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Japan’s Population Problem In Five Charts
With Abenomics facing severe 'reality check' problems as base wages tumble for the 24th month in a row, inflation surges, and the "Misery Index" soars to 33 year highs, this week's release of the annual report from Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare paints a very grim picture of Japan's population problem.
Japan had 238,632 more deaths than births in 2013, a record.
Taking immigration into account, the total population in 2013 declined by 217,000 people compared to the previous year. Assuming the average woman has 1.35 children—a bit below the current level—Japan’s population is predicted to shrink to 99.1 million in 2048 and 86.7 million in 2060, according to a report by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. That’s down from 127 million currently.
The biggest cause of death was cancer at 28.8%, followed by cardiac disease at 15.5% and pneumonia at 9.7%. Cancer has been the top cause of death since 1981 and has continued to increase. For the age group 15-29, the death rate for males was more than twice of that for females, and the predominant cause of death for both genders was suicide.
In 2013, Japan had 1,029,800 births, the fewest on record since World War II.
The number of births has been on the decline since the end of the second baby boom in 1973.
Women are having slightly more children but still well below replacement rate.
The total fertility rate in 2013 was 1.43, a 0.02-point increase from 2012. The figure represents the number of children an average woman will bear in a lifetime based on fertility data from a given year. The total fertility rate has been gradually rising since hitting a record low of 1.26 in 2005, but is still from the level—slightly above 2.0—needed to keep population steady over the long term.
Fewer couples are getting married.
In 2013, 661,594 couples got married, a postwar low. The average age at the first marriage was 29.3 years old for women, three years older than the average two decades ago. The average age for a woman to have her first child was 30.4 years old in 2013, and that figure is also rising.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said one reason for the trend is the difficulty women have balancing career advancement and family. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government has proposed more support for working mothers, but the budget for supporting families with children is barely 1% of GDP for Japan, while it is over 3% of GDP in England and Sweden.
Get back to work Mr. Abe...
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And the
who needs marriage when you have hookers
who needs children or savings when you have social security
who needs a job when you have machines to do the work
japan = paradise
"Who needs marriage when you have hookers?"
The real reason why prostitution is illegal....
The declining population and the declining amount of uncontaminated (non-radioactive) land will reach an equilibrium soon.
the united states has the same issue,,,,,everyone is about to collect on social security how this going to work
how does all these pensions get funded
If it's anything like this NJ town then they borrow it.
http://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/2014/06/lodi_to_borrow_money_for_poli...
Incentives to enter various professions or jobs has changed greatly the past 10-20 years. My cousin's new neighbor is a fireman who paid cashola for his $1.4 million house. Retired from some tiny fire department in California. He's going to plan a backyard landscape costing about $120k he said.
Gee.
japan is fucked
the Japanese are the most apathetic complacent lethargic people i've ever met. and the worst part is they do it with such a in-denial fake sense of politeness that gives them a sense of excuse for all their social historic and ecomic poisons that only grow their lethargy and apathy each year.
just see their demographic and marriage/sexual relationship trends. it's no wonder Abe is trying to to turn to nationalism to inject any resemblance of life into the country. and it's no wonder that it's always failing miserably. i liked how Kyle Bass quoted the common expression over there: "it cannot be helped" ... that sums up Japan perfectly. especially when you picture it with a big fake smile.
Japan is FAKE POLITE. Japanese women are likely the most sexually repressed and obedient women in any major developed nation (so, excluding Saudi Arabia, etc). Japanese are taught to be polite, and to most westerners they don't see through the facade. But having lived in Japan, the women are, by and large, incredibly subservient.
A very large percentage of young adults in Japan have zero interest in sex or romance... something like 30-40% based on a recent study. Their population is shrinking because the men rather play video games and watch adult videos, and the women have been sexually repressed for so long they no longer care about relationships. Those that are in relationships are subservient and never expressed their true emotions because it's polite. This is very emotionally unhealthy, and this is CLEAR based on the facts of Japan's incredibly low sex rate, dating rating, and other proven statistical methods for 20-30 year olds. This ZH news is just another example of it. Japan is a beautiful culture in many ways but it has a very dirty history of war atrocities, imperialism, and gender inequality and repression that it refuses to acknowledge, and it continues to try hide with politeness, and it has continued to cause a lot of social problems and will continue to get worse.
chinese troll?
jb
No, pretty much spot on IMHO...
Mrs. Guevara and I lived 5 years in the Osaka area of Japan, even spawning a little Guevara whose birth was paid for by the Japanese government. We left soon after because the idea of raising a gaijin child in that racist pressure cooker of a country was simply insane.
Contemporary Japanese culture and current society are toxic to childrearing in Japan regardless of nationality. While early childhood remains idyllic, the screws begin to turn in kindergarten gradually tightening until college entrance exams 12 years later. At that point high school kids are living in pure hell, wasting time in classes where they are taught to parrot meaningless and out of context facts and figures just so that they can do well on the exam. Then its on to juku cram schools where they spend hours after school being taught what they didn't learn in class that day. The culmination of this is a test which pretty much determines the rest of one's life. Do well and you can be a drone at a highly-regarded company. Do okay and you can be a drone at a lower-tier firm. Do poorly and it's pretty much temp work and living with the parents for the rest of your life.
Imagine the pressure to conform of junior high school being present for the rest of your life. The only escapes are alcohol, porn and suicide. All three are currently sanctioned by Society to the point where if your commuter train is delayed because of a jumper you can get a note from the train conductor to give your boss excusing your tardiness. "Dear Section Chief, Please excuse this slave for being late to his position due to another slave ending his life beneath the wheels of one of our trains."
Even their porn sucks, but I'll leave it to the other ZH'ers to explain crap like tit-bondage and tentacle rape.
It's a different culture, and it's their home. You obviously don't belong there, and it's a good thing that you left. However, your self-righteous sense of superiority is misplaced. I could take the rest of the day explaining to you whay the US of A isn't superior in any way, shape, or form to Japan.
You don't like them, fine. You don't have to. They are different, and diversity is a GOOD thing. It is also one of the main evolutionary engines...
Me thinks Japan will survive just fine. After all, they did it for more than 10x the amount of time the Americans existed in some sort of civilized society. They've been through much worse in all that time, and eventually came out stronger. They might get smaller, and weaker, but they will survive and continue being polite, even during the worse of any crisis.
By comparison, when the screws will get tight enough, I believe America will blow to pieces and succumb to endless inner fighting among the all too many modern "tribes" populating it. The glue holding the American society together has worn thin, after years of relentless progressive effort. The proliferation of gangs in the inner cities (but also in subburbs and country side) is just a sympton of a society devolving back to primitive tribalism and force. The center simply became too inept and incompetent to hold anymore. When it will blow completely, it won't be fun. Those who believe they could just watch it on TV while mindlessly crunching popcorn, are just delusional. They'll do it for a while (unless the lights go out first) , but eventually somebody will knock on their door too... and there will be nowhere to hide.
The Prussian method of schooling, I can't really call it education, is responsible for much damage on this planet. It has done untold damage around the world in its effort to turn children into obedient fungible human resoirces for corporations, government, and the military. Germany, USA, and Japan were probably the biggest adopters of this system. Japan probably the one that took it to the highest heights.
Don't forget that superstition is also a powerful influence. That significant drop in the fertility rate back in 1966 is attributed to the belief that girls born in a year of the fiery horse (every 60 years) are not suitable for marriage, thus couples try to avoid having children in those years.
Wow, a bigger divot from superstition than from WWII.
"how does all these pensions get funded"
They won't, they will collapse together with municipalities, one after the other!
The next brain dead move will be politicians creating law to take over Pensions, IRA's, 401k's and any other retirement accounts. In their attempt to control the economy and society they will destroy it. When it comes to economics and society they're dumb as a sack of rocks!
The pensions (which are almost all way too high) can get "funded" by inflating away their value. Social security and wellfare can get funded by increased taxes which a smaller working population can pay because their productivity will just keep increasing because of automation.
The pensions can be funded with fiat which is backed only by nuclear weapons.
print another trillion, there are pension checks to mail.
Debt is merely wealth seen from a different angle. America is the richest country in the world.
Go long ink, we have a mighty heap of printing to do.
Just wait for one of those 400' tall chimney stacks that are falling apart and beginning to lean, topple over on one of the reactor buildings -
Then watch in 5 years when cancer rates skyrocket -
Good times ahead for Japan -
And I want to know the over/under on the Olympics actually occurring in Japan in a few years -
I'm betting No Way
It's not a bug, it's a feature.
The Japanese are reducing their population, right in time with peak oil, and we've all seen the oil production vs human population graph.
http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Population.html
Thanks for the link.
The most important reason for reading ZH, IMHO, is that (despite the increasing number of government trolls) (and despite the often inane and pointless commentary) there have always been a huge number of intelligent commenter/readers capable of bringing new sources of info to the table that I might otherwise never have been privy too. This was a good one.
given what is the oldest profession, i'm not sure your first observation is convincing.
but, seriously, this is so not limited to japan. sixteen countries have lower fertility rates than japan, including slovakia, poland, ukraine, south korea and taiwan.
usually one sees 2.1 as the replacement rate for a stable population. the cia factbook for 2014 lists some 115 countries currently below the replacement rate including most of europe, the caribbean, central and south america, the u.s., russia, china, iran, canada and australia. really only afghanistan and sub-saharan africa, north of south africa, are much above replacement rate, and these countries often have high infant mortality which may require a higher fertility rate than 2.1 to be an actual replacement rate.
about half of the world's population lives in countries below replacement rate. imo this effect will only increase with widening global recession and further education/empowerment of women.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_terr...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility
Europe has solved that problem by importing every unlettered extremist jihadi goatfucker they can find. That way our productivity will skyrocket, our economies will be saved, and in our old age, our grateful new citizens will take care of our needs!
Vive la jihad! Deutshland unter Alllah! Allah save the caliph!
When one sets about replacing the family with government via the welfare state, education system, urbanization, inheritance tax, anti-competitive regulations affecting small, family-owned businesses (see inheritance tax for a double tap), etc., these are the results.
And the only real solution is mass immigration. But the Japanese are so "Insular" that they will actively select economic obscurity over immigration.
Destroying the culture via mass immigration is not the solution, except for the social Keynesians. The solution is to stop central government micromanagement and allow the society to evolve while retaining the culture. The only problem with population decline lies in the massive cost associated with the central government and, of course, all the debt laid on the back of average Japanese families.
Iceland of the Pacific perhaps?
I think you are referring to the US, where BOTH "Solutions" have been employed??
Describe "BOTH solutions" employed in the US. I get mass immigration (which results do not seem particularly beneficial leading one to wonder why you would visit such a program on Japan). What's the other solution?
Economic obscurity/destruction.
And your "Solution" again shows a total lack of understanding of what makes Japan tick. Getting the Government out of the economy in Japan is even more unrealistic than in the US. Governments in Japan change every year and the country is actually run by Government bureaucrats and the BOJ. Which is again a part of the fundamental "Cultural" problem. Technology has overtaken the "Just in time" system advantage that Japan once had. So now what? I remain of the opinion that if Japan will not "Look outwards and forwards" it will become economically insignificant. Recent Japanese economic history supports that view. Otherwise, Japan will, for sure, maintain its 15th century culture and ways of thinking. If that is such an achievement? Perhaps the long-term objective is to become a living anthropological museum with all the Shogun books being re-written in real time?
But I'm sure you know best, I only lived in Tokyo for 4 years and it is the only place I have ever lived (And I have lived all over the world) where I never made any lifelong friends and never felt welcome, even as CEO of a major Corporation.
Incidentally, China may have different ideas for Japan's future as it declines economically?
I see. So you would sacrifice a culture that has developed for centuries for an economic quick fix? With this type of attitude, it is little wonder you did not feel welcome and could not make friends.
If Japan becomes economically insignificant, it won't be because they did not have enough low-wage tax payers who do not speak the language. Your solution not only kicks the can down the road to maintain the status quo, it brings generations of unintended consequences in the future. Japan needs to stop focusing on European socialism and American dominance and return to it's Asian roots. The tide is shifting East.
Japan can never dominate China just like it can never dominate America. Given that, it should reconsider it's relationship with both China and the US in order to seek it's own interests.
It's not my choice as a non-Japanese. I am simply pointing out the facts from the viewpoint of a 'Gaijin" Frankly, I don't really give a fuck, ultimately. But Japan is on a downward economic projectory, indesputably so? Incidentally, you never proposed an alternative solution, other than your idealistic "The Government should get out" idea. Where in the world is that ever going to happen?
Bottom line and my last comment (I'm geetting bored) is this. How is Japan going to grow the wealth of it's people going forward? Does it care?. I concede that the same question equally applies to the US. With an economy comprised 70% domestic consumption, how can an economy like the US grow without an INCREASE in consumption? With net disposable income declining, is that possible?
We are talking common sense here??
Another debate on ZH about two extremes -- do we maintain the status quo and import a bunch of low wage debt slaves to keep the ponzi alive, or should we get rid of government altogether and inevitably return to a feudal society. How about a lot less government where it is not needed and get rid of central banks, instead? Not a perfect solution, but the other two have been tried and failed. The middle ground is a lot like what worked in the U.S. until the government ceded to the bankers in 1913 and then inevitably turned into a police state run exclusively for bankers and oligarchs circa 1980.
You misrepresent my view. I never said get rid of government. In fact, your solution should be the first step. Additionally, I would advocate for the decentralization of many governmental functions.
Fair enough. I re-read your posts and see that you were not calling for complete elimination of government, just de-centralization. My bad.
Is obscurity so bad, if there is still a Japan?
What is a Japan worth? I can't tell you. You'd have to ask the Japanese.
As for their national defense, with current technology, that is not a demographic issue. You're smart enough to understand that, so there's no point in trying to fear-monger over China.
In fact, by slowly reducing population, Japan reduces its dependencies and its vulnerabilities. Put it this way: why should Japan let itself get dragged into a global raw materials bidding war against billions of people in China and India?
I'm not saying this is a bed of cherry blossoms for the Japanese. While the big birth cohorts of the past are in their elderly dependence on a smaller workforce, a lot of Japan econ stats are going to look ugly. There will probably an overall decline in living standards, mitigated to a certain extent by lower housing prices.
If the Japanese can just hang in there for about 20 more years, they will be OK.
So would I ... if I have to choose between multiple cars and a TV in every room and a stable culture I'd go for the second in a heart beat.
Pity the choice has been made ... I can keep my overly inflated wage and consumption habits a little longer, but that too will dissappear in the end as the muslims reach critical mass and we don't have sufficient normal people for them to assimilate into and they start shitting up the place as badly as at home.
It appears that the Japanese have preferred to experiment with the consequences of an aging and shrinking population, rather than experiment with the consequences of dramatically altering the ethnic composition of their country through the mass importation of labour.
Either way, it's an experiment. Either way, there are costs.
I think the Japanese are correct to allow the population to shrink. There is going to be a 20-30 year long economic pinch while the last big cohorts age and pass away. But then the inverted pyramid turns more into a slightly tapering column, which is actually the most efficient population age structure.
They'll be OK. They just need to eat some pain for about another 20 years. That pain will be mitigated for most people by declining housing costs.
During the entire adjustment period, we can expect all the mainstream economists will be down on them, even though from an ecological and trade-balance perspective a smaller population for Japan makes some good sense. Since warfare in our era is not labour-intensive, I don't think a smaller population will significantly weaken Japan's national defense.
The second derivative of the total fertility rate has already turned positive, so we can be pretty sure the trend won't be toward zero population. Anecdotally I notice that attitudes in Japan are becoming more pro-natalist than they have been in a long time.
I'm just amazed that the Japanese upper class have not decided to flood the country with cheap labour in order to make more money. That's what the elites in Europe did. Of course, there is still plenty of time for the Japanese elites to sell out to the global monoculture.
"...the budget for supporting families with children is barely 1% of GDP for Japan, while it is over 3% of GDP in England and Sweden..."
And why should the taxpayer be forced to do this at all?
And why should Abe get back to work (and do more or something different)? Government needs to get the fuck out of people's lives...period!
why?
- because the children did not ask to be born into this world, and they should not be punished for the lackings of their parents.
Society has a moral obligation to protect its defenseless from becoming victims.
Government, were it a democratic expression of the will of the people, would be a proper vehicle.
The stance that children should be left to suffer because you don't want to be taxed ios reprehensible.
You are assuming that the welfare system is not part of the problem. The cost alone is partly responsible for the economic stagnation. For young Japanese, the job situation is such that they are being responsible by delaying marriage and not having children. The cost of real estate/rent is prohibitive for raising a family, especially when close to half of the population is working part time.
You assume that it is the duty of the state to care for children when it is the actions of the state which have put children at risk.
...as is the stance that says I must become my brother's keeper under threat of government violence. I've nothing against helping others, but it must come voluntarily, from the heart, and not with a gun in one's back.
"Government, were it a democratic expression of the will of the people, would be a proper vehicle."
And if governments forced labor from people (say in mines or factories or forests etc.) to feed & clothe their offspring, this would be acceptable for a proper society?
How many times do we have to point out the founders' express and obvious intention to prevent tyranny by safeguarding liberty against mob rule? (democracy straight up). I am thinking of flying this July 4th the Bill of Rights rather than the chest beating emblem of our 50 fedgov satrapies. The federalist papers might require too many flag poles.
It's not the will of the people if you are using the weapons of government to force me to pay for something I never asked for. I don't want to pay SS, or anything else. I don't want to even deal with any of it, but I am forced to through taxation.
You can not call something the "higher moral" while ignoring that you are acting immorally against those that did not ask for involvement to make that so called "higher moral" happen.
If you don't like to pay taxes pick another land owner (ie. state) as your landlord.
On the other hand .gov enforces NAFTA, the Drug War, copyrights, patents, etc which make profit for the wealthy who then control .gov. So if you aren't in "the big club" but are forced to conform to laws which deprive you of life and liberty are you not justified in using .gov to retake what little you can of your deprived living standards?
Government itself is immoral. Once you accept that fact the rest is just debating what serves your interests. There is absolutely no moral argument for a group having a monopoly on force.
What if that group owns the land and not using force is part of the contract you sign to enter it?
Darwin's, 'Unnatural Selection'?
U b da judge'd...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticidal
jmo
Hunter-gatherers were under pressure to eliminate deformed newborns and those that they would not be able to support. Sometimes it was to become fertile again. It was necessary to restrict the population for group survival.
All that changed with the advent of agriculture and settlements as the impetus became ever increasing populations and the power it entailed. Survival meant larger populations.
Liberals are representative of the survival behavior of the hunter-gatherers, and conservatives of the settlement folk.
I don't think hunter gatherers were overly concerned about any deformations, the church taught that in their persuit of their percieved perfection. And nothing has changed since the advent of the agricultural era as far as that is concerned.
I don't think pajama boys have what it takes to hunt and gather, though they do go in for extreme solutions for dealing with the unwanted with disturbing ease.
"The biggest cause of death was cancer at 28.8%, followed by cardiac disease at 15.5% and pneumonia at 9.7%."
It would be interesting to understand why cancer was on the top of the list at such a rate. I thought the Japanese diet and lifestyle would not have made them so vulnerable to cancers.
Is this Fukushima effects coming into view? Seems Fukushima is too recent to be a factor.
Stress in the salaryman workforce. Part of the social engineering by government/big business.
"America: disease exporter too."
Still...go to hell forever if we're talking suicide as that is the absence of hope. Rosy scenario's are bs in my view...but no one was ever harmed by a nice picture.
I thought women in Japan painted?
you nailed it, its all about nuclear power, fukushima and cancer being the natural remaining killer that we all carry and becomes prominent when you cure most of ebrything else.
if africa is the dark continent, japan is the fluorescent island. land of the nuclear rising sun indeed.
still, the japanese arent stupid, invented qe and are in now in their third lost decade. if they cant solve it, employing yellen and draghi to mimic japans actions means we are looking into our own future...japan just got there at a peak in 1991, instead of 2006 is all.
those who don't learn from the mistakes of history (fiscal deficits and monetization of government debt via qe in our case) our doomed ot repeat it...ad nauseum
Not downplaying the potential for Fukushima to turn into a bigger problem down the road.
But currently, cancer rates in Japan is simply due to stress induced from their culture of overwork.
Other Asian nations, namely Sth Korea and China have also picked up on their stress-related deaths and illlness rates as their economic growth took off.
Sth Korea for example, has also picked up high suicides. Being a working Bob in East Asia is a stressful existence.
Indeed. Many point to post-war Westernization. However, the destruction of the family (people eat more processed, prepared and imported (Japan currently supplies less than 40% of its own foodstuff) food rather than eating at the dinner table), the increasing pace of the lifestyle (perhaps Westernization, at least modernization) and shrinking economic security are all factors.
Most likely cigarettes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_cigarette_consumption...
Japan 17th in world at 1841 per capita per year. US 51st at 1028.
Aging population means more cancer.
there are two other factors. one is salt intake wreaking havoc on the filtration system and pancreas. the other is industrial pollution. like china(and the usa for that matter) japan polluted their country to the point of saturation during the gogo years and the result is manifesting itself today.
Japanese death rates remain at 100%, it just that death by cardiovascular disease is lower there, so the rest of the causes get a boost.
In such a long-lived population (life expectancy over 70 even for male smokers, and over 80 all-round), you can expect malignancies to account for a large number of deaths.
Japan has always had a relatively high rate of stomach cancers.
they are smart for not breeding
"Replacement value ain't just a number."
Fuck replacement if you have to live in slavery.
yep. there are zero prospects for a bright future.
they are smart for not breeding
Your job is to have like a thousand kids dude. Marriage is bullshit of course.
There is a raging debate in the scientific community as to whether women are "smart" in not having kids.
Spot fucking on. You have to be nuts bringing in 2 or 3 kids into this world with the end of civilization rapping on our door
The solution is simple, if a bit time consuming.
http://86bb71d19d3bcb79effc-d9e6924a0395cb1b5b9f03b7640d26eb.r91.cf1.rac...
I'm not sure if they now offer pipes directly to 3-1 without that dangerous detour.
The Japanese must game like they have never gamed before.
In my twenties, you looked at their ankle size. A man’s universal protocol.
Hillary cankles
http://underthebutton.com/blog/wp-content/imagescaler/cb1044c67cf4e34ce78fbac56f985f0c.jpg
Was married and divorced.... The government has absolutely destroyed marriage. What should be a relationship built on love and mutual benefit and satisfaction has turned in to nothing more or less than a business partnership. After all you need a fucking "license" to get married. That is before the divorce. After the divorce, typically one of the former licensed business partners becomes the Master, the other the Slave. Some of you may understand this better than others.
As some on ZH regularly elude to, not letting the government formally recognize your relationship as a state sponsored marriage is another way to drop out of their system. Kudos to those that take this path!
Mrs. Atomizer and I have been both divorced twice, we stay out of the fucked up system. No marriage, just trust. 7 plus years and a great empire.
Edit: when you work together rather than competing , your partners for life. Food for thought.
Maybe Japan needs to look at India where they have 7 or 10 childen. Their always making babies.
Japan decided a path of ruin when they followed the Federal Reserve's instructions. The US gets to see Japan blow up before they do.
Growth. Say it with me... growth!
Ponzinomics FTW.
growth to service compound interest----
india's fertility rate is 2.51, less than kuwait, greater than fiji.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_terr...
Yep, the birth rate in India has plummeted, especially in the Hindu (as opposed to Muslim) regions. And it will plummet even more, since they've aborted the baby girls, so the men can't find wives.
Reckless tampering with a complex human ratio could severely impact society as the children reach adulthood. The boys will grow up and have to immigrate.
China has been doing this culling of girl babies massively since the imposition of the one child policy, and so has something rounding up to a 75 million person gap between the sexes, excess of men over women. imagine the state of California and France being 100% male, to get a grasp of the numbers, not as a, uh, anyway don't take the metaphor all the way.
I wouldn't use India as a role model for myself, or recomend it for anyone else either.
India = Idiocracy.
They are already there.
Bacon. I refute both Hinduism and Islam thus. Done.
New slaves are needed to carry on a ten year depression. The climate fucks are capitalizing on the sun climate control expense and sentencing you into your ObamaCare dirt bed. It’s a riot. We see through the lies.
Like I keep saying, Japan is a ticking time bomb which miraculously has not gone off yet.
A lousy demographic, incredible debt levels, no resources, Fukushima and an unfriendly super power next door.
What else can one wish for?
You can wish to learn good japanese as a second language. Lots of professional opportunities to be had for unemployed americans there in the future, for those willing to move and give it a shot.
Japan does not have a "population" problem, but, like the rest of the world, a government and central bank problem.
"Too many thieves, not enough victims."
No population problem here. It's called balance. The shitheads in office haven't figured it out yet cuz they have too many favors they owe to their cronies.
Never been to Tokyo yet and I don't want to go. Give me a cool mountain stream anyday.
Japan does not have a lot of natural resources. Meanwhile, running a global economy based on being able to strip-mine the natural resources of the whole planet is running into real limits of diminishing returns. Therefore, for Japan to function by being able to import raw resources and export finished products has some deeper basic problems!
Spaceship Earth's problems are intensified on smaller islands. Allowing more immigrants into Japan, (which was the insane thing that North America and Europe's ruling classes decided to do to temporarily resolve these kinds of problems there) seems to not be as culturally acceptable for the Japanese. Rather, one could say that the Japanese are actually resolving their problems in the best way possible?
Remember, we live in a Bizarro Mirror World, where everything is proportionately backwards, and the language that we use is almost totally the biggest bullies' bullshit, which makes coherent discussions of chronic political problems practically impossible. Indeed, the history of successful warfare based on deceits has resulted in the death controlling murder systems being done through the maximum possible deceits, in which processes the controlled opposition groups, including major religions, and other old-fashioned ideologies, were complicit and co-opted into promoted the biggest bullies' bullshit world view.
In that context, remember that what we commonly call "birth control" is actually a form of death control, from a rational, biologically based view, rather than from a bogus culturally based bullshit language point of view. From that perspective, as the Japanese debt slavery systems have led the way towards debt insanities, in the background was always the denied and obfuscated social facts that the death controls back up the debt controls. From those sorts of perspectives, the Japanese are implementing collective death controls, to deal with their collective debt insanity situation. They are working those through, on their little island, with its relatively huge population, compared to its available natural resources. That is also happening in various ways, through the global economy, as the strip-mining of the planet's natural resources almost everywhere is reducing the real opportunities for Japan to continue to be wealthy by importing natural resources and exporting finished products.
Since Japan is NOT allowing massive immigration of people from all over the planet into Japan, their overall demographics look the ways that they do. In my view, their birth rates are the result of UNadmitted collective death control policies, which they no more publicly admit and discuss in coherent ways than they do their debt control policies. In a sense, they are doing human ecology "corrections," like they need to also do political economy "corrections." ... Perhaps, over a long enough period of time, they could thereby bring their population size back into some sustainable balance with the size of their island, and its levels of more sustainable natural resources ???
HOWEVER, the rest of the world may well not allow Japan enough time to work that through ... Who knows ... I am merely guessing and speculating. But nevertheless, although their medium term demographic problems are serious, at least they have a possible longer term better outcome. Contrast that to North America, or Europe, etc., where insane immigration policies have resulted in cultural suicides, which have also cancelled out any of the longer term benefits from a shrinking overall human population, which could be balanced better with the limits to exponential growth based on being able to continue to strip-mine the planet's natural resources.
Overall, I still no not think that the prospects are looking very favourable. I still expect that the human species exponential growth will drastically overshoot, and then collapse. I doubt that any sane public political debates will surround those trends in the foreseeable future, as they surely are barely present at the present time. Despite that I expect that the world population during the next Century or so will more probably become less than a billion, rather than more than 10 billion, and that Japan will be probably be caught up in the insanities of those globalized social storms, nevertheless, one could perhaps regard Japan's demographics as a bell-weather for how a population experiencing its own runaway debt problems internalized those as death controlling behaviors?
The general principles that apply to the currently dominate globalized civilization are that the ways that its political economy operates inside of its human ecology are that the debt controls are operated through the maximum possible frauds, while its death controls are operated through the maximum possible deceits. Those basic cultural realities, that society is dominated by the best professional liars and immaculate hypocrites, regarding every aspect of how that society operates, varies in the various regions of the planet, which are channeling their respective social and environmental pressures through their own local Bizarro Mirror World Fun House institutions.
In my opinion, the Japanese are behaving sanely, but they themselves are probably not able to see nor say that. On the other hand, I regard North America as behaving in a much more utterly insane way, because North America is able to continue to indulge in the cultural delusions that exponential growth will never end. At the present time, the Japanese are struggling to deal with the underlying facts, of a large population, for a relatively little island, with few remaining natural resources. Of course, pretty well the whole world, or Spaceship Earth, is in a mad state of mutiny, which makes predicting any kind of saner adaptation to the limits of exponential growth seem very improbable.
JAPAN ACTUALLY DOES NOT HAVE POPULATION PROBLEM, IT IS MANIFESTING A POPULATION SOLUTION. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is mostly still rushing as fast as possible towards resolving the global problems through Peak Insanities, when we reach Peak Everything Else ... IF, IF, IF, North America and Europe had accepted that their demographic problems were actually POPULATION SOLUTIONS, rather than POPULATION PROBLEMS, then, maybe those places would have a hope in hell of going through a saner demographic transition too. However, instead, the ruling classes in those places decided to flood them with immigrants from all over the world, which process is still continuing.
Welcome to the Bizarro Mirror World Folks, since North American and Europe are controlled by the international banskters, who specialized in being dishonest, and backing that up with violence, they were able to force Japan to imitate the West as much as possible. However, that imitation did NOT include the Japanese allowing Japan to be overwhelmed by immigration to the same extent. Meanwhile, North American and Europe have all the same problems of debt slavery, driven to become debt insanities, which threaten to provoke death insanities. North America and Europe have not allowed themselves to allow there to happen the POPULATION SOLUTION that the Japanese have. Instead, North America and Europe are actually much worse off, if one stops taking for granted the Bizarro Mirror World perceptions promoted by the banksters' triumphantly fraudulent financial accounting systems totally screwing up everything to be seen backwards to the ways they really are!
In my view it is impossible to exaggerate the degree to which a civilization that is based on enforced frauds is crazy, and risks collapsing into chaos because of that fact! The established financial systems are FRAUDS, which drive people to strip-mine the planet, while congratulating each other about how good that is! Since our actual murder systems developed through the history of successful warfare based on deceits, and that segued into our financial systems based on successful frauds, it is practically impossible for our civilization to deal with emerging environmental and ecological problems.
Japan is, sort of, doing that, but through a kind of driving backwards, backing itself into POPULATION SOLUTIONS, which are still being seen as POPULATION PROBLEMS. There is almost nothing in Japanese society, nor any other surviving culture, that has not been conquered and assimilated by the Western Civilization systems of lies, operating robberies, which could rationally address the issues of the limits to the exponential growth of the human population and human activities. Japan is PERHAPS slowing down, in covertly sane ways, rather than rushing to drive into a wall, and then bounce off a cliff. However, it is dubious that the rest of the insane world will allow Japan enough time to work that POPULATION SOLUTION through ...
The issue with Japan in my view is that it is a GERONTACRACY.
They can keep the boat afloat and under control but the cost to the younger generations is so substantial that the results are clear to see. No kids is just one sign.
The question is how long can the Boomers maintain control at the executive level ? Perhaps for quite some time as modern Japanese culture doesn't like confrontation.
Perhaps we will see a return to the Azuchi–Momoyama & Edo periods where Japan culture turns inward. Purges itself through bloody struggle only to emerge united at the end of its blood letting.
My guess is they are the first to embrace default in the hope of being able to reboot their economy before the rest of the G8
What worries me more about Japan and many other crowded countries that may not or can not provide or accommodate adequate social growth space and roles for the young are the dire implications contained in this experiment, which shows a failure to progress the young and to build family relations and a viable circumstance led to mass sexual failure, mass violence, mass sexual perversion, cultural failure followed by a catastrophic population collapse down to literal 100% extinction in an otherwise completely healthy mouse colony with a plentiful continuous supply of resources:
The only thing lacking was a lack of private secure physical space, which created over crowding, then a causal lack of social space that prevented any lasting relationships or healthy social development and structure, and the constant unmanageable intervention of complete strangers into every activity of life, which resulted in an explosion in aggression. As a result there is zero privacy and lack of a personal space or territory others can not intrude on. No loyalty, no validating role, no privacy, no private sustained relationships possible, no way to stop constant interruption by complete strangers, no place of your own, constant movement and violence all around you.
Sound like familiar mix?
Death Squared - The Explosive Growth and Demise of a Mouse Population
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1644264/pdf/procrsmed00338-0...
The more worrying feature was that the damage once incurred for males was permanent and they did not recover their sex-drive and breed at all, even after being taken out of the colony and placed with fresh young females that had not been stressed. In every case these male mice still failed to breed and there was no generation after them. The extinction from reproduction failure starts slowly and then steadily accelerates downward to complete extinction.
We don't know if this can occur to human societies as well, but we're creating similar precursor conditions for it and Japan may be the proverbial canary in the coal mine. And frankly, most of the increasingly aberrant behaviors seen developing in the experimental colonies have also developed within crowded human societies and one of these is a steady decline in interest in reproductive bonds and families, with a parallel growth in violence, sexual perversion and behavioral aberrations.
One of the common features was that overcrowding collapse was that longer life and better health meant the young were unable to move into higher status roles in the normal ways, as these were already filled by older mice, so basically they lost all aspirational energy and became the mouse equivalent of bums or else completely indifferent and withdrawn.
Sounding familiar yet?
When kids need to take meds to go to school, and schools have metal detectors and security guards, and perversion is considered normal and accepted, you may have this very problem - undiagnosed.
100% extinction resulted from total social degeneracy due to bad social structure/opportunities alone.
Aaand queue our fedgov HUD actively piling us on top of each other via anti-human totalitarian stupidities such as Plan Bay Area. People want space. Government wants efficient control of people.
Stunning link you posted there. The continued destruction of functional families (and the follow-on effects), the emergence of the "metrosexual", low birth rates in developed countries.... It's all forseen in the mouse experiment.
you gonna pass that thing around or are you gonna bogart it all night?
But seriously, you have some good points...buried in there somewhere....
I do believe Japan is simply following a natural cycle, it's a cycle some of the rest of the world will have to eventually follow in their own timeframes too.
You have a crowded nation of high population densities living on a chain of volcanic islands that has no natural resources other than the ability to produce some food. An ordered decline is the norm and should be considered part of the natural cycle.
Trying to fight it is not going to work, you will only dig yourself into a hole that you didn't need to be in if you just allowed natural cycles to take its course.
The same is true of economic growth. Unfortunately, the financialization of the economy demands constant growth no matter what the long-term social and economic costs.
then how do you explain china or india? you are close, however. all the industrial nations have a decling population. the reduction in population can be called natural in the sense that industrialization eventually causes a surplus of labor. a surplus of labor is cured by the creation of more jobs and a reduction in the actual numbers of workers by a natural selection. surplus labor means a poor population. in an industrial society children are an expensive investment with an unknown return. only people who can afford kids have them(except in the usa where more kids mean more .gov money) leaving the poor childless. in an agricultural society children have an almost immediate return on investment so farmers have lots of kids who earn their keep from a very early age.
in economic terms, an increase in productivity diminishes the need for more labor so labor has lfewer children because children cost too much. what is interesting is the decline in population is exactly what a post industrial economy needs to remain prosperous. the alternative is a giant welfare apparatus to support the unemployable. unfortunately for japan(and all the western first world countries) the welfare system has the immediate need for a solution to their demographic structure of lots of ald retiress depending upon fewer and fewer workers. if japan can get through the next twenty years they may have the solution to the post industrial economy, a natural population adjustment to the labor requirements of the local and national companies, the real determinants of population growth, positive or negative.
Excellent summation. Throwing ever more worthless fiat currency at the problem in the form of welfare will only hasten the eventual collapse of the current system and return it to a more sustainable population level. But this collapse will be slow motion until it isn't. And then you have blood in the streets. Rinse, repeat. It's the enduring condition of humanity. Only this time the collapse of industrial societies will be accompanied by bloodshed and destruction on massive scales for the ONE following reason (as discussed on these pages before), the care and feeding of nuke power plants. The supply chains and maintenance must be maintained or eventual meltdowns happen. And then it's truly game-over.
With all the nuke plants that Japan has, how are they going to maintain them after the big reset? Even when shut down, the coolling has to be maintained.
Japan needs to sell more Sushi/Eggroll from trunk of Honda and Lexus brands.
/sarc
Their President poohs his pants. But at least they aren't fat eh?
I'm sure the radiation isn't going to help their population increase.
Japan will throw in a 5,000 yen initiative and 11.3398 kg fresh fish in the boot. Fucking idiots.
To solve this crisis, make more Godzilla movies.
I think we've reached peak Godzilla at this point. 60+ movies? Let's move on.
I agree that Japan does not have a population problem, but has a pension problem. How do you fund a pension when there is no tax base, meaning there are no new workers. This is why Abe is scrambling, absolutely scrambling for ideas, anything to fund the pension plan. Too bad he can't do anything really because change in Japan moves at a snails pace unfortunately. Is it any wonder really that young Japanese are not getting married when prices are high on everything? For example car registration and inspection run about $1000. Oh and a drivers license cost about $3000 to get and takes months. Yep you read that right. 20 pounds or rice costs $30 , yes the staple of the diet. Beef, forget it. Fish is cheap if you like mackeral. An apple is a buck fifty, watermelons the size of bowling balls cost $15, if you're lucky. Gee Mr. Abe, I wonder why the younger generation doesn't want to get married and have kids while working at Burger World and living in a closet sized apartment?
Sony
solution: nagasaki II
How's about the pensioners accept a lower living standard during retirement and get the fuck out of the way so the young can move up in the workforce. If they're so fucking "homogeneous" those employed young can help provide for the retirees without the .gov middleman.
We could call this radical system something like "Families doing what they're supposed to do" to sell it to the people. If you don't comply you get to feel "shame".
the biggest mistake the US made was making deals with Japanese war crminals. Japan is suffering because it still has skeletons in their closet. You can't escape that bad karma when it comes around.
Yes, the US would have done the Japanese a great service if the politicians and businessmen who started and conducted the war were taken out. America, however, always seeking its own interests, thought these people would be so beholden to the Americans, Japan would become a puppet state for American interests. It worked out well for the US, sucks for the Japanese.
Several years before Fukushima I was in a Trader Joe's here in Silicon Valley. I will never forget the couple in front of me; a Japanese man and woman. She was strikingly homely; very strange; who has ever seen a homely Japanese woman?? But she was remarkably homely. And he was really, really, handsome!! But the main thing was the guy's demeanor. She was paying the clerk, and he was in a state of bliss. I have never seen a human being with a "bliss" aura before or since. I have seen people with "depression" auras; a few of them, horribly, killed themselves not long after. But never a "bliss" aura. Well, he was focusing on their infant. By far the most blissful human I have ever seen, was a Japanese man, focused on his infant.
The world is pretty full, but it seems a shame that a few more Japanese people aren't having kids. Maybe they can move here, some of them, and have them away from the radiation.
He probably had the aura because it was one of the few times he was able to spend moments with his family.
His job will take him away from family for too much time.
He does not mind giving his money to his wife to run the family finances. She will forever put their family first and he knows it.
What's the problem? Japanese many times are sectarian buddhists. Sectarian buddhists conclude everything in relationship, form and variety is just a coincidence, non truth. Actual truth is "nothing". Haha, what an envious fools are these so called "buddhists".
this is only a "problem" if you look at it from the perspective of Capital, the employers who have to hire labor.
If you look at this from the perspective of Labor, the workers who sell their services to Capital, this is a Good Thing because it keeps wages up.
See "The Law of Supply and Demand."
Now in the USA, we have the entire nation adopting the perspective of Capital.
Capital operates the USA as a livestock operation. They want to cram as many worker-consumer livestock as possible onto the livestock ranch called the USA.
Head 'em up! Move 'em out. Keep those immigrants moving!
Rawhide!
Hell bent for leather, any kind of weather! Livestock till the end of the line...
Sad to see ZH take the perspective of the corporations on this.
Ok so how is a war with China going to help Japan's population growth?
Why the fuck would anyone think that a shrinkng population s a problem? it's the only thing that might save Japan's or any other country's ass. I'm guessing we're looking at 50% unemployment in the near future and probably much higher in the future so a declining birth rate is perfect.
It'll be interesting to see what effect fukushima has on headcount.
A lot more two headed people?
Haha i didnt know how to word it delicately.
I say we encourage them to import vast amounts of economic dynamos from the third world. Here is a map of the world with average IQs as per weath of nations and IQ by Lynn and Vanhanan. As you can see, if they bring in lots of Africans and Muslims, then they bring their average IQ down to around 80 and increase their birth rate. This will create economic demand as a result of benefits and food stamps to this new population which will stimulate economic activity.
Then they can dismantle their incredible culture to accomodate the new comers and their vibrant enrichment.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/IQ_by_Country.p...
if a Ponzi, er, I mean economic system can only be kept functioning through population growth, then the entire planet is in trouble. Infinite growth on a finite planet; what could possibly go wrong?
http://olduvai.ca
They just need to import some Mexicans.
They build robots.
Japan is a test run for America.
The Japanese have no idea that they are a lab experiment.
The Americans have no idea that their fate follows that of the Japanese.
This is all good news for the Globalists.
As another post said, Japan's problem is debt and central banking. Population decline is not a problem. Do you think someone in rural America would care if the population of NYC or LA dropped rapidly due to low birth rates? Of course not. Japan is no different.
Well said, Dept and unfunded promises are the biggest problem.
Having kids in this economic environment, unless you have money, is ill responsible.
Why have a kid when there just going to be subjected to bullshit and wish they'd never been born?
It's a very selfish act.
Yes, if one is consciously aware, but since so few are, it is merely an instinctive act, like all animals.
Kids are not that expensive
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/04/20/nearly-free-kids-toys-that-kee...
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/05/26/what-is-the-real-cost-of-raisi...
126M on that island.
they could stand to breed less for a while
The first and most important career of Men and Women is raising children. Eventually there will be one person on the planet and that person I am sure will have just a fabulous career.
When you introduce demographics into the picture we see that Japan is stuck with an aging and shrinking population that is evermore expensive for the government to provide for. Adding to its woes the Fukushima nuclear disaster has shuttered its nuclear power plants and forced the country to import more expensive energy alternatives.
Neither monetary nor fiscal policy will adequately solve Japan's problems. Continuing to run fiscal deficits only means that government debt is pushed onward and upwards leading to a variety of possible scenarios as to the what the end game will be. Simply put, the fundamentals for Japan are lousy. More on the downward path that Japan is on in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2014/05/japan-sliding-towards-abyss.html
Short Japan!
That's racis
heh, t's are people too!
"How's about the pensioners accept a lower living standard during retirement and get the fuck out of the way so the young can move up in the workforce. "
This myth needs to be stopped. Economics is not a zero sum game. Someone else being productive doesn't automatically make you less productive. I'm a young person working with lots of baby boomers, and they're not really a problem. They're part of the team. They do things I can't do, and I do things they can't do. The older people know a lot about regulations and what needs to be done. The younger people make it happen. Removing old people from the economy would slow the economy down considerably because there would be a lack of expertise in many fields.
The same argument is said about immigrants or women entering the work force. Women don't take jobs away from men. They create new jobs. The overall economic pie gets bigger.
1. Earth is overpopulated.
2. Japan solves this overpopulation in a most human way.
3. why should it be an issue, if they shrink?
My father in-law was a wise old WWII vet. In one of my last conversations with him before he passed away he asked me “…tell me in the last 50 years what do you think is the biggest thing that happened on this planet to mess up its future? ...” Such a profound question! I had never been asked that before in my 67 years on this planet?
I thought for a minute…Then I begin to rattle off …Atomic bomb… He quickly cut me off in the middle of my dissertation as he laughed and said “…hell no! It was none of that. It was the pill (birth control pill). The pill has done more to screw up (no pun intended) families and society than anything else in hundreds of years. Mark my words when they changed how nature worked it is going to have grave consequences …”
So when I read articles like this about Japan’s aging population problem or hear about a male friend’s daughter disobeying him, having sex with the boy next door and destroying their family. Then I remember that wise old WWII vets words …
No, the pill was not a big deal; it just made a big advertising splash. Humans have been using contraception since there have been humans, and the pill is not all that much more effective (as used) than some of the old time methods. Most of the women I know who have gotten pregnant by accident were on the pill; it's just that their irrational side led them to not take it properly. Half of pregnancies in the U.S. are still unplanned; if the pill were so potent and effective that wouldn't be the case.
127 million is a country the size of California can do with a decline in population. I'm just glad they didn't mention that immigration was the savoir and the Japanese should open up more. Yea good idea just look at the US, Canada, UK Sweden and on and on immigration just does wonders.
I live in Vancouver, Canada. The local population is drawn from all parts of the world. This afternoon I was in my local park, and it occurs to me that those of us in the park came from ethnic groups from most parts of Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas. Just when jogging around, I overheard bits of conversation in four different languages. There was a mostly naked woman suntanning on the grass, while a woman in nearly full chador was placing her young daughter on the swings.
The world was found on a single city block, and there was peace. Not bad.
That being said, why should Japan become more like Canada? Why can't Japan remain ethnically homegenous? Just because a multi-ethnic society might not turn out badly, doesn't mean that every country should be made to adopt it. Canada is good, and Japan is good, so let us both muddle through an uncertain future.
Remember that the importation of labour does not solve the problem of low fertility rates. Migrants from high birth rate countries rapidly reduce their fertility rates, usually within one generation, or at most two. So when you import labour to remedy an aging population, what ends up happening is that you get an even bigger aging "bulge" in the population down the road.