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Japan's economy in recession yet again to surprise of forecasters

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JordanN

Banned
Project Morpheus will save Japan!

It will get the Japanese spending more, revive dying or once irrelevant Japanese companies, and be a global export putting Japan back on the map again!

That is, if Sony doesn't want to lose to Facebook's Occulus Rift.
 

Shouta

Member
I do think there are issues within Japan beyond the most obvious ones like immigration, women in the work place, economic policy, etc. What Japan really needs to do is to develop other areas in the country as economic centers and not just places like Tokyo or Osaka, The overcrowding of the mega cities like that cause a lot of problems and are related to the various other problems that are obviously there.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed 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.

Pretty sure they blamed the devaluation of Western currency--the dollar and the Euro--for their pains last year. It meant that that any sales overseas represented a smaller value in Yen, which is the currency in which they do their financials.

On your point of global prestige, I think price has a lot to do with it. Many Japanese products are still of a very high quality, but competing with China and Korea, etc. on price is very difficult for them. It also hurts that stuff like televisions have more or less become commodities, and I doubt many Americans or Europeans give a shit who made their TV as long as it's massive and cheap and does the 1080p.

I do think there are issues within Japan beyond the most obvious ones like immigration, women in the work place, economic policy, etc. What Japan really needs to do is to develop other areas in the country as economic centers and not just places like Tokyo or Osaka, The overcrowding of the mega cities like that cause a lot of problems and are related to the various other problems that are obviously there.

This could certainly help. They need to decentralize things a bit. Tokyo has too much power and gets way too much attention and support from the government. Other municipalities just can't compete because they aren't given the power to do so.
 

Shouta

Member
It's not just about giving Tokyo less power but about lowering the demand of real estate in those areas. One of the biggest problems I see in Japan is that while the price of goods is not bad at all, the cost of utilities, rent, and are enormous while the earning power of regular Japanese people haven't scaled up to match. What happens is that folks need to save more to feel secure and divert spending to necessities thus they need to work more and spend less as a whole. More time at work means less time for socializing and more pressure on each individual so there are less couples being made and more folks feeling like they can't support anyone but themselves, etc. It leads into all the other issues that Japan is facing.

I mean really, living in Japan is actually not that bad once you move out of the huge cities. The cost of rent and land is a fair bit more reasonable because well there aren't as many people there and it's not as in demand. Yet everyone still insists to moving into those crammed giant cities where renting a place is a near impossibility without living with multiple people, reducing your spending etc. That's why developing other areas of Japan would really be helpful.
 

Nikodemos

Member
But having people cluster around a handful large cities isn't uniquely Japanese. It happens pretty much everywhere. Japan is merely an extreme example of this, due to geography (unlike many other countries, Japan doesn't have that much flat land, thus it can't easily expand its cities laterally).
 
On your point of global prestige, I think price has a lot to do with it. Many Japanese products are still of a very high quality, but competing with China and Korea, etc. on price is very difficult for them. It also hurts that stuff like televisions have more or less become commodities, and I doubt many Americans or Europeans give a shit who made their TV as long as it's massive and cheap and does the 1080p.

But that's kind of my point. People used to buy Sony because it was a Sony, just like people buy Apple because of the name. That brand drive is gone and I don't think currency manipulations are going to help that.
 

Shouta

Member
But having people cluster around a handful large cities isn't uniquely Japanese. It happens pretty much everywhere. Japan is merely an extreme example of this, due to geography (unlike many other countries, Japan doesn't have that much flat land, thus it can't easily expand its cities laterally).

It's not uniquely Japanese but the combination of these cities and their culture create a pretty different reaction that what would be seen elsewhere.
 

Nikodemos

Member
It's not uniquely Japanese but the combination of these cities and their culture create a pretty different reaction that what would be seen elsewhere.
The same could be said of South Korea and Seoul. Heck, a single metro area contains half of Korea's population.
 

lenos16

Member


Thank you for putting this into perspective for others. I still laugh at the notion that millions of cheap immigrant labor can somehow revive an economy that is fighting with local consumption issues and a demographic problem where the youth no longer have any incentive to go into a corporate job. I interned at a multinational company in Saitama for a while and it just seems that most of the work force is 40 and over with no young people in managerial positions (not to mention the few amount of actual new hires that were university graduates). I've seen foreign companies there trying to start fast-track career plans for new hires (which is apparently totally new to the japanese corporate culture) and can only imaging how stagnant traditional japanese companies must look like in comparison.
 

injurai

Banned
It's not uniquely Japanese but the combination of these cities and their culture create a pretty different reaction that what would be seen elsewhere.

Africa has some major cities nearing the population size of Tokyo. Its just it's mostly slums as opposed to built up metropolis. The trend globally revolves around people continually flocking to urban environments.
 

Neo C.

Member
Yeah no. And always improving infrastructure is never a bad thing, and the price is alright.
Japan is trying to open up a bit. For example, universities are trying to attract foreign students by offering classes in English, but that's just not enough. The Japanese need to ask themselves how to make talented foreigners stay in the country. In today's economy, it's all about fighting for talents, and Japan is lacking in this regard.
Btw., I'm a huge fan of improving infrastructure, but ROI should be priority.

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.
Yeah, the current plan of making a super fast monorail is just stupid and goes against the trend. Most European countries with good train infrastructure want trains with better acceleration and a speed limit, because it doesn't make sense economically to go faster than 250 km/h.
 

Shouta

Member
The same could be said of South Korea and Seoul. Heck, a single metro area contains half of Korea's population.

Africa has some major cities nearing the population size of Tokyo. Its just it's mostly slums as opposed to built up metropolis. The trend globally revolves around people continually flocking to urban environments.

Are you guys reading what I'm saying or just responding to a part that caught your eye?
 

Neo C.

Member
Are you guys reading what I'm saying or just responding to a part that caught your eye?

They don't directly contradict your statements though.
I agree with you that - in order to push Japan back to growth - developing other areas needs to be done. But I also think they need to develop their megacities further, the trend goes to add more green and life quality into these megacities. There's huge potential if only some politicians had the courage (and support) to do real reforms.
 

Shouta

Member
They don't directly contradict your statements though.
I agree with you that - in order to push Japan back to growth - developing other areas needs to be done. But I also think they need to develop their megacities further, the trend goes to add more green and life quality into these megacities. There's huge potential if only some politicians had the courage (and support) to do real reforms.

The latter! Is that so wrong?

Nothing wrong but it just means I don't need to spend the energy to respond because it's not actually addressing what I'm saying, lol.
 

Nikodemos

Member
Are you guys reading what I'm saying or just responding to a part that caught your eye?
I'm saying that Japan's excessive centralisation, while exacerbated by some individual factors, isn't a unique problem. Nor is the stark difference in prices, local attitudes etc.

The Japanese should take a look at other attempts to decentralise and see whether they succeeded, why they did/didn't and how much of that experience can be translated on a domestic level.
 

Shouta

Member
I'm saying that Japan's excessive centralisation, while exacerbated by some individual factors, isn't a unique problem. Nor is the stark difference in prices, local attitudes etc.

The Japanese should take a look at other attempts to decentralise and see whether they succeeded, why they did/didn't and how much of that experience can be translated on a domestic level.

What I'm saying is that the centralization present in Japan is not the problem itself but is a large contributing factor to what ails the country. Decentralizing Japan to an extent should help the actual problems. It's trying to tackle the problem from a different angle and not that centralization is an issue.
 

Nekofrog

Banned
Remember when everyone in the western world looked at Japan and said "wow they have the most amazing cell phones, their technology is 5 years ahead of us!"


yeah.

was it a software thing holding them back from staying a contender?
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Remember when everyone in the western world looked at Japan and said "wow they have the most amazing cell phones, their technology is 5 years ahead of us!"


yeah.

was it a software thing holding them back from staying a contender?

That's definitely a big part of it. Not a lot of great user interfaces have come out of Japan.

On the hardware side of things, it's pretty hard to differentiate yourself when it comes to smartphone design.
 
The other issue is scale economy in that there are too many companies in each sector. METI has long advocated consolidation but that's difficult and controversial for obvious reasons.

However, concerning the economy and the thread, the performance of Japanese products receives outsize attention. They are mostly unrelated to the recession.
 

numble

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.

No they don't, Japanese goods cost the same or more, which you have acknowledged.

Nikodemos said:
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.

Crab said:
Yes, this is (another) one of the problems with the Japanese economy.

Economies are integrated these days. A sale of an iPhone gets revenue to Apple Japan, which employs Japanese employees. Even for manufacturing in Japan, the raw materials are imported which cost more with a devalued currency, meaning that prices need to rise to make up for the higher costs.

The economy won't be invigorated if you hike up tariffs on imports, or place a higher sales tax rate on imported goods, which is what you would advocate for following your logic of "making Japanese goods more attractive."
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
No they don't, Japanese goods cost the same or more, which you have acknowledged.

Economies are integrated these days. A sale of an iPhone gets revenue to Apple Japan, which employs Japanese employees. Even for manufacturing in Japan, the raw materials are imported which cost more with a devalued currency, meaning that prices need to rise to make up for the higher costs.

The economy won't be invigorated if you hike up tariffs on imports, or place a higher sales tax rate on imported goods, which is what you would advocate for following your logic of "making Japanese goods more attractive."

It will for certain sectors. Just look at the Japanese agricultural industry (hot topic right now with the Trans Pacific Partnership talks).
 

SRG01

Member
So I don't think it's particularly clear cut that Abe's stimulus spending was actually helping the average person on the street, though it was obviously helping large exporting businesses by sinking the Yen slightly and it helped traders and investors, too.

From the first page, but I still want to add something on top of this: one of the biggest side effects of Abenomics was the record number of bankruptcies. This may be due to the shrinking economy too, but still hammers home that these monetary measures are only helping a select few.

Just to reflect on the Japanese economy as an aside: their main vulnerability isn't their lack of diversity but their inability to compete in the larger Asian and global economy. China and Korea, and to a lesser extent other parts of SE Asia, are the new centers of economic growth. Japan has no advantages against its competitors aside from a large tech base and financial sector.

Moreover, the increase in sales tax clearly highlights the weakness -- and thus solution -- to Japan's economy: domestic spending. Domestic spending could be stimulated by creating more free-trade agreements. FTAs may harm some industries, but the benefits to consumer spending would be huge. Conversely, these agreements can make Japanese goods more appealing to foreign markets -- especially to the billion-plus people next door. The Chinese-Japan-Korea FTA talks are promising, but we'll see if it'll actually get passed.
 
From the first page, but I still want to add something on top of this: one of the biggest side effects of Abenomics was the record number of bankruptcies. This may be due to the shrinking economy too, but still hammers home that these monetary measures are only helping a select few.

Just to reflect on the Japanese economy as an aside: their main vulnerability isn't their lack of diversity but their inability to compete in the larger Asian and global economy. China and Korea, and to a lesser extent other parts of SE Asia, are the new centers of economic growth. Japan has no advantages against its competitors aside from a large tech base and financial sector.

Moreover, the increase in sales tax clearly highlights the weakness -- and thus solution -- to Japan's economy: domestic spending. Domestic spending could be stimulated by creating more free-trade agreements. FTAs may harm some industries, but the benefits to consumer spending would be huge. Conversely, these agreements can make Japanese goods more appealing to foreign markets -- especially to the billion-plus people next door. The Chinese-Japan-Korea FTA talks are promising, but we'll see if it'll actually get passed.

These aren't incompatible aims. In fact, they're interrelated as the TPP enjoys wide acclaim from Japanese industry and is a cornerstone of Abenomics. However, signing FTAs alone is not enough to stimulate domestic spending. Breaking deflationary expectations is an essential step and to that end, monetary policy is the only item left in the toolkit.
 

Zhengi

Member
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.

This is a great post. I agree with you wholeheartedly.
 
If these guys running the Japanese government are surprised how the economy went straight into a recession after a tax increase, Japan needs better "leadership" that isn't living in the rich man's pre 90s bubble world. They're a bunch of morons.

My opinion as a non Japanese resident living and working in rural Japan since 07 is that the tax increase was a bad idea to raise it when they did.

Here's my reasoning; first, the disaster in 2013 with successive price hikes in electricity and oil energy fields. Nuclear power has been essentially off for nearly 4 years straight now with only one plant going online so the electric and LNG monopolies in Japan needed to, unrealistically, shore up their bottom line to pre 2011 fiscal year profits by charging higher prices to the general public. This price increase in turn raised prices for manufacturing and logistics, the increase difference in fuel and energy was kicked down to the consumer to keep profits at the same level before the disaster. This energy price increase ranges anywhere between 10-20% above pre disaster norms, despite the fact Japan had some of the most expensive electricity in the world, This influenced price ingresses in everything from perishables to luxury goods. The common citizen just getting by had to tighten their belt but somehow persevered. The loss of money and livelihoods in north eastern Japan also was a result of the disaster. The disaster hit their largest agricultural center. Japan is still reeling from this to this very day and will continue to because the government can't handle it.

That brings me to my second point, which chronologically comes before my first but whatever, is the Lehman shock in 08 which affected Japan just as much as the US. This caused downsizing and outright closure of businesses, and over all decrease in jobs and liquidity in the market. Japanese big business saw this as a great opportunity to hire more part timers and contract workers and less full timers who would normally receive full benefits. Essentially expectations of pay and benefits visibly lowered from this point even though it had been since Koizumi introduced the contract worker system. Because of the shock, the public, rightfully so, skeptically held onto their money even more frugally then before, especially business owners. Losses were again kicked down to the lowest common denominator, the consumer.

The third point to why the tax increase was dumb in its timing. A tax increase of 3% didn't seem that big on paper but it was the timing, paired with how the Japanese hold onto money that made the difference. The Japanese government, especially the most dominant political party that Abe currently heads, the LDP, has never made an honest effort in looking at their expenses realistically. Yearly budgets are increased, never lowered, and new more expensive pet projects are tacked on, expanding national debt even further. The disasters of 2011 and the cleanup of Fukushima are all on the public's tab despite Tepco being an autonomous private company in the black as of last spring...Their debt problem is soley the LDPs fault as they ran the show nearly uninterrupted and undisputed since the end of WWII with brief changes in leadership sprinkled about, the latest by the DPJ that only lasted a couple years around the time of the 2011 triple disaster. They are too attached to sustaining a failed status pro quo lifestyle pre bubble burst, but no one wants to admit it and the problem gets kicked down the road for future Japan to deal with. All these dolts will be long dead and gone so it's not on their conscience what they have done to their great country both economically and ecologically (nuclear safety culture is still a joke here despite what the government tries to claim, IMO.)

The apathy to government and macro economics by the average Japanese, is so thick here you could cut it with a knife. Nothing will improve unless the government actually cuts back on spending. By spending I'm taking about subsidies to big business and agriculture. The government also interferes with internal markets of supply and demand, especially in perishable goods like dclassisheat, and rice. Keeping rural cites and villages fully staffed and funded just as well as metropolitan areas is a huge drain. I understand its a bit callous of me to say, but Japan is shrinking and people need to move out of dying and dead towns like many that were affected by the 2011 disasters. Many places should just be written off but they don't have the heart or vision to do such a thing. Somewhat understandable to a point.

Japan needs to stop focusing on trying to become number one in Asia, that time is long gone, they need to focus on keeping Japan relevant and healthy fiscally and socially. Stop devaluing the currency, international trade only supports a handful of business note a days. Most of the profits by big names like Toshiba, Toyota, Sony, etc don't trickle down to the national economy anymore. They aren't hiring domestically and most of their business is done abroad. Even that is shrinking. Japan will continue to be in a recession till the basic price of energy and fuel go down. The price of daily commodities go down, and the amount of liveable jobs on the market increases.

TLDR: you can't raise taxes and chop the domestic economy's legs off at the knees (yen devaluation, trade deficit, no new jobs) right when they were showing the first signs of recovery. This might have worked if Japan had a sustained growth period of a year or so but a few months was lunacy. Prices have increased domestically many times over and there's only so much the public can cope with before it begins to affect the economy directly. As it obviously does now.

Will Abe lose his post over this? I doubt it. Even if the public were fed up with Abes cockup, the opposition parties can't figure out how to cooperate for a moment without backstabbing to bring down the LDP and right the course. There's no viable alternative and the people who vote are old people in rural places comfortaJapanith where the LDP are taking them. The youth of Japan are too apathetic to do anything politically about it. The LDP as it currently is, is incapable of fixing Japan. This will continue to happen.

Sorry if my writing is a bit all over the place. I hate typing on my phone during my lunch break.
 
Will Abe lose his post over this? I doubt it. Even if the public were fed up with Abes cockup, the opposition parties can't figure out how to cooperate for a moment without backstabbing to bring down the LDP and right the course. There's no viable alternative and the people who vote are old people in rural places comfortaJapanith where the LDP are taking them. The youth of Japan are too apathetic to do anything politically about it. The LDP as it currently is, is incapable of fixing Japan. This will continue to happen.

Sorry if my writing is a bit all over the place. I hate typing on my phone during my lunch break.

Great post, agree with a lot of it and sums up good points.

On the decentralization topic, read an article a few months ago, maybe a year, about how other cities are really feeling the hurt of this even Osaka. They are churning out some great students and potential new business/company owners, then realize there is either "no room" for them in their area because of older owners not providing opportunity for new startups. Eventually everyone seems to just find themselves in the Tokyo region sadly.
 

Escape Goat

Member
Japan needs to export more of its crazy. More panty vending machines and seizure inducing reality/game shows in america. We are ready.
 

Mr. RPG

Member

Japan has more government debt that any other nation

There's no way they have more debt than the US.

What am I missing here?


Nothing new. US is in the same position. GOP is incapable of fixing the US and the Democrats can't seem to get people to vote for them anymore (although I blame voters a bit more on this one).
 

Nikodemos

Member
Japan really needs to spool its nukes back up again. The energy costs are outright murdering them, both industries (making Japan-built products uncompetitive) and the guy on the street (whose bills went up repeatedly).
 
Japan really needs to spool its nukes back up again. The energy costs are outright murdering them, both industries (making Japan-built products uncompetitive) and the guy on the street (whose bills went up repeatedly).
The thing about those nukes, even at best they were only producing just under 30% of Japan's total electric based energy. Many of the npps in Japan are at or are close to reaching their operation expiry dates of 40 years. I'd say keep them on as well if it weren't for the piss poor corporate safety culture in Japan.

Plus, it's a country a tad smaller than the state of California, that had more operational nuclear power plants in it than the whole continental US. It's not practical especially given its geography, active faults, active volcanoes, typhoons that bring landslides/flooding, and above all tsunami risks. If they were to build new npps to take the place of older ones they'd have even stricter guidelines for where and how to build one now. The power companies aren't interested in investing money into new infrastructure. They want to milk the existing sites beyond their guaranteed lifetime safety limits.

Nuclear power isn't the solution. It's just a quick fix to kick the responsibly of safe, renewable, self sufficiency down the road. They still don't even have sites to properly dispose of spent fuel, let alone all the contaminated soil that's been gathered in Fukushima. I read not too long ago that Japan had enough nuclear fuel to make a crazy akin l amount of bombs if they wanted to. Not that they would.

Obviously I'm antinuclear but it's mainly influenced by my past experience with it while living in Japan before, during, and after the disaster.

Japan has adapted well to conserving energy since the disaster and lack of NPP power. Stores and restaurants went led lightning and private solar farms went up in what seemed to be instant as far as Japan is concerned. Less neon lights for stitched on, vending machines idle in the night in darkness till proximity sensors detect potential customers, and even heating and cooling has been really scaled back to the point that conventional energy systems are producing just about enough energy to live as comfortably as before the disaster.

OK that's enough from me on nuclear in Japan. I think I may have derailed the topic. But nuclear does play a small part in the import of fuel to power alternative power plants. So that's a thing I guess.
 

cvxfreak

Member
Not surprised. At all. Japan is never going to get out of its demographic black hole, and I feel like I have some personal insight as to why.

I've lived in Tokyo for over 7 years now, and have experienced university life, corporate life, freelancing life and now run a company that I established under my name here. I've been in Japan as a minor and as an adult, as a student and as a worker. I enjoy life here, but my current enjoyment here has come after years of experimentation, success and failure in some ways.

This is purely an anecdote, but it seems that many of the young, motivated Japanese people who could really do something to shake things up politically and economically have actually departed due to perceived marginalization by the older generation. Many of them are female. They're now living in New York, London, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Singapore, Sydney and other world cities and being as global and influential as the sky allows them.

I actually got into an argument recently with someone older (about 19 years older) and well respected within a certain circle due to his achievements and expertise. It was a silly misunderstanding, but the other person wanted to point out so clearly during the argument how our age difference defined our relationship. "Even if you are 100% right, you should still show respect to your elders."

Once I read that message and connected the dots, I was finally convinced. I honestly find the generation of Japan currently in their early 40's through early 50's, to be woefully ineffective as a collective (they're not bad people at all -- they're just worthless in the sense that they will not be the ones to pull Japan out of its mess). They're a limbo generation; they were around college age when the bubble popped, and were indoctrinated by the more successful generation above them, yet too young to have experienced Japan's postwar recovery and their associated agonies and triumphs, and yet too old to have experienced the internet during their formative years, thus are not highly influenced by global developments (social media, social movements, etc.) like the generations that came after them are; but then they also became the dominant workforce when Japan's economy began its 20 years of stagnation. To put it bluntly, they don't have values that are useful in the modern day. They will prioritize things like age differences over doing the right thing because their egos can't take it. If these people disappeared tomorrow, I'm convinced Japan wouldn't suffer in the least. That's what the recent argument with the older person made me wonder.

There are of course exceptions -- and in my experience, none of them are salarymen working in the corporate world.

No wonder talented, multilingual Japanese don't tend to stay. Young or old. The people they would have to report to would simply demoralize and silence them.

(I haven't talked specifically about why I resent that particular generation, and don't think it's appropriate for this thread as it's so subjective and anecdotal.)

As for skilled foreigners coming to Japan permanently, honestly, what's the point? You HAVE to like this country to make it work. You have to make your peace with the way things are here to be happy and successful, and you have to have a solid understanding of the native/dominant culture. Otherwise, people just end up leaving due to frustrations. Meanwhile, globe trotters can go to another major city like Singapore, London or any big U.S. city without the same burdens (I've never met anyone who went to Singapore because they were specifically fascinated with that country's culture), and arguably more opportunities in the business and academic sectors.
 

Nikodemos

Member
If you as a man got openly snubbed due to ageism, imagine what a young woman has to endure.

And I can anecdotally vouchsafe for your last part; most of the people I know who moved to Japan and stayed either went indie (with their own little izakaya, grocer or whatever) or married a Japanese and used their spouse's family connections.
 

Shouta

Member
Yeah, foreign skilled labor is a dead end for Japan in their current state. It's too rigid and unwelcoming to them to make it effective. I know I'd never work in Japan again unless it was for a foreign company or running my own company.

Power definitely is ridiculously expensive in Japan. It's probably the most expensive thing I paid for over there in regards to utilities now that I think about it. So it doesn't surprise me that when the nuclear power plants went down, the cost of running business went noticeably up. Having lived in Fukushima during the power plant problem, I'm still not anti-nuclear power in general. It'd be nice if we didn't have to use it but I wouldn't rule it out as an option with the right design and safety protocols. And that's kind of the kicker, I'm anti-nuclear power for Japan because I can't trust the damn government to safely run them now.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Not surprised. At all. Japan is never going to get out of its demographic black hole, and I feel like I have some personal insight as to why.

I've lived in Tokyo for over 7 years now, and have experienced university life, corporate life, freelancing life and now run a company that I established under my name here. I've been in Japan as a minor and as an adult, as a student and as a worker. I enjoy life here, but my current enjoyment here has come after years of experimentation, success and failure in some ways.

This is purely an anecdote, but it seems that many of the young, motivated Japanese people who could really do something to shake things up politically and economically have actually departed due to perceived marginalization by the older generation. Many of them are female. They're now living in New York, London, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Singapore, Sydney and other world cities and being as global and influential as the sky allows them.

I actually got into an argument recently with someone older (about 19 years older) and well respected within a certain circle due to his achievements and expertise. It was a silly misunderstanding, but the other person wanted to point out so clearly during the argument how our age difference defined our relationship. "Even if you are 100% right, you should still show respect to your elders."

Once I read that message and connected the dots, I was finally convinced. I honestly find the generation of Japan currently in their early 40's through early 50's, to be woefully ineffective as a collective (they're not bad people at all -- they're just worthless in the sense that they will not be the ones to pull Japan out of its mess). They're a limbo generation; they were around college age when the bubble popped, and were indoctrinated by the more successful generation above them, yet too young to have experienced Japan's postwar recovery and their associated agonies and triumphs, and yet too old to have experienced the internet during their formative years, thus are not highly influenced by global developments (social media, social movements, etc.) like the generations that came after them are; but then they also became the dominant workforce when Japan's economy began its 20 years of stagnation. To put it bluntly, they don't have values that are useful in the modern day. They will prioritize things like age differences over doing the right thing because their egos can't take it. If these people disappeared tomorrow, I'm convinced Japan wouldn't suffer in the least. That's what the recent argument with the older person made me wonder.

There are of course exceptions -- and in my experience, none of them are salarymen working in the corporate world.

No wonder talented, multilingual Japanese don't tend to stay. Young or old. The people they would have to report to would simply demoralize and silence them.

(I haven't talked specifically about why I resent that particular generation, and don't think it's appropriate for this thread as it's so subjective and anecdotal.)

As for skilled foreigners coming to Japan permanently, honestly, what's the point? You HAVE to like this country to make it work. You have to make your peace with the way things are here to be happy and successful, and you have to have a solid understanding of the native/dominant culture. Otherwise, people just end up leaving due to frustrations. Meanwhile, globe trotters can go to another major city like Singapore, London or any big U.S. city without the same burdens (I've never met anyone who went to Singapore because they were specifically fascinated with that country's culture), and arguably more opportunities in the business and academic sectors.

老害: the post!

I agree, though. The Dankai-no-sedai and their immediate successors are really holding the country back with their horribly outdated values and "best practices."

Japan needs to export more of its crazy. More seizure inducing reality/game shows in america. We are ready.

(Un?)fortunately, there really isn't a whole lot of that stuff still airing on Japanese TV.
 
Release Norn MK II DLC; literally everyone in Japan will buy it and save the economy.

In college, I gave a speech about how Japan's lifetime employment system is literally killing Japan. Narrowly, about how it affects female employment and the birth rate. I think they should seriously reexamine this outdated employment practice. To compete internationally, companies need to have the flexibility to restructure, and the Lifetime Employment (where you work for one company your entire life) does not allow for this to be done easily. It has its advantages, though.
 

Yamauchi

Banned
There's no way they have more debt than the US.

What am I missing here?
Generally the best way to measure central government debt is as a percentage of GDP. In Japan it is variously estimated at between 220% and 240% of GDP, while in the US it is at about 105% of GDP. A good Japanese economist would point out that a large portion of that debt is due to the Japanese government (central bank) lending to itself (the central government), so theoretically you could wipe that off and it'd be somewhere around 120-140% of GDP. But if you did the same for the US, ours would also drop to below 80%. US debt has also stabilized at its current ratio as the federal deficit is at about 2.8% while GDP is growing at around 2-3% while in Japan the government deficit is at about 8% of GDP and the GDP there is stagnant / declining. Put bluntly, they're never going to repay a vast portion of the debt they have accumulated.
 

DonasaurusRex

Online Ho Champ
Photography? Even the sensor in your beloved iPhone is made by Sony. Japan has diminished but not completely wiped out.

yeah consumer level the old guard is gone with Panasonic, Hitachi, Sony, Toshiba and their spin off brands. However in components and the industrial grade stuff they are still around and numerous. I guess a lot of that tech becomes cheap over time though and they cycle in and out of having high to low margins.
 
Do you guys mind tell me how much is electricity cost in Japan?

Here in New York, it has the most expensive rate in the Continental US. The residential electric bill is about $20/month for basic charge and on top of it about 20-25 cents per kilowatt-hour. So on average is about 25-30 cents per kw-hour.

How much is the rate in Japan?
 
Do you guys mind tell me how much is electricity cost in Japan?

Here in New York, it has the most expensive rate in the Continental US. The residential electric bill is about $20/month for basic charge and on top of it about 20-25 cents per kilowatt-hour. So on average is about 25-30 cents per kw-hour.

How much is the rate in Japan?

I live in Yamanashi prefecture,a service area of Tepco. I live in an older apartment which had poor insulation and a 30 amp breaker box. For every 10 amps the box, the higher base fee.

I am in family of 3 household so my rates will seem high compared to most of Japan GAF that live in one room apartments the size of rabbit hutches, that I once lived in as well.

I just got my bill for October's usage. Here's the breakdown:
22.86 yen/kWH post 2011 disaster this rate goes up and down depending on how much you consume.

Tax: 562 yen

Base fee: 842yen
Tier one power fee: 2331yen
Tier two power fee: 3679yen
Fuel service charge: 597yen
Renewable energy fee: 196yen
Auto pay ennrollment: -54yen (gee thanks)
-----
Total bill for October 2014: 7592yen

We used 262kWh last month.

We are paying %10-15 more since 2011 because... Tepco reasons. So yeah it's pricey. Just imagine what it's like during summer. We easily break 10,000 yen a month. Winter is about as bad, as our lease contract won't allow oil furnaces in the building so we use only electric ac to keep the place warm in the morning and night before bed. Having crap insulation adds unnecessarily to our energy usage. Poor insulation is common here, especially in buildings made before the mid 00s.


We didn't use any heating or cooling in October. We do however have a 9kg washer dryer all in one unit we use twice a day because we can't hang our stuff outside due to severe pollen and dust allergies. It runs about a total of 2-3 hours a day if we run the dryer cycle. I would assume our rates would be a bit better if not for that.

Depending on what plan you have, they seem like cable TV, as it's provided with peak hours plans, morning, night, and other packages so it's all a bit convoluted. I really don't know the exact hourly rate because of how it's broken down. The rate above is a general number for an average household user. I just know how much I've used. I hope that gives you a good idea.

The current yen to dollar rate has shifted a lot since the beginning of this year. Most of this year it's been about 1$ to 100yen. The current exchange makes it seem cheaper but it's really not.
 
$64 for 250 kwhr, thats not too bad.

If it's summer month is on par with NYC rate.

Is Yamanashi prefecture "countryside" or "suburban"?
 
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