Skykid wrote:circuitface wrote:
Anyway, back on topic, doesn't Japan have a horrible overpopulation problem anyway? It could be a natural response.
It's got an ageing population problem, first and foremost. Codgers who are too old to drive productivity and economy.
They need more bonking to ensure there's a decent pool of kids to hit the grindstone and surrender their lives to the worlds strictest corporate rat wheel.
I'm going to assume the rest of your post was sarcasm, cos I really can't tell.
That is the problem, yes -- the causes are many and there are only two solutions. Bitch all you want about people not fucking, which is a huge problem, but the bigger problem is the cost involved with raising a little punk. Rent, school, juku... all this shit to have an on par kid. It's fucking overwhelming. Trust me. Who the fuck would want to sign up for that? Then the father get to deal w/ the pressures of a shit job, and the mother with probably a bunch of a gossipy cunt moms in the neighborhood.
As the population declines and the economy deflates, one would hope there is a rock bottom, and things turn around. In all my days here which is most of my adult life, I can see a HUGE difference in cost of many things: rent and moving is one. However, that's not to say it's not drama free. Some landlords refuse to wake up and smell the economy, and try to charge ridiculous move in fees. Others are smarter. I just got a place with only a month deposit and a month to the agent. A true steal, and I like that place to boot! Some places are still asking 1 agent, 2 deposit, and 2 gift money. Fucktards. One place was asking 1/1/1, and it was on 4F w/ no elevator. I told him I'd take it if they knocked off the gift money. He refused, as did I. With my new place, I do have to pay a months rent to renew the lease after 2 years though. My guess is, when my son is 30, all of these things will be gone, as the young people will eventually be sick of being nickel-and-dimed their whole lives.
I'm no economist in the least, but I know why I wouldn't have another child and I know the hardships of a single one. It's brutal. If I had another, I'd have to move out into the suburbs and now you're talking about adding an extra hour at least of my life each day in commuting. Fuck that.
To paint it very vanilla, Japan has only one way to effectively fix the long term problem now, and that's open the immigration flood gates. The infrastructure and ridiculous costs require people, and Japanese are clearly not going to up their numbers. As the population declines, the economy will deflate, like it has been for the last 20 years. Land prices go down, people quit buying, etc. etc. It ain't pretty folks. It was nice to learn Japanese back in the 90s as a strong "business language". Now it's just for porn cartoons.
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