of World War I, did Germany do anything to commemorate it? For instance, Britain had the astonishing exhibit at the Tower of London with a red poppy representing every British death in the war, and a stark reminder that ~900,000 is a fucking lot of young men to send off to die. And Britain actually had among the fewest deaths of the major participants of the war!
I get kinda annoyed when white people feel the need to get angry at Japan on behalf of the rest of Asia... Like guys, most of us got occupied by Japan and had all kinds of shit done to us. Most of us have moved on. China and Korea are the exceptions. The rest of us actually benefitted a lot from Japanese investment.
Anyway for the OP I have long stopped taking auto engineers views on Japan seriously.
EDIT: But I do have to ask, since you seem European and possibly German. Since this is the century anniversary of the start of World War I, did Germany do anything to commemorate it? For instance, Britain had the astonishing exhibit at the Tower of London with a red poppy representing every British death in the war, and a stark reminder that ~900,000 is a fucking lot of young men to send off to die. And Britain actually had among the fewest deaths of the major participants of the war!
compared to WW2 there is a lot less focus on WW1 in germany. For example on november 11th if I remember correctly in britain it's some kind of WW1 memorial day. In germany that day marks the beginning of the carneval season.
I am fairly sure that there was memorial stuff done in 2014 here about WW1 but nothing really that fancy, most likely some exhibitions and stuff like that.
You have to see it this way, for Britain WW1 might have been a great victory, but for most germans WW1 marks the end of an era of our history and the beginning of one of our darkest chapters. So you will never see any celebrations here about the end of that war, quiet remembrances yes, but no celebrations.
On January 02 2015 17:12 Alcathous wrote: Look, in Asia they had 1 or 2 wars, small wars. In Europe we had 200 fucking wars, including all the biggest wars the medieval world has ever seen, including 2 big ones fairly recently..
Germany fighting it out with France or the Netherlands or the UK, it doesn't even come up. But when I take to the internet where there are Asian-Americans, they are always debating China vs Korea vs Japan and the politicians always offend each other.
I don't know what Islam has to do with all this. Not like Korea or Japan took up a lot of Syrian refugees the last couple of years...
On January 02 2015 17:05 Sub40APM wrote: Come on are you trolling him? Your initial point: I am shocked that despite all growing up in America, Asian-Americans retain historical prejudices from their ancestral homelands His point: His assistance does not support your statement because he is not an Asian-American Your point: It is possible to be a white person and hold the citizenship of an Asian state. And then the edited in sentence suggests that the first sentence implies some kind of negative judgment of coverpunch's argument
I still think he is hating on Japan just because he is Korean/his parents are Korean, or maybe Chinese. The American part is just a guess because I have to admit that Caucasian Koreans are pretty rare.
By the way, he might also be lying. I know! People do that sometimes. Especially when trolling like this guy.
Anyway, saying he can't be Korean or Chinese because he is Caucasian is racist. That's like saying you can't be an American because you are black.
He specifically said that that OP was white instead of Asian, not Korean/Chinese/Japanese. Asian in this case being a comparable term to black/white/hispanic/etc. It's more like saying you can't be white because you're black (unless you're mixed but that isn't the case here as far as I can tell).
So not only are you being incredibly pedantic, you're also 100% wrong.
On January 02 2015 17:12 Alcathous wrote: Look, in Asia they had 1 or 2 wars, small wars. In Europe we had 200 fucking wars, including all the biggest wars the medieval world has ever seen, including 2 big ones fairly recently..
Anyway, saying he can't be Korean or Chinese because he is Caucasian is racist. That's like saying you can't be an American because you are black.
well there is a huge difference between the two if you look at probabilities. Being Caucasian and Korean or Chinese is so rare (like 1 out of 1000 I would suggest) you can actually call people out on that, granted you have reasons to believe they are lying. Being a black American is not unlikely at all.
On January 02 2015 12:19 Alcathous wrote: Wow even young Asians growing up in the US still hate each other. Amazing to see as a European. So brainwashed by their parents.
It appears that European education didn't help your reading comprehension.
On January 03 2015 02:21 oneofthem wrote: what is this even about now. the fuck
Caucasian naturalized Japanese, apparently. Not sure what else to say other than they're elusive unicorns for a reason. Same can be said for China and S.Korea however, and it's probably debatable which nation is more "hostile", so to speak, to foreign naturalization, Japan or China.
If we're actually discussing why Japan is still peculiarly ostracized in China and S. Korea despite close economic ties, (Japan has been one of the largest investors in China for instance, and during Tiananmen was among the few "Western" nation not to boycott their investments), it can be attributed to a series of issues, but primarily
1) political nationalism; both South Korean and modern Chinese national identity was shaped drastically by WWII, and governments, especially in China, play on that (eg, the disputes ). Could also be argued that China and South Korea suffered "more" under Japanese militarist expansion than did the rest of Asia.
2) the Japanese revisionist movement (which is something uniquely controversial and instigating); the fact that Abe himself lead the "Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform" and has been involved in other parts of the nationalist movement that denies Japanese WWII war crimes, from Nanking to comfort women, is something that Chinese and Koreans are acutely aware of. It's a very interesting struggle in Japanese society, but the ongoing attempts to whitewash history is something which is particularly provoking. It would be much like having a Holocaust denier as Chancellor of Germany.
This didn't quite happen in Germany, despite the initial "whitewashing" of denazification, as a result of the Auschwitz Trials in the 60s in West Germany and the large effect it would have on subsequent discourse (the East German identity was largely based on being anti-Nazi, of whom West Germany was perceived to be comprised of).
On January 03 2015 06:10 ClueClueClue wrote: Ehm... why all the race talk, guys?
I was just wondering this myself, but blame Sub40APM since he accused AutoEngineer of thinking of Koreans as a master race, or at least superior to the Japanese.
It's not a totally unfair criticism since AutoEngineer does seem to compare the two countries pretty often and always concludes with an opinion that is very negative about Japan and positive about Korea.
On January 03 2015 06:10 ClueClueClue wrote: Ehm... why all the race talk, guys?
I was just wondering this myself, but blame Sub40APM since he accused AutoEngineer of thinking of Koreans as a master race, or at least superior to the Japanese.
It's not a totally unfair criticism since AutoEngineer does seem to compare the two countries pretty often and always concludes with an opinion that is very negative about Japan and positive about Korea.
Not to mention his predictions that Korea will soon own the entire planet because north korea has plenty of dilithium and south korea has the capability to mine it or some shit like that.
On January 02 2015 12:19 Alcathous wrote: Wow even young Asians growing up in the US still hate each other. Amazing to see as a European. So brainwashed by their parents.
On January 03 2015 02:21 oneofthem wrote: what is this even about now. the fuck
Caucasian naturalized Japanese, apparently. Not sure what else to say other than they're elusive unicorns for a reason. Same can be said for China and S.Korea however, and it's probably debatable which nation is more "hostile", so to speak, to foreign naturalization, Japan or China.
If we're actually discussing why Japan is still peculiarly ostracized in China and S. Korea despite close economic ties, (Japan has been one of the largest investors in China for instance, and during Tiananmen was among the few "Western" nation not to boycott their investments), it can be attributed to a series of issues, but primarily
1) political nationalism; both South Korean and modern Chinese national identity was shaped drastically by WWII, and governments, especially in China, play on that (eg, the disputes ). Could also be argued that China and South Korea suffered "more" under Japanese militarist expansion than did the rest of Asia.
2) the Japanese revisionist movement (which is something uniquely controversial and instigating); the fact that Abe himself lead the "Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform" and has been involved in other parts of the nationalist movement that denies Japanese WWII war crimes, from Nanking to comfort women, is something that Chinese and Koreans are acutely aware of. It's a very interesting struggle in Japanese society, but the ongoing attempts to whitewash history is something which is particularly provoking. It would be much like having a Holocaust denier as Chancellor of Germany.
This didn't quite happen in Germany, despite the initial "whitewashing" of denazification, as a result of the Auschwitz Trials in the 60s in West Germany and the large effect it would have on subsequent discourse (the East German identity was largely based on being anti-Nazi, of whom West Germany was perceived to be comprised of).
I don't want to get too deep into this and derail the thread too much, but I disagree with the characterization of the Japanese as whitewashers or not remorseful of the war while Germany is the model of remorse. Admittedly, Japanese politicians are much more tone-deaf about dealing with the war, and they never seem to understand that arguing that Japanese also suffered during and after the war doesn't make their crimes any less heinous or wrong, and unfortunately it does seem to belie an existing attitude that they think Japan's only real mistake of the war was losing.
But, what I think makes Japanese defensiveness is the common idea that Japanese war crimes were a natural extension of Japanese culture, that there's something inherently militaristic and sadistic about the Japanese national character. Germans also become similarly defensive when people make such an argument, notably Fritz Fischer, who was reviled and his publisher's office fire-bombed in the 60s when he wrote books claiming the militarism leading to World War I and Nazism emerged as natural extensions of Germanic culture, in continuity rather than as aberrations of German history.
tl;dr people don't like it when you say their culture is bad.
This was wildly derailed, but when we thought about it, we didn't really want to see it back on topic either. If it is important to discuss the Japanese economy, then someone can make a new thread, if their name is not AutoEngineer.