OminoMichelin
Member
Wait, I'm not familiar of how things work in japan, is the PM elected separately from the parliament?
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Japan's economy in recession yet again to surprise of forecasters
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Wait, I'm not familiar of how things work in japan, is the PM elected separately from the parliament?
I can't imagine the UK parties doing this. It'd have to be an even more major economic disaster than 2008.
US has a substantial slave class already... we don't need robot when we have the poor.
But Japan has the same level of poverty and they are even poorer.
Triplicates
Member
Their presence is actually massive but usually overlooked as they are unglamorous, and many times privately held, parts suppliers these days. I'm not just talking about companies like Sony and Sharp who make image sensors and LCD panels. If you go higher up into the production chain, like the chemicals and the machinery used to manufacture electronics, there are many sectors where Japanese companies hold a combined majority of global marketshare.
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Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
No. The Japanese Prime Minister, as in most parliamentary systems, is not elected by the general population. He is simply the person who can command the confidence of the lower house (for Japan, the House of Representatives). As in most parliamentary systems, the Prime Minister can dissolve the house for election at any point, but in doing so he accepts the risk that his party may not take a majority and he may not be able to command the confidence of the new house composition that results from the election.
teruterubozu
Member
These days Japan does it when someone sneezes. It's been decades since Japan's government had stable leadership.
tallkid123
Member
I bet my dad's former boss (Kuroda) wishes he was still at his old workplace, haha.
So, where does Japan goes from here?
New PM/Parliament?
I honestly have not knowledge if economics, or recent Japan politics.
I'm interested because i'll graduate next year in Japanese (Language and Culture), and while i'll start studying something else and had no real intentions of moving there until i'm a bit older, so of course i hope they'll solve their recession and work on social issues, i don't want to get treaten badly!
New PM/Parliament?
I honestly have not knowledge if economics, or recent Japan politics.
I'm interested because i'll graduate next year in Japanese (Language and Culture), and while i'll start studying something else and had no real intentions of moving there until i'm a bit older, so of course i hope they'll solve their recession and work on social issues, i don't want to get treaten badly!
Just another election to see if Abe and his LDP can regain confidence of the electorate.
Anything can happen, I mean The Dark Lord who reigns in my home country dissolved parliament in 2008 and his minority government became a majority government. ;_;
Photography? Even the sensor in your beloved iPhone is made by Sony. Japan has diminished but not completely wiped out.
Abe is calling an election now because the rival parties have no one who could unseat him and because the really bad follow-on effects of his society-destroying currency devaluation haven't yet been felt.
As someone who has millions of yen in the bank, I can't put into words how much I despise PM Abe and BOJ head Kuroda. In intentionally crashing the yen and doing anything and everything to stoke inflation, they have declared war on the middle and lower classes, whose savings are in cash and not in income-producing assets like real estate.
If the government can't pay its bills and needs to raise taxes to increase revenue, then raise taxes. Nobody likes higher taxes, and ideally they would cut spending, but tax hikes are a lot better than inflation. Inflation is a tax that not only affects the spending power of your income, but also saps the power of all the money you've ever saved in past years as well.
In a country dominated by baby boomers and elderly, whose wishes and wants come first to politicians, the younger generation of Japanese people had one thing that wasn't stacked against them: stable consumer prices and the ability to save for the future. Abe and Kuroda stabbed us all in the back by taking even this away.
As someone who has millions of yen in the bank, I can't put into words how much I despise PM Abe and BOJ head Kuroda. In intentionally crashing the yen and doing anything and everything to stoke inflation, they have declared war on the middle and lower classes, whose savings are in cash and not in income-producing assets like real estate.
If the government can't pay its bills and needs to raise taxes to increase revenue, then raise taxes. Nobody likes higher taxes, and ideally they would cut spending, but tax hikes are a lot better than inflation. Inflation is a tax that not only affects the spending power of your income, but also saps the power of all the money you've ever saved in past years as well.
In a country dominated by baby boomers and elderly, whose wishes and wants come first to politicians, the younger generation of Japanese people had one thing that wasn't stacked against them: stable consumer prices and the ability to save for the future. Abe and Kuroda stabbed us all in the back by taking even this away.
teruterubozu
Member
Multiple effects from the Lost Decade but recently top Japanese companies like Toyota, Sony, Honda, Canon, etc. lost their international prestige and are facing huge competition. Plus cash horders - but that's been a problem in Japan forever.
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Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
The problem is that the Japanese save too much, though, as a proportion of income. That's the purpose of these inflationary measures: to make the prospect of saving a less attractive one, so that people decide to spend in the present instead.
Nikodemos
Member
Except the people who have saved the most (corporations) have their funds in inflation-proof assets (estate, international stocks, foreign currency, etc.) and will not feel the pressure.
OTOH, the average pensioner or sarariiman definitely will. That's not the desired effect.
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Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Again, it... sort of is. I mean, economies are driven by consumer spending at heart. It's not like enticing corporations to spend will do anything - corporations don't buy consumer products. Their revenue outflows tend to go on investment or increasing employment/capital, and they're not going to do either of those if consumers aren't buying their goods - why increase your work force to produce more products if those products then don't sell? If you can get ordinary people to spend money, then you'll see them buying more consumer goods, so you'll see corporations respond to this. Keynes 101.
A Fish Aficionado
I am going to make it through this year if it kills me
Listen to this interview with economist Stephanie Kelton on Harry Shearer's podcast.
It's US centric but illustrates modern economic theory.
Transcript.
I also suggest to read http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/category/japan
whatever77
Banned
While that may be true, I argue nowadays consumer appliances are more are more rely on software. And the Japanese are terrible at open platform open protocol software. Again this is caused by Japan's homogeneous culture and top-down managerial style. Another thing that can not be fixed overnight.
Moving production parts up stream is a little like Microsoft moving from selling Window Mobile phone to charging Android manufacturer a $5 tax. While that's a lot of money you lost the controlling influence that can decide where is industry in the future. The industry can change from smartphone to smart watch at a blink of an eye and the new smart gadgets may not need use Japanese parts anymore.
Devaluing the currency makes Japanese goods attractive to foreign consumers, but it lowers the purchasing power of Japanese consumers.
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Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
It lowers the purchasing power of Japanese consumers on imported goods, yes, which comparatively makes domestic goods more attractive. The result should be people spending more money on domestic goods, which is something that should help reinvigorate the economy.
Yesterday I cringed hearing experts talking about how they don't know how to fix the problem.
That's not true at all. The problems are well known, the possible solutions are well known as well. Unfortunately the government and the society as a whole are afraid of fixing the problems, because it means to give up a lot of the priviledges they currently have.
I mean, it's not like the well educated people wouldn't like to immigrate. They just want to be treated better. Oh, and double citizenship would be nice too!
That's not true at all. The problems are well known, the possible solutions are well known as well. Unfortunately the government and the society as a whole are afraid of fixing the problems, because it means to give up a lot of the priviledges they currently have.
I mean, it's not like the well educated people wouldn't like to immigrate. They just want to be treated better. Oh, and double citizenship would be nice too!
Japanese goods cost the same or more. Their purchasing power has decreased. Decreasing purchasing power should not invigorate the economy.
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Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Yeah, the problems are really deep-rooted at this point. A toxic fear of immigration and an inability to welcome women into the workplace are doing massive harm, but nobody is really making any progress in either area.
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Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
You're not understanding. Japanese goods cost the same as before. Foreign goods cost more. That means, relatively, Japanese goods are now a better deal compared to foreign goods than they were before: a few foreign goods might now be more expensive than their Japanese equivalents, where they weren't before. That means a small part of people's income changes towards purchasing Japanese, rather than foreign, goods. This invigorates the economy because one person's spending is another person's income; if I buy a particular food item that was produced locally that money goes towards that local farmer, whereas if I buy a food item that was produced abroad that money goes abroad. Purchasing power has not universally decreased, it has only decreased on imported goods. This is most certainly something which can invigorate the economy.
Triplicates
Member
I agree with you here but we should note that none of the Asian companies in the post I responded to are software innovators.
Actually, upstream components have incredibly high profit margins. In terms of margins, the production chain has a u-shape. Upstream is massively profitable, assembly (Foxconn) has very low profits, and then selling the final packaged products (Apple, Samsung) is usually profitable.
What you're saying could be the case hypothetically but 1) industrial processes, like the heavy machinery and chemicals used to manufacture these things, are not easily replaced or copied and 2) that's not what happened here.
The ability to save the fruits of one's labor for future use should be one of the most fundamental of all human rights. Spend in the present? What if what you want to spend your money on is in the future?
Exactly. Look at a graph comparing the net worths of the median and the top 1% in the USA for the past 50 or so years. You will see a huge gap that yawns bigger and bigger starting in the early 1970s, when inflation became a persistent problem. Inflation has eaten up almost all the productivity gains by the bottom 90% of society, who have barely been able to keep up with it (and whose savings accounts do not return enough to keep up).
Class warfare. Big corporations, government-connected corporations, and the richest members of society on one side (the winning side); Taro Q. Salaryman and his family on the other. We all know which side Abe and Kuroda are on.
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Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
I mean, you still have the ability to do so, it's just become harder. As for wanting to spend your money on what is in the future, sure, it's nice, but if everyone single person in the economy does it all at the same time, you end up with a collective action problem - if nobody is spending money, nobody else has any income because my spending on the goods you make is your income. This is why recessions happen.
It's always going to be someone's future time to buyright now, not to mention things like food that you can't put off for the future.
Anyway, economies don't prosper just from spending but from producing actual goods and services. Otherwise, the economy could be fixed by having everyone sell something to someone and buy it right back at the same price. At the end nothing would be different than how it started.
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Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
I'm not saying economies prosper just from spending and spending alone. Obviously there are other problems economies can run into, such as supply constraints. I'm saying that spending is necessary before people start producing goods and services, and this is the critical problem that Japan faces. Nobody will make goods and services that they think people won't buy.
Nikodemos
Member
Except Japanese companies tend, on average, to demand a premium from domestic buyers, which generally adjusts with the price of foreign goods. The only ones who don't are those who make barebones low(er)-quality stuff.
teruterubozu
Member
Devaluing the currency is simply not attractive anymore. Japanese goods are decreasing in global demand. In fact, many Japanese companies don't want the currency devalued because it hurts their bottom line (see Nintendo). If Japanese products regained their global prestige, then yes, devaluing the currency can boost overseas sales. But it's not a good plan right now.
FlyingSaucer
Banned
Japan has a domestic industry that is not dependent on imports ?
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Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Yes, this is (another) one of the problems with the Japanese economy.
Not true for Nintendo, at least, (http://online.wsj.com/articles/nintendo-logs-better-than-expected-net-1414568659) and I think still largely untrue for the rest of the Japanese giants. They have bigger problems with their internal structure that are the primary concern, particularly Sony.
Yes.
teruterubozu
Member
Interesting. Last year they blamed the devalued currency for their losses.
The currency valuation has been a conundrum in Japan for decades - there's really no easy answer.
Coriolanus
Banned
Nikodemos
Member
Good luck getting the NEETs to vote, even though they're going to feel the burn hardest in a decade or two.
Dissolving parliament doesn't do any good when Japan's culture doesn't allow for confrontation in the political realm. I wish Japan had the cutthroat politics that we have in America for situations like this but since it doesn't, I expect the next parliament to be the exact same as the last.
Also, when does Japan's economy do a complete collapse? I remember doing a research paper on Japan in 2004 for a High School sophomore project and experts were saying back then that the country was headed for dark times that, if they didn't reform their workplace culture and immigration system, they'd have to make deep cuts into their social services which would devastate the country's economy to the point of collapse due to how the population is distributed. On top of that, the country's population was, in 2004, going to run into trouble starting around 2020 due to the older generation outnumbering the younger, and the next generation outnumbering the (then) current. This wouldn't have been so bad if we still had the pre-2000s financial crisis economy, but it's worse now because of it and many of the kids who were in high school in the 2000s that were expected to take the roles of the older generation in the present day workplace are now either NEET or ambitionless, and not getting married or having kids in any circumstance further exacerbating a bad situation that the Japanese people seem not willing to resolve. That was completely unforeseen, and now I fear the worst for Japan in the future if they leave things as is which they probably will until it's too late.
Japan, get your shit together!
Also, when does Japan's economy do a complete collapse? I remember doing a research paper on Japan in 2004 for a High School sophomore project and experts were saying back then that the country was headed for dark times that, if they didn't reform their workplace culture and immigration system, they'd have to make deep cuts into their social services which would devastate the country's economy to the point of collapse due to how the population is distributed. On top of that, the country's population was, in 2004, going to run into trouble starting around 2020 due to the older generation outnumbering the younger, and the next generation outnumbering the (then) current. This wouldn't have been so bad if we still had the pre-2000s financial crisis economy, but it's worse now because of it and many of the kids who were in high school in the 2000s that were expected to take the roles of the older generation in the present day workplace are now either NEET or ambitionless, and not getting married or having kids in any circumstance further exacerbating a bad situation that the Japanese people seem not willing to resolve. That was completely unforeseen, and now I fear the worst for Japan in the future if they leave things as is which they probably will until it's too late.
Japan, get your shit together!
Nikodemos
Member
^^^ To be fair, South Korea isn't doing much better either. Right now they're still riding the economic boom, but they have the same structural problems as Japan. Heck, their birthrate is lower than Japan's. Japan appears to be doing worse because their economy is more fragile.
Well it's aust... Australians!
Seriously, Japan needs a massive change in their immigrant policy and the integration of women workforce. There's also a need for child care infrastructure. A better welfare system would be nice as well, because the current system has been forcing the people to save way too much.
And I don't understand why the fuck they want to waste money for an even faster train when the current shinkansen is already great (and expensive).
So massive keynesian stimulous with its currency devaluation doesn't work (Japan) nor does austerity and its low infaltion (Europe). What now?
It would seem to me that uber-mature economies like Japan and Germany have reached "end of history" status. They cannot grow anymore by applying the usual economic measures (tinkering with taxes, currency, banking policies, etc) nor by increasing productivity (they are massively productive economies already), so they have to change their fundamentals if they want to see growth, aka popullation.
For all the talk about an impending malthusian apocalypse, in the end, it is people, not resources, the biggest economic asset that a country can have, go figure. The coming popullation burst is going to have disastrous effects in the economy.
It would seem to me that uber-mature economies like Japan and Germany have reached "end of history" status. They cannot grow anymore by applying the usual economic measures (tinkering with taxes, currency, banking policies, etc) nor by increasing productivity (they are massively productive economies already), so they have to change their fundamentals if they want to see growth, aka popullation.
For all the talk about an impending malthusian apocalypse, in the end, it is people, not resources, the biggest economic asset that a country can have, go figure. The coming popullation burst is going to have disastrous effects in the economy.
Yeah no. And always improving infrastructure is never a bad thing, and the price is alright.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
He's not knocking all infrastructure... It's pretty easy to see he's implying that you will see better ROI on other infrastructure projects rather than making an already fast train a little faster.
Nikodemos
Member
Keynesian stimulus could work, if it had a particular set of safeguards and conditions (like mandating investment in research/development/efficiency/new mid-level job openings and forbidding/restricting investment in market instruments). Unfortunately, corporate lobbyists don't like conditions like these.
European-style austerity is crap and doesn't work. It's become evident since 2011. Europe has floundered in stagnation for the better part of three years. Unfortunately, the Germans are hysterically terrified of inflation (the BVerfG in Karlsruhe has basically banned the German state from allowing the ECB to act as lender of final resort, i.e. print fresh money to buy national debt).
Ether_Snake
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The immigration thing is misunderstood. Japan doesn't need "millions of immigrants" at all, it wouldn't magically create jobs, plus Japan is already over populated anyway.
The reason the cultural issues are important is because they reduce interest from high-skilled foreign workers to ever go live in Japan, and limits the emergence of innovation in the workplace environment. By having very few foreign workers in important positions, and barring women from the same jobs, you end up with a conservative and retarded (YES retarded is the good word here; meaning late) work environment. There is very little room for innovation, very little capacity in interpreting the global market too due to narrow vision. It is always in catchup mode, and even when it does catch up it probably misunderstood what it is trying to catch up to. So the evolutionary process of the work environment in Japan is incredibly slow as a result.
When you have a diversity of people in the work force, innovation emerges due to the variety of viewpoints and life experiences. This is why the US is such a strong innovating force; it has a very diverse and educated population which bring forward unique ideas and also have a great capacity at understanding and analyzing the world we live in and hence how to create products or services that can meet that demand, and can do so at a quick pace. People like to break rules, to reinvent things, not so in Japan.
This is why a conservative country like Japan needs women to gain in stature and numbers in the work environment, but also needs educated foreign labor to bring about the needed cultural change needed for Japanese businesses to be able to interpret the global market accurately and respond to its demands, and change their work environment.
It doesn't need "millions of immigrants", that's just a simplistic catch-phrase with no thought behind it in a left-right imaginary battle. It needs an innovative educated and cultured workforce that will reinvent the work environment and better translate the global market's demands. People expecting this to occur as a result of government intervention are fooling themselves. Companies that want to survive will themselves put in place benefits to attract such foreign workers, in very particular less-conservative fields such as new technology/IT/social media/etc., THEN the government will start to adopt similar measures.
But it will take forever, if ever. For sure, it doesn't need even more people, let alone cheap labor.
The reason the cultural issues are important is because they reduce interest from high-skilled foreign workers to ever go live in Japan, and limits the emergence of innovation in the workplace environment. By having very few foreign workers in important positions, and barring women from the same jobs, you end up with a conservative and retarded (YES retarded is the good word here; meaning late) work environment. There is very little room for innovation, very little capacity in interpreting the global market too due to narrow vision. It is always in catchup mode, and even when it does catch up it probably misunderstood what it is trying to catch up to. So the evolutionary process of the work environment in Japan is incredibly slow as a result.
When you have a diversity of people in the work force, innovation emerges due to the variety of viewpoints and life experiences. This is why the US is such a strong innovating force; it has a very diverse and educated population which bring forward unique ideas and also have a great capacity at understanding and analyzing the world we live in and hence how to create products or services that can meet that demand, and can do so at a quick pace. People like to break rules, to reinvent things, not so in Japan.
This is why a conservative country like Japan needs women to gain in stature and numbers in the work environment, but also needs educated foreign labor to bring about the needed cultural change needed for Japanese businesses to be able to interpret the global market accurately and respond to its demands, and change their work environment.
It doesn't need "millions of immigrants", that's just a simplistic catch-phrase with no thought behind it in a left-right imaginary battle. It needs an innovative educated and cultured workforce that will reinvent the work environment and better translate the global market's demands. People expecting this to occur as a result of government intervention are fooling themselves. Companies that want to survive will themselves put in place benefits to attract such foreign workers, in very particular less-conservative fields such as new technology/IT/social media/etc., THEN the government will start to adopt similar measures.
But it will take forever, if ever. For sure, it doesn't need even more people, let alone cheap labor.
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Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Did I say that? Nope. Just called your ridiculous generalizing claim "nonsense."
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