No sex please, we're Japanese

[Wenchang]

I don't know much about Japan's economic structure to protect big business. Usually Gaijinpunch tends to paint a narrow view of the ineptness of business practices in Japan, although that tends to be at an admin level rather than government.

I suspect Gaijinpunch and I are simply talking about different things. There are tons and tons of inefficiencies in Japanese business practices(ask anyone who has worked with Japanese software developers for example!). What I am asserting is only that Japanese manufacturing, not the office jobs, the software development, the companies who make items primarily for domestic consumption, etc. remains efficient by world standards. For example Japan has always been and remains on the cutting edge on the production and innovative use of nickel metal hydride batteries. Or a better example would be an area like semiconductor silicon, where two Japanese companies, Shin-Etsu and Sumco, are essentially the world's producers. To consumers abroad these types of outfits are unknown, but they are absolutely essential to the production of goods. As I said, I think these types of companies are the strength of Japan's manufacturing. The days of it being a land of cheap labor have been gone for many decades, and so they have adapted by specializing and improve in creating producers goods that are part of the world's products while also innovating on manufacturing processes. This is what Japan and other East Asian nations have done and in my view it's a big part of the reason for their success in the last several decades.

To add to your own argument of the economic issue being overblown, I suppose we can again go back to Sony who are still chugging away despite a decade of severe losses - I honestly don't know the legal way they manage to stay afloat without closing any their loss-making sectors.

Big Japanese companies usually don't close. They don't have much competition abroad in the domestic market(by design, if there's a more mercantilist nation on the planet than Japan I would like to hear who that's supposed to be), and there are many features in place and state action if necessary to keep the companies afloat. Sony has reformed some areas where they should be able to turn profits around eventually. Companies like Sharp for example are in more trouble really(unfortunately I might add because the quality of their products is still good).

I was under the impression Japanese production of electronic goods was largely outsourced (or based in) China these days?

China is mostly just an assembly plant. In the electronics industry most of what you're referring to are operations where young women for cheap salaries work long hours essentially clicking components together on a very fast production line. China is not producing the actual high end components for the most part. Those come from the rest of East Asia, particularly Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Just since I didn't mention it earlier, it may also be of interest to note that Japan's primary competitors in export markets, namely Germany, South Korea, and Taiwan, are also countries with aging populations(with the Korean's aging even faster) which are either declining or will soon be.

I thought public debt partly affected the country's credit appraisal? Not that any of that would affect Japan's ability to borrow, currently, but I did indeed think having the world's highest public debt presented some kind of long term issue if it does, as you said, manifest as private credit, which would lead to higher default rates etc.

Japan is at no threat of default.

Okay, I have all this, and your scholarly economic lesson is incredibly enlightening, but there's one thing I can't quite fathom: does Japan, like any nation, not require taxpayers?

It may not require an increasing population, but I'm sure it doesn't require an increasingly ageing population? If the balance tips toward having a vast proportion of the population in retirement or unable to take up labour based jobs or even produce new businesses, doesn't that strain government funds to the point where they're forced to keep borrowing as opposed to working on reducing national debt?

They're already at the point where they borrow more. So does the U.S. So do many countries. As I said, it's not the issue. In floating exchange currencies, government is the issuer of the money, it is the monopoly essentially. If they want to "borrow" money all they do is "create" it by typing numbers in a computer and credit it to an account. As far as taxes go, there are already efforts (misguided ones I think), to increase taxes by things like the consumption tax(but I think that's just going to hurt aggregate demand and is thus counter-productive). Japan's tax base is by no means disappearing, I don't really see the problem here. Taxes are not necessary to generate funds anyway(as I said, money starts by being created by the government), they are necessary to guarantee that people are working and producing so they need that money the government is producing and you can then have an economy. In regards to starting new businesses, entrepreneurs are always a small segment of a population, I don't see demographics really mattering much in that area.

No doubt having a high amount of elderly people will create some sort of burdens, it will be interesting to see. But I think these problems are greatly exaggerated in the endless stories and documentaries which always proclaim Japan is suffering from a demographic crisis namely because there's that assumption I keep referencing(especially when most of this stuff comes from countries who have trouble keeping their working age population employed, irony of ironies). Will the demographic trends create some problems? Sure, they probably will, but if it was that big a problem Japan would already be suffering from losses resulting from workforce losses and the like because after all, they already have the highest % of elderly in the world. So far that hasn't been an issue. I don't think it will be an issue at all until perhaps the ratio of oldest to youngest is at its peak, and that will be a very short time after which the country will shift to becoming young. But at some point we have to look at things as they are and ask why we're treating having a high life expectancy as a bad thing.

[Skykid]

Yay, we have a discussion! \(^_^)/

I feel widespread commercialism is to blame, which inadvertently cycles back around to Otaku, who feed on a specific arm of media.

Once more: Otakus are, I don't know, the 0,001% of the population. That's statistically irrelevant, so I can't see how you can possibly blame them, at least not on solid empirical grounds.

It wasn't intended to be statistically relevant, I was merely using an existing example of a consumer (relevant to this thread) to illustrate the dumbing-down powers of commercial media.

@Wenchang, may I ask are you a Forbes journalist? Based on your previous link to the site, comments, and this article by the same guy, I can't help but wonder.

Big Japanese companies usually don't close. They don't have much competition abroad in the domestic market

Well, Olympus is still afloat, despite the loss-covering scandal and acquisition of several other companies with little real credit: there's some wizardry there, I would have predicted bankruptcy.
Sony though? I think they have a huge amount of competition in all their sectors. Videogaming is probably (assuming) where they're on most solid footing, and this generation stand to do better than the last, but their other consumer enterprises surely have a huge amount of competition, both domestic and abroad. The losses dictate that it's the competition eating into their profits. That's not to say they're going to close, they're an enormous corp with a money pool beyond comprehension, I'm sure, but I'd argue there's a fair amount of jostling occurring in their major markets, and they're not leading anymore. I think they're ranked third for consumer TV's behind two Korean companies, and their shareholders are playing hell over it.

China is mostly just an assembly plant. In the electronics industry most of what you're referring to are operations where young women for cheap salaries work long hours essentially clicking components together on a very fast production line.

Yep, we're talking about the same thing. What I was getting at is that outsourcing work for anything leaves a gap domestically in terms of jobs, tax, etc. Just look at Youngstown Ohio - they outsourced everything and left everyone on the breadline.

Japan is at no threat of default.

Sorry, I didn't actually mean that, it's a misunderstanding on both our parts.

Japan's tax base is by no means disappearing, I don't really see the problem here. Taxes are not necessary to generate funds anyway(as I said, money starts by being created by the government)

That's the great falsehood/mystery when it comes to major economies: being able to simply print currency when in need. I'm not an economic expert, and I appreciate your input, but going really off topic isn't there a danger in simply printing more money? Why are certain countries seemingly unable to print money (I assume Greece's attachment to the EU means they're reliant on Germany and have no central bank?) while others trailing huge debts (USA) can keep injecting new cash flow to prop themselves up in times of financial crisis?

Thanks in advance.

And post more.

[GaijinPunch]

I was back in London for three months, recently in Hong Kong, as of today I'm back in China. Not too goofy yet, but I'll let you know if anything happens that's as relevant as the entire country not fucking and threatening the future of its economy.

I was w/ the GF on the way home from the gym, watching some woman on the wrong side of the road sit there and look at the oncoming car like they were the fucking idiot in the situation. It went on for a 10-second eternity, until she finally got out of the way. This is one of those times when you praise Japan's lack of reproduction, but low and behold as she drove off (to cut over another lane and turn left... WTF?!?!) there was a toddler... in the front seat... not only w/o a car seat, but no seat belt. Fuck, not even sitting in the seat. Kid was in the middle part. Dip shits... total fucking dip shits.

- Most of the "pandering to shut-ins," otaku culture, and such is relatively niche in Japan. They are not any kind of barometer for the behavior of the mainstream Japanese.

Let's tone this down a bit and look at it from another angle. Japan is a very "keep to yourself" society. Nobody says hello or good morning in Tokyo until they are 70 years old... by that time, they're just happy to be alive. Japanese are professionals at keeping to themselves. I was on my bike at 8AM w/ an ice coffee. I slipped, went totally horizontal, took an ice coffee shower (thank God it wasn't winter), and not only did 5 people not help... they walked by and didn't even bat a fucking eye. This isn't an isolated incident. The entire culture is based on you being your brothers keeper. In this case, your brother is your entire family, and any kouhai (junior) you take on in some type of professional relationship. No time for the rest. With this historical background I think it's only a matter of time before more people stop making the extra effort it takes to have real relationships.

- The idea that a declining population leads to either a weaker economy or worse living standards is nonsense. In a country like Japan in particular, which has a shortage of arable land(and is resource poor in general), overpopulation is a much bigger problem(there's a reason Japan is one of the biggest purchasers of meat from the U.S. and why food is so expensive there). Japan incidentally has historically recognized this and that is why there have been many attempts to curb population growth.

Hmmm... yeah, can't say I agree. Japan has plenty of land... everybody just wants to live in Tokyo. Land is free when you go 100km from the capital in any direction (until you hit Osaka). The doom and gloom from population comes in the fact that taxes aren't raised that will in turn take care of the old. This is obvious and true in any cuntry. It's worse in Japan as this is not a cuntry that has embraced technology. There are 2 or 3 people doing every one persons job. Why? Counter measure to unemployment. Some of these can be hacked off at the expense of "good service" which Japan prides itself on. However, many cumpanies still relay on a very long line of humans doing a computers work. Japan requires overhead... more than it needs. Of course it could wake up and smell it's own shit and streamline everything. That's not going to happen though.

Japan's high standard of living is only maintained for one reason: savings (eg, old money). When that runs out, everyone will be singing a different tune.

has low unemployment rates

Pretty much doctored, although I'm too drunk to look it up.

, does not have the type of unstable corporate behavior you see in places like the U.S.

Read me. The only reason Japan seems to have stable corporate behavior is b/c it has yet to discover investigative journalism. These mother fuckers are dodgy. Japan has redefined the "old boys club".

[GaijinPunch]

I WANT YOU ON ME NOW.

Sure, I'm right on it.

By the way if we want to play the game of throwing out names of big companies as examples, I could easily put Toyota out there, whose profits remain exceptional.

Interesting... as I think they are the ones that lobbied to Parliament to intervene and get the yen to a sane level. I would have to go look to find the number but when it was in the low 80s, they stated every time the dollar dropped another yen, the lost a hundred million bucks. I might be off a digit in either direction, but it was quite mind-blowing. Abenomics has at least brought the yen back to a somewhat competitive level (it's still 10% stronger than the median of the last 15 years) but Japan Inc. is getting it's pussy smoked by it's competitors. Japan has no idea how to make an inexpensive product, which is what everyone else is delivering.

Again, there are two sides to this coin. Japan's divorce rates(on a purely % of married/formerly married basis), for example are about half that of most Western nations. So what are the social conditions that lead to high divorce rates in most Western nations?

This can derail the thread, but I avoided divorce and lived in a horrible marriage for years b/c I wanted to be in my son's life. Japan's judicial system is something out of the 1500's. The divorce rate is low b/c there is a nasty stigma that comes along w/ divorce (where as the liberation of divorce in the US is somewhat celebrated). Also, infidelity isn't that big of a thing. I have a few friends who are married that have girlfriends on the side. None of my friends squirmed a bit when I was taking my girlfriend to events, knowing good and well I had a wife that hated me at home, and a son that loved me unconditionally.

Assuming we have a normal, unhappy family where the woman works at best part time, and the main is a corporate slave, the end result of a marriage can be: 1) her keeping her shit job and supporting any kids with it, getting a very minimal amount of child support from her ex-husband (think like 10-15%). 2) the husband only seeing his kids when his ex-wife deems it necessary (if at all). I love living here, but socially this place is in the fucking dark ages. The courts raise their hands and say they like to leave this up to family to decide what's best for them. This is noble, sort of, but also a cop out since most people are fucking idiots.

I would again like to re-state that the assumption that declining population leads to a declining economy is a claim for which there is zero evidence. There is a much greater correlation between population growth and poverty(and this applies even to poor countries, as the nation with the 2nd highest economic growth rates in the world is Mongolia with its tiny population).

Perhaps, for other countries. But Japan has redefined many things. Shorting Japan has been coined as the "widow maker" trade, yet people have been stating for decades that Japan is going to pop at some point. Nobody knows when is the problem.

Usually Gaijinpunch tends to paint a narrow view of the ineptness of business practices in Japan, although that tends to be at an admin level rather than government.

Indeed I do. Obviously I love living here I or I wouldn't have for so long. But, I have to play devil's advocate and call out dumb shit when it deserves it.... and on the corporate level is one of them.

Required reading. Go down to the beaurocracy part. Sorry I spelt that wrongly.

Let's go back to more picks of GP on the beach.

I'll dig up some more, but it was the desert, not the beach.

- Tokyo. Specifically, that it's now roughly 1/3rd of the country's population. Tokyo certainly has the infrastructure to support this kind of population, but where does that leave the rest of Japan? I don't see an easy solution to this, as there isn't much keeping people in rural Japan right now.

The solution is you give businesses incentive to move. It's not easy, but it's possible. The second is move parliament out of Tokyo (something that was under consideration some 20 years ago).

[GaijinPunch]

I suspect Gaijinpunch and I are simply talking about different things.

Indeed. You seem quite scholarly in your arguments. I just think we have two different opinions on the scenario.

[Skykid]

cuntry

cuntry

cumpanies

everything else

I do love you.

[GaijinPunch]

I do love you.

Oh, I'm fully aware.

[SuperDeadite]

This topic reminded me of someone, so here's another random story....

A year or so ago I was single, and my Japanese buddy knew a single jgirl (29) who was looking. She'd lived in Australia, liked foreigners, etc. So we did the typical izakaya drink and meet. She was quite pretty and things seemed to go well. We shared contact info, but she said she was quite busy. Over the next few weekends we chatted quite a bit, she was even the one to initiate a few times, so I assumed things were going well. But trying to make plans to actually see her again proved impossible, she was always busy. Now I've lived here long enough to know this means she's no longer interested, fair enough. Though it was a bit odd that she would in fact contact me.

So I looked at her facebook page and every weekend she went out with her little sister and girlfriends, always pics of the cake of the day... "Busy" I guess but if you want a date I think you can lay off the chocolate for one day.... Anyway she's pretty, but nothing to give me an instant boner, and since she seemed to be in no hurry to see me. I sent a final message leaving things open and in her hands, and that was it.

So today I remembered this, and remembered I still had her on facebook, and sure enough all she's done every weekend for the past year is meet sister and friends, and go out for food and cake. What's wonderful about this is that a few of her captions flat out say she wished she could go out and eat like this with a boyfriend. Now if I don't do it for her, fair enough, I long since met someone better anyway. But here is a pretty girl about to hit 30 whining about being single, yet all she does is work (part time) and eat cake with the girls. If you just sit on your ass and make no effort to meet people or even leave your parents house for a night, how the fuck can you whine about being single?

This is a perfect example of the average Japanese female who is single and over the age of 25. Not all of them are like this, and quite a few become the local bar slut once they hit 30, but most do this, leech free rent of the folks, bitch, and eat cake.

[Xyga]

Folever arone.

[Randorama]

Yay, we have a discussion! \(^_^)/

miracles happen...

It wasn't intended to be statistically relevant, I was merely using an existing example of a consumer (relevant to this thread) to illustrate the dumbing-down powers of commercial media.

Well, the documentary seems to indicate that an irrelevant group of individuals can have a property they don't really have: ruin Japanese economy and whatnot. Now, what I really mean by "statistically irrelevant" is there is no connection between the facts. In fact, the rest of the thread goes in a completely different direction, which means...

Just a couple of points that GP raises:

Japan's high standard of living is only maintained for one reason: savings (eg, old money). When that runs out, everyone will be singing a different tune.

Which makes me think that Japan could follow a trajectory similar to that of Italy, where old money ran out roughly by the time Berlusconi came to the fore.
It would be interesting to see what happens, when it will.

has low unemployment rates

Well, well, well, this is a standard propagandistic claim, because:

Pretty much doctored, although I'm too drunk to look it up.

Japanese statistics likely follow the type of spin-doctoring manufactured in anglophonic circle. In Australia, UK and US the condition to consider an individual "employed" are fairly lenient. One is that said individual works at least 4 HOURS PER WEEK (Australia); a second is that an individual has been employed AT LEAST 3 WEEKS IN THE LAST SIX MONTHS (US); a third....I don't recall, should be 10 hours per week. This means that the adjusted statistics are easily in the 2 digits range: say, higher than the average EU country. I am not googling this one up, out of laziness, but I guess that the relevant japanese bureau follows suit. Of course, we are not even discussing whether every employed citizen can actually survive, even if employed. As long as people work, everything is rosy, I guess.

Sorry, but making comparisons when no international standards are set is preposterous. GP's points are impeccable.

The only reason Japan seems to have stable corporate behavior is b/c it has yet to discover investigative journalism.

Well, investigative journalism is dying out, but I fail to remember when there was any journalism at all, in Asia. I think that David Marr (the journalist) wrote about this.

I am sorry to this say this, but in this regard (and so many others, as GP mentions), most asian countries are still solidly stuck in the middle ages, and in no position to evolve further, as far as I am concerned (a bit like the US, really). And yes, I have both personal exposure and some working knowledge of how South Korea, China and Japan work, so I am really skeptic that there is such a thing as a "free press", in these countries. Among several other aspects of modern life that we take for granted.


Praising momentary economic success as the ultimate result in life strikes me as...myopic, if not just plain dumb. Once we look beyond the money, the main results of the enlightenment and the modern ages (except may for universal suffrage...) were never experienced, in these countries. It is easy to build skyscrapers, certainly easier than creating emancipation chances for human beings.

[Rob]

I long since met someone better anyway.

...Yet you can't seem to let it go.

[GaijinPunch]

I long since met someone better anyway.

...Yet you can't seem to let it go.

Cake does that to people.

Sorry, but making comparisons when no international standards are set is preposterous. GP's points are impeccable.

Indeed. However, even after a short vacation in Japan one could see signs of over employment. One or maybe two construction workers directing traffic at each construction site. People driving around advertisement cars (just what the city needs). Elevator girls. 2 people at one register. While all this raises employment, it raises the cost. The last 5 years have shown Japan how vital low costs are for their export-driven economy.

[Skykid]

Elevator girls.

And often elevator guys, too. Isn't this just an asian thing? I really don't understand that job, I can press the button on my own.

[GaijinPunch]

Elevator girls.

And often elevator guys, too. Isn't this just an asian thing? I really don't understand that job, I can press the button on my own.

And allow more people in the fucking elevator!

[Wenchang]

Let's tone this down a bit and look at it from another angle. Japan is a very "keep to yourself" society. Nobody says hello or good morning in Tokyo until they are 70 years old... by that time, they're just happy to be alive. Japanese are professionals at keeping to themselves. I was on my bike at 8AM w/ an ice coffee. I slipped, went totally horizontal, took an ice coffee shower (thank God it wasn't winter), and not only did 5 people not help... they walked by and didn't even bat a fucking eye. This isn't an isolated incident. The entire culture is based on you being your brothers keeper. In this case, your brother is your entire family, and any kouhai (junior) you take on in some type of professional relationship. No time for the rest. With this historical background I think it's only a matter of time before more people stop making the extra effort it takes to have real relationships.

Yet Japan's marriage decline is a relatively modern phenomenon of recent decades. That historical/cultural background you describe however is not a reflection of attitudes/practices which spontaneously arose in recent decades, their roots go back much further. Another words, modern phenomenon like less people getting married or less children cannot be explained through these types of everyday observations. I will bring up again and again that decreased births are common across the 1st world and decreased marriage is occurring in most countries(Japan is just ahead of the curve), which shows that the factors which influence these declines are not results simply of cultural differences between Japan and everyone else.

Hmmm... yeah, can't say I agree. Japan has plenty of land... everybody just wants to live in Tokyo. Land is free when you go 100km from the capital in any direction (until you hit Osaka).

Arable land is what I mentioned. Land suitable for agriculture. In that Japan is quite lacking. Which makes the fact that the population is declining and that the people don't eat big portion sizes(relative to many other countries anyway) a good thing.

The doom and gloom from population comes in the fact that taxes aren't raised that will in turn take care of the old. This is obvious and true in any cuntry. It's worse in Japan as this is not a cuntry that has embraced technology. There are 2 or 3 people doing every one persons job. Why? Counter measure to unemployment. Some of these can be hacked off at the expense of "good service" which Japan prides itself on. However, many cumpanies still relay on a very long line of humans doing a computers work. Japan requires overhead... more than it needs. Of course it could wake up and smell it's own shit and streamline everything. That's not going to happen though.

Japan's high standard of living is only maintained for one reason: savings (eg, old money). When that runs out, everyone will be singing a different tune.

Japanese trade has greatly expanded in recent years so they idea that all their success is due to savings doesn't hold up to much scrutiny. Of course, it is true that successes they had in the past have much to do with their ability to cope now. But that's how the manufacturing/technology world works. Countries which move fastest in developing their manufacturing know-how are the ones most likely to also be able to expand later and develop more refined products and processes.

Read me. The only reason Japan seems to have stable corporate behavior is b/c it has yet to discover investigative journalism. These mother fuckers are dodgy. Japan has redefined the "old boys club".

My comment was rather vague so I should perhaps refine what I said. I did not mean to suggest corporate fraud and the like never happen in Japan. To try to explain what I had in mind I'll give general examples. For one thing, Japan's economy is not as financialized as the American economy. Parasitic insurance companies and speculators in general simply do not have the same amount of influence that they do in the U.S. or the U.K. for example. I hinted at this earlier when I mentioned healthcare and the heavy regulation the Japanese employ to keep costs low. Incidentally this sort of "inefficiency" is more a problem than over-staffing I would argue(in fact I would go further and say that the type of inefficiencies you describe are almost trade-offs). I could cite extreme examples like the U.S. healthcare system which involves bureaucratic waste on an even greater scale.

Things like the derivative trades and the like did not stem from Japan or anywhere in Asia, they are distinctly Western practices(the Germans will claim it's part of the "Anglo" world but the behavior of their own banks in places like Spain and Greece would indicate this is nonsense). What's more most of the institutions responsible for this behavior have been propped back up and none of the people responsible prosecuted, and instead they are able to carry on doing the same things they were doing before. I don't think there's anything comparable to that in Japan. They had housing bubbles led by heavy speculation, and the result of those was a huge decline in that type of behavior. In the West it is the complete opposite. Bailed out banks are more powerful after crises than they were before.

Japan has also not seen extreme rises in corporates salaries and such(correspondingly Japan also has the highest corporate tax rates). Which, even when it does not necessarily prevent financial fraud and the like, it does reduce the scale of it significantly. With this example my vaguely mentioning "other countries" was misleading as really there is primarily an American problem.

Interesting... as I think they are the ones that lobbied to Parliament to intervene and get the yen to a sane level. I would have to go look to find the number but when it was in the low 80s, they stated every time the dollar dropped another yen, the lost a hundred million bucks. I might be off a digit in either direction, but it was quite mind-blowing. Abenomics has at least brought the yen back to a somewhat competitive level (it's still 10% stronger than the median of the last 15 years) but Japan Inc. is getting it's pussy smoked by it's competitors. Japan has no idea how to make an inexpensive product, which is what everyone else is delivering.

The value of a currency and interest rates can crush any industry if allowed to get out of control enough, and they are matters mostly out of the hands of companies. Whether Japanese companies are skilled enough to deliver cheap products is a separate issue from the affect of a strong yen.

As for that actual comment, yes and no. In TV production for example, there is plenty of evidence to back the claim that Japanese products are more expensive and less efficiently produced than many of their competitors. In the production of automobiles though I don't think there is much evidence at all for that claim, just earlier this month Toyota was reporting record profits despite decreased sales. Japanese production processes are often far superior in this area(this has been recognized for a long time now: http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/manu ... -industry/ for example) Also by "everyone else" I assume you mean the Koreans, because that's where most of Japan's "low cost" competition comes from.

Perhaps, for other countries. But Japan has redefined many things. Shorting Japan has been coined as the "widow maker" trade, yet people have been stating for decades that Japan is going to pop at some point. Nobody knows when is the problem.

If you listen to most economists or credit agencies Japan has been a basket case for about two decades. Of course, the improvements in Japan's trade balance and a lack of decline in living standards may indicate that it says more about those economists and their methods than it does about Japan.

Indeed. However, even after a short vacation in Japan one could see signs of over employment. One or maybe two construction workers directing traffic at each construction site. People driving around advertisement cars (just what the city needs). Elevator girls. 2 people at one register. While all this raises employment, it raises the cost. The last 5 years have shown Japan how vital low costs are for their export-driven economy.

I don't think over-employment are the main causes of Japan's rising costs. Not because it doesn't create inefficiencies, it does, but I think the inefficiencies of unemployment are greater as it leads to a decrease in aggregate demand. Also these types of everyday inefficiencies which are easy enough to observe(I've already acknowledged there are tons and tons of inefficiencies in the Japanese business world, I don't think there's really any disagreement there), I think can become overstated when evaluating their impact on the economy as a whole. It's a little like arguing poor service and lower conditions in American restaurants(which is sort of the opposite of Japan's efficiency problems you have described) is a sign of glaring inefficiencies in the U.S. private sector and thus a threat to economic well-being in the future. But it's a question of scale and in large economies these types of inefficiencies are relatively minor.

Incidentally this is really one of the main issues I have with coverage on Japan. People will come up with many criticisms of the way things are done in Japan and those criticisms I don't necessarily disagree with. The problem is that they blow them out of proportion and act like they are A. the causes of problems in Japan such as competitive losses in the private sector or a lack of babies and B. are signs of an impending collapse in the future. But more serious scrutiny will show that much larger world tendencies are the causes of most of these problems and not: old men who can never get fired, bureaucracy, pornography fetishes, touhou, "cultural" reasons, terrible software development practices, the fact that credit cards aren't as much in use, or whatever the new story of the day is. People over-focus on these details and miss the big picture. You can look at any country and observe differences in the way they do things, and among these differences you will undoubtedly find serious inefficiencies. But it does not follow that those particular issues are the causes of most of the society's problems.

Of course, we are not even discussing whether every employed citizen can actually survive, even if employed. As long as people work, everything is rosy, I guess.

Japan's living standards are extremely high by all measures.

@Wenchang, may I ask are you a Forbes journalist? Based on your previous link to the site, comments, and this article by the same guy, I can't help but wonder.

No just a plagiarist.

Well, Olympus is still afloat, despite the loss-covering scandal and acquisition of several other companies with little real credit: there's some wizardry there, I would have predicted bankruptcy.
Sony though? I think they have a huge amount of competition in all their sectors. Videogaming is probably (assuming) where they're on most solid footing, and this generation stand to do better than the last, but their other consumer enterprises surely have a huge amount of competition, both domestic and abroad. The losses dictate that it's the competition eating into their profits. That's not to say they're going to close, they're an enormous corp with a money pool beyond comprehension, I'm sure, but I'd argue there's a fair amount of jostling occurring in their major markets, and they're not leading anymore. I think they're ranked third for consumer TV's behind two Korean companies, and their shareholders are playing hell over it.

My comment was poorly worded. What I was trying to say is that in Japan(as opposed to the export market), Japanese companies generally do not see a lot of competition from foreign companies, because Japan is highly protectionist. This lack of competition at home(unless of course it's competition from other Japanese companies) gives Japanese corporations an extra cushion. So those Korean companies who are kicking ass in international markets face disadvantages if they try to get a foothold in Japan. Check this story out for example: http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20131124000201

Samsung's marketshare for smartphones is only about 10% in Japan, it's at least double that in most other places. Worldwide Sony's marketshare is quite small in the smartphone market but they're second in Japan. Worldwide, Japanese companies are pretty much a non-entity in terms of smartphone development, but a company like Sony can still eek out a living at home with only Apple outselling them despite the fact that they're still way behind their competitors from a development standpoint(of course here I'm not talking about the production of advanced components or anything like that, their you will find Japanese parts in Apple, Samsung, Sony, and any other smartphone, but that is a different matter). For automobile makers it's even worse(partly because unlike with smartphones, where Japanese companies lack a compelling product, automakers are more than capable) to try to sell in the Japanese market as they're all but prevented from doing so.

Yep, we're talking about the same thing. What I was getting at is that outsourcing work for anything leaves a gap domestically in terms of jobs, tax, etc. Just look at Youngstown Ohio - they outsourced everything and left everyone on the breadline.

I don't think that's true. For one thing, Japan could not compete with China in terms of factory jobs even if it wanted to. The difference in population alone provide a serious limit. But more generally, it's common for less desirable jobs to have a harder time attracting domestic employees as living standards rise. The response to this is to get cheap labor from abroad. That's how the world economy works. Also it's not as if Japan is simply losing out here. In fact Japanese companies have been highly involved in the setting up of production lines and factories across Southeast Asia for decades now. There's a whole history of this too, where in the Cold War days, U.S. policymakers keen to build up Japanese production capabilities, first looked at China as the source of demand for Japan's goods, and after the Communist revolution shifted to Korea and Southeast Asia. The Korean War itself actually contributed much to a build up of Japan's industrial activity.

So I think in contrast to the picture you paint, a lot of the stuff going on in China is complimentary to the Japanese. It allows them to produce goods cheaper and it is contributing to the build-up of a middle class to consume exports from Japan. The real damaging competition is the higher-end stuff, Korean cars or Taiwanese semi-conductors for example.

Finally, though Randorama will dismiss the statistics as doctored, there's really not a lot of evidence for Japan losing a high amount of the workforce during this process.

That's the great falsehood/mystery when it comes to major economies: being able to simply print currency when in need. I'm not an economic expert, and I appreciate your input, but going really off topic isn't there a danger in simply printing more money? Why are certain countries seemingly unable to print money (I assume Greece's attachment to the EU means they're reliant on Germany and have no central bank?) while others trailing huge debts (USA) can keep injecting new cash flow to prop themselves up in times of financial crisis?

Greece does have to rely on outside institutions to dictate monetary policy. Also it could be argued that QE and other types of actions lead to major fluctuations which are counter to the idea of a fixed-exchange rate. But that doesn't matter since Greece has no control one way or the other.

Inflation is always the constraint if you're talking about increasing the money supply. However, inflation is impacted by a great number of things, so it is not the case for example that any increase in the money supply leads to a corresponding increase in inflation or for that matter that increasing the money supply necessarily even generates a measurable difference in inflation. Japan is a good example here, because they view the opposite, deflation, as a problem, and have been trying to actually increase inflation for over a decade now. In many developed nations anti-inflationary actions have been carried out for so long now, that the threat of inflation has been seriously weakened. But yes, you can't just print infinite money and expect it not to backfire.

I should probably say now that I don't view things like quantitative easing as necessarily "solutions" to a country's financial problems at home(like it doesn't have anything to do with decreasing public debt for example). My tendency is more so to downplay both the positive and negative arguments for these actions.

The best way to actually view "printing money" (which is metaphor really as it can simply be changings #s on a computer) is not anything to do with actual supply but it is an attempt to manipulate the financial system to bring about things like changes in interest rates. Changes in interest rates for example could strengthen exports. But we're talking about very detailed types of manipulations that have to do with how country X's performance is affected by country Y's and Z's and it's not something where there is some simple formula(this also leads to the point that the assumption that there is a natural equilibrium with the money supply which government intervention hampers, when in fact there is no such thing and what monetary policies are most advantageous can be an ever-changing phenomenon). We talk about money as if it's a question of literal supply, but that's not the point. When countries "print money," it's usually not about literally increasing the supply so they have more to spend.

[GaijinPunch]

I will bring up again and again that decreased births are common across the 1st world and decreased marriage is occurring in most countries

I don't think anyone denies that. The problem is that the ones at the top of the food chain that have declining birthrates have open immigration policy... or as I like to put it, have their heads a little less far up their asses. Most critics of Japan these days aren't telling them to get the birthrate to rise (they've been actively trying for ages... and failing). The argument comes in that they're not doing the only counter measure they can: open the immigration flood gates. A sub-point of that would be to give foreign companies a break so they can dream of competing with HK & Singapore again.

Hmmm... yeah, can't say I agree. Japan has plenty of land... everybody just wants to live in Tokyo. Land is free when you go 100km from the capital in any direction (until you hit Osaka).

Arable land is what I mentioned. Land suitable for agriculture. In that Japan is quite lacking. Which makes the fact that the population is declining and that the people don't eat big portion sizes(relative to many other countries anyway) a good thing.

Yes, the majority of the place is mountanous. Import food is cheaper anyway.

Japanese trade has greatly expanded in recent years so they idea that all their success is due to savings doesn't hold up to much scrutiny.

Source? I've never heard an economist never say anything other than Japan is afloat due to savings. Any rise in exports now can surely be thanked by the 35% weakening of the yen.

Parasitic insurance companies and speculators in general simply do not have the same amount of influence that they do in the U.S. or the U.K. for example.

That's one way to look at it. The other way is that nobody has influence, since nothing ever fucking changes.

I could cite extreme examples like the U.S. healthcare system which involves bureaucratic waste on an even greater scale.

I'm not going to defend the US health care system at all. It's shit. Bureaucracy exists in the US as well, of course. Just in some places less than others, and there is at least the idea of "lean and mean" and "time is money". Concepts that are sucked into a wormhole somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

derivates, bailed out banks, etc.

Japan had a whole host of problem in the 90's... most of which go a bit over my head. Whereas America got butt fucked by complex derivatives and giving heaps of cash to people with awful credit, Japan's systems have traditionally worked like ponzi schemes. Current one: JGBs.

Do you want to talk about banks and their power in Japan compared to the west? Banks w/ shit credit are given tons and tons more dough. This is a similar phenomenon to the lack of investigative journalism. Nobody in Japan demands accountability until the nuclear reactors start melting down, and even then, only 3 people step down.

Interesting... as I think they are the ones that lobbied to Parliament to intervene and get the yen to a sane level. I would have to go look to find the number but when it was in the low 80s, they stated every time the dollar dropped another yen, the lost a hundred million bucks. I might be off a digit in either direction, but it was quite mind-blowing. Abenomics has at least brought the yen back to a somewhat competitive level (it's still 10% stronger than the median of the last 15 years) but Japan Inc. is getting it's pussy smoked by it's competitors. Japan has no idea how to make an inexpensive product, which is what everyone else is delivering.

Whether Japanese companies are skilled enough to deliver cheap products is a separate issue from the affect of a strong yen.

It comes down to adaptability though, at some point.

Japanese production processes are often far superior in this area(this has been recognized for a long time now:

Just about anything is more costly to make in Japan due to high overhead. Skill and whatnot set aside. Of course, Germany and the US will have higher overhead compared to the rest of Asia as well. Then you can throw in the myth of Japanese efficiency: if you pay people shit and they work 12 hours a day, of course they will do better than the west. They can't compete w/ sweat shops though, of course.

Japan has and still does smoke everyone on automobile manufacturing. Don't bother bringing up the US w/ those bloated unions. Nobody would defend that fist fuck.

I'm not surprised Toyota is reporting gains even w/ fewer sales. Then yen has weakened substantially, and they make the majority of their money overseas, as does every large J-company. See?

If you listen to most economists or credit agencies Japan has been a basket case for about two decades. Of course, the improvements in Japan's trade balance and a lack of decline in living standards may indicate that it says more about those economists and their methods than it does about Japan.

Indeed, and this has added to the mystique. IMHO, a lot of it has to do w/ many things 1) lack of self entitlement, 2) "gaman" mindset, 3) savings. It's not fair to see the living standards have not declined. Japan has become "sadder" as the 2nd lost decade has come to a close. Bonuses are far lower, land is worth way less. Fuck me, even key money is almost gone. Why would anyone buy property? Things are still better than a lot of other places though.

It's a little like arguing poor service and lower conditions in American restaurants(which is sort of the opposite of Japan's efficiency problems you have described) is a sign of glaring inefficiencies in the U.S. private sector and thus a threat to economic well-being in the future. But it's a question of scale and in large economies these types of inefficiencies are relatively minor.

I always see this as apples and oranges. Nobody does food as well as Japan (super competitive industry). The service part can be tricky though. Servers are often clueless of the food... only 4 suitable bar tenders in the cuntry... etc. (Not really related to the economics, but still). My only problem w/ the over-employment thing is that it reflects an inability to get up w/ the times. A better example is giving ATM's the nights off. All the while having toilets that wipe your ass for you. There are far more social irks that display this inability better though, but that would add pages and pages.

Japan's living standards are extremely high by all measures.

By most standards, definitely not all. The average Japanese pays far more for far less across the board: space, utilities, transport (except public which is simply amazing). Even when you leave the cities, homes are way smaller. To boot, and one you don't hear about too often is that they are made to withstand Earthquakes (quite well)... and almost nothing else. The results? Sweat your balls off in the summer and wake up to seeing your breath in the winter. There is little one can do in the summer, but the winter features a mish-mash of ideas: kerosine heaters in the house (with the doors open as to not kill yourself... losing heat in the process...) (wut?!); kotatsus which require you to sit in a hole in the floor; and turning on the heater in a single, tiny room and having the entire family congregate only there. It feels 3rd world at times.

Worldwide, Japanese companies are pretty much a non-entity in terms of smartphone development, but a company like Sony can still eek out a living at home with only Apple outselling them despite the fact that they're still way behind their competitors from a development standpoint

The other way to paint that picture is to look back 10 years ago. Tell anyone in Japan a non-Japanese phone would actually sell at all in Japan... much less be No. 1. They'd have laughed yo ass back on the boat. Yet, here we are. Sony may be number 2, but it's not necessarily something to be proud of when you look at the big picture. Well, it is for Sony, but it's a slap in the cock for Japan Inc. It's another industry they lost their grip on. They went from being able to sell 2 year old hardware designs to only keeping up. No telling what would have happened had Google not put out Android. I'm guessing in an alternate universe it's an even uglier picture w/ no streamlined OS other than iOS.

It's also a distant 2nd. Usually for any carriers weekly rankings, multiple models of the iPhone will outsell Xperia. But back to your point, you are right. They can make money in Japan. But Sony's been in the red for fucking ages. Clearly this is an awful state to be in.

EDIT: Actually, it's a distant third as of May according to this rather depressing report..

[Randorama]

Japan's living standards are extremely high by all measures.

No, sorry, this was correct 20 years ago or so, but not now. Any tables of quality of life indexes I have read so far show that Japan's quality of life is slowly declining over the decades. It is still fairly good, but
then again Japanese are masters at hiding problems.

Nothing personal, but you may need to take a less partial stance, and make less sweeping claims on Japan, especially if they are unfounded. GP's points answwer on my behalf on several matters, so, please refer to those.

[GaijinPunch]

404 on the Economist link. I'm quite interested to read it.

The whole quality of life / living standards is a tough one, and in with lots of things in Japan, is a bit baffling. I've stated a lot of the things that daily will irk the fuck out of just about any westerner. To the point of leaving in some cases. Things that just wouldn't be tolerated in the west.

Do we count psychological weight as a living standard? If so, Japan is probably the lowest of the G8 and god knows where in the rest of the world. Japan has published their own stats that show a massive wave of depression over a few demographics. Not pretty.

Also, at some point if we're going to have completion of topic someone's going to have to bring up women's rights (or at least the place holder they've made). Google where they rank in that one and prepare to lol.

[Wenchang]

No, sorry, this was correct 20 years ago or so, but not now. Any tables of quality of life indexes I have read so far show that Japan's quality of life is slowly declining over the decades.

You have provided a metric where Japan ranks poorly on the basis of such sketchy concepts as "satisfaction with life" or happiness. It wouldn't be unfair to suggest that those metrics are not the most "scientific" or clear metrics out there. In terms of aspects such as life expectancy, education, working standards, healthcare coverage, employment, infant mortality, murder and imprisonment rates, etc. which are much easier to define and measure, Japan generally ranks quite high. So far no one has disputed this other than to suggest the statistics are all lies. The idea that they are more biased, culturally skewed, or flawed than something which measures a concept as vague as "satisfaction with life" is silly in the extreme of course.

That said I don't necessarily object to the idea that things like longer working hours, less work flexibility, less freedom, more population density, and the like contribute to a less positive life and that that may be the basis for why other countries would rank higher in such a rating(not that countries like the Scandinavians for example don't theoretically have plenty of other reasons to rank higher anyway). But I am not sure that's the same topic. Unless those things are the causes of Japan's problems discussed in this thread, I'm not sure what relevance they have.

Nothing personal, but you may need to take a less partial stance, and make less sweeping claims on Japan, especially if they are unfounded. GP's points answwer on my behalf on several matters, so, please refer to those.

I don't need you to bring to my attention the fact that others are doing all the heavy lifting for you. If my posts come across as "partial" it is only because the act of responding to a host of extremely negative claims is an inherently one-sided endeavor which is going to narrowly focus the content of those responses. When you see nothing but negative things you disagree with, you're inevitably going to post a lot of arguments that emphasize positives.

I don't think anyone denies that. The problem is that the ones at the top of the food chain that have declining birthrates have open immigration policy... or as I like to put it, have their heads a little less far up their asses. Most critics of Japan these days aren't telling them to get the birthrate to rise (they've been actively trying for ages... and failing). The argument comes in that they're not doing the only counter measure they can: open the immigration flood gates. A sub-point of that would be to give foreign companies a break so they can dream of competing with HK & Singapore again.

Opening up the immigration floodgates only leads to a lowering of living standards and wages to suit the interests of domestic businesses looking to cut costs. I'm by no means anti-immigration, in fact immigration has often been a huge boom to developing countries, but the idea that the entrance of massive amounts of immigrants to one of the most densely populated, homogenized countries in the world is going to help deal with aging issues is hardly a serious one. After all they cannot be expected to carry out health services. This idea again is based on the assumption, not the demonstrated fact, that declining population is going to create a decline in the economy, the workforce, etc.

To the extent that Japan needs immigrants to do cheap labor like cleaning and the like, they probably will employ them. They already have small amounts of migrants from places like China, the Philippines and Brazil for example who are employed in such capacities. This will help deal with potential labor shortages in niche areas(in particular in less populated areas of the country) but its impact on overall economic indicators will remain marginal. http://www.iom.int/cms/japan

Source? I've never heard an economist never say anything other than Japan is afloat due to savings. Any rise in exports now can surely be thanked by the 35% weakening of the yen.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... 7rank.html

Japan's current account surplus is one of the highest in the world, and has continued to climb for years now, all throughout the "lost decade." Back in the 1980s economists were wrongly touting Japan as being on track to take over, with the yen replacing the U.S. dollar, and every product every one buys being made in Japan. This idea was mostly based on strong Japanese trade. The decline in GDP growth caused by the collapse of the housing bubble(which those economists failed to predict) has since compelled economists to change their tune to the other extreme, where now Japan is a basket case of a country economically who have suffered from a lost decade etc. The irony is the Japanese trade they were touting remains strong, and remained so all throughout the East Asian crisis of the 90s, the 2008 financial crisis, the Fukushima disaster etc.

That's one way to look at it. The other way is that nobody has influence, since nothing ever fucking changes.

There's even a view in the U.S. which suggests that the amount of political grid lock here is a positive because it prevents the kind of harsh cutting measures and other "reforms" that are taking place in parts of Europe from actually being carried out. To the extent that these harsh measures are being prevented, I'm sympathetic to that view. Incidentally while I have argued that much of Japanese manufacturing is efficient by world standards, I haven't disagreed with the numerous other inefficiencies existing in that country, and moreover I don't even believe most of the good things I have mentioned are necessarily due to some well thought out grand design. So I don't disagree with these lines you have posted but I don't think they're incompatible with the view I espouse. In fact I suspect part of the reason Japan doesn't have a something genuinely comparable to Wall Street is due to the extreme limitations of the political system there(where descendants of WW2 era and before politicians still run the show, imagine if that was the case in Germany, and where the chances of a nobody becoming PM are highly unlikely).

I'm not going to defend the US health care system at all. It's shit. Bureaucracy exists in the US as well, of course. Just in some places less than others, and there is at least the idea of "lean and mean" and "time is money". Concepts that are sucked into a wormhole somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

And again, I don't disagree with you here.

Japan had a whole host of problem in the 90's... most of which go a bit over my head. Whereas America got butt fucked by complex derivatives and giving heaps of cash to people with awful credit, Japan's systems have traditionally worked like ponzi schemes. Current one: JGBs

Do you want to talk about banks and their power in Japan compared to the west? Banks w/ shit credit are given tons and tons more dough. This is a similar phenomenon to the lack of investigative journalism. Nobody in Japan demands accountability until the nuclear reactors start melting down, and even then, only 3 people step down.

I don't disagree with you about bail-outs but the difference in Japan and the United States, is that those banks are not dictating policy, and also, that the policy of bailing them out is not the in the attempt(or if it is, the attempt is failing) to recreate the same situation where they can create new financial monstrosities and start the situation all over again. In Japan, the stock market and much of the speculative housing market collapsed after the bursting of the bubble, and they remain in decline(from where they were before the collapse) to this day. And contrary to many financial "experts" and economists, I don't see this as a bad thing. On the contrary, this is exactly the thing I would point to were I to compare the impact of the 2008 housing bubble in the U.S. to that of the Japanese assets in the 1980s and early 1990s. The U.S. example was far more severe in terms of things like employment and living standards while the Japanese one comparatively affected ordinary people far, far less(and created less instability which I mentioned earlier). That is because Japan hasn't abandoned manufacturing in favor of financial services and other nonsense whereas the U.S. is overrun with parasitic financial institutions who far overstep their bounds(another words it's not a question of who is more shady or whatnot, but about which plays the larger role in its nation's economy). Europe isn't as bad as the U.S. but are far worse than they* want to admit.

* Germany

It comes down to adaptability though, at some point.

Yes but it's a two-way thing. Things like government policies to balance the value of interest rates go hand-in-hand with companies refining their production processes etc.

Just about anything is more costly to make in Japan due to high overhead. Skill and whatnot set aside. Of course, Germany and the US will have higher overhead compared to the rest of Asia as well. Then you can throw in the myth of Japanese efficiency: if you pay people shit and they work 12 hours a day, of course they will do better than the west. They can't compete w/ sweat shops though, of course.

When you talk about Japanese efficiency you have to specify who you're talking about. If you are speaking of the average Japanese company Japanese efficiency may indeed be a myth, but if you're talking about the producers of high end electronic goods, or chemicals, or cars, or generally the type of stuff Japan actually exports, the Japanese remain efficient(they have to be, it's not like they don't have competition from elsewhere, and btw Germany has been cutting wages over the last decade itself). It's also not true that wages are low in these industries. I think there are two different Japans. There are the companies that exist in their own isolated bubbles and sell primarily to the domestic market, and then there are the companies that rely on exports. This latter group still plays a major role in the world economy and I think their reputation for efficiency is deserved.

I'm not surprised Toyota is reporting gains even w/ fewer sales. Then yen has weakened substantially, and they make the majority of their money overseas, as does every large J-company. See?

That's the nature of an export driven economy.

Indeed, and this has added to the mystique. IMHO, a lot of it has to do w/ many things 1) lack of self entitlement, 2) "gaman" mindset, 3) savings. It's not fair to see the living standards have not declined. Japan has become "sadder" as the 2nd lost decade has come to a close. Bonuses are far lower, land is worth way less. Fuck me, even key money is almost gone. Why would anyone buy property? Things are still better than a lot of other places though.

Living standards have not declined in a major way at any rate. But obviously the picture isn't completely positive or even close.

I always see this as apples and oranges. Nobody does food as well as Japan (super competitive industry). The service part can be tricky though. Servers are often clueless of the food... only 4 suitable bar tenders in the cuntry... etc. (Not really related to the economics, but still). My only problem w/ the over-employment thing is that it reflects an inability to get up w/ the times. A better example is giving ATM's the nights off. All the while having toilets that wipe your ass for you. There are far more social irks that display this inability better though, but that would add pages and pages.

You will never see me argue that Japan is not full of "peculiarities" that would rightly disturb someone from a Western nation. My only objection is the idea that this state of affairs is representative of large scale problems in Japan(rather than less major annoyances), when if you ask me having an excellent transportation system for example is more important than any of these things.

By most standards, definitely not all.

Fair enough.

The other way to paint that picture is to look back 10 years ago. Tell anyone in Japan a non-Japanese phone would actually sell at all in Japan... much less be No. 1. They'd have laughed yo ass back on the boat. Yet, here we are. Sony may be number 2, but it's not necessarily something to be proud of when you look at the big picture. Well, it is for Sony, but it's a slap in the cock for Japan Inc. It's another industry they lost their grip on. They went from being able to sell 2 year old hardware designs to only keeping up. No telling what would have happened had Google not put out Android. I'm guessing in an alternate universe it's an even uglier picture w/ no streamlined OS other than iOS.

That's right. Smart phones, much like Sony's television industry, are an area where they and other Japanese companies failed to keep up(again I have to distinguish between the actual brands like Sony who sell the final product but only partially contribute to the actual components, and the manufacturers who produce the high end components, it is the former in Japan who have fallen behind and not so much the latter) and anticipate technological changes and it has lead to massive declines in those companies. If those companies were a representation of the state of Japan(which I don't believe they are at all though, not least because Sony is a much more internationalized company anyhow) than they would portend a fairly grim picture. But in reality Apple does not represent the U.S. as a whole nor does Sony for Japan. But it is true, that, like with televisions, Japanese industry has suffered in recent years. In that area I do agree with the grim picture.

It's also a distant 2nd. Usually for any carriers weekly rankings, multiple models of the iPhone will outsell Xperia. But back to your point, you are right. They can make money in Japan. But Sony's been in the red for fucking ages. Clearly this is an awful state to be in.

Yeah, Japan is protectionist, but they're still a modern country. Monsters like Apple or McDonalds are going to be huge there like anywhere else of course. Anyhow my point in bringing this up was just to clarify a point I was making earlier about how Japan's protectionist policies manage to help keep certain businesses afloat(something which the U.S. did not do its manufacturing industries in the 1970s and early 80s, and that's partly why most of them are gone and are being replaced by Japanese and others). Which prolongs various inefficiencies, no doubt about that, but it also prevents the kinds of mass unemployment scenarios which I think are more severe problems. That is why I often tire of seeing the "be more like us" solutions offered mostly by people from the U.S. and U.K., when the solutions they would offer would be even worse.

Actually, it's a distant third as of May according to this rather depressing report..

Thanks for the link. Fujitsu is second according to this.

[GaijinPunch]

You have provided a metric where Japan ranks poorly on the basis of such sketchy concepts as "satisfaction with life" or happiness. It wouldn't be unfair to suggest that those metrics are not the most "scientific" or clear metrics out there. In terms of aspects such as life expectancy, education, working standards, healthcare coverage, employment, infant mortality, murder and imprisonment rates, etc. which are much easier to define and measure, Japan generally ranks quite high.

The ones I talked about were pretty straight forward. They asked the participants point blank if they were happy. I don't know how much more scientific it gets from that.

Everything on paper is definitely above the curve. Your list above definitely needs some asterisks. Working standards. This is a joke, right? Healthcare coverage is good. However the health care provided is pretty questionable. Whereas the US is the extreme case where malpractice suits are present, Japan is definitely the other.

You're still leaving quite a few out. What about human rights?
-Japan has a 99.7% conviction rate. Ninety-nine... point... seven. You basically bear the burden of proof once arrested.
-No such thing as joint custody of a child. If you get divorced and the other parent gets custody (and if you're a gaijin, the other one always will) then you're at the whims of your ex. If they don't want you to see the child until they're an adult, you won't. It's all perfectly legal, and the government just sits there.
-Drop dead dad? No problem. You probably would only have to pay child support to the tune of 10% of your take home salary anyway.
-Reporting a rape? It was probably your fault.
-Oh, you were raped/groped? Let's arrest said person, and let him serve his 21 days without a single shred of proof even though you're probably just bitter.

Yes, all this shit happens and it's not isolated. I won't say that Japanese lifestyle isn't cushy... then again, I think just about anywhere would be when the dispersion of wealth is so confined. Even with the rate falling the middle class makes up what? 80%? But there are plenty of aspects that are detestable, that your text books likely haven't told you.

I don't need you to bring to my attention the fact that others are doing all the heavy lifting for you. If my posts come across as "partial" it is only because the act of responding to a host of extremely negative claims is an inherently one-sided endeavor which is going to narrowly focus the content of those responses.

It's a debate. Your painting a picture that everything's hams & plaque. Others are painting the other picture. Everyone seems to be a pro these days after the "Japanese don't fuck" articles have hit the internet. We all know they do. I saw a guy getting a blow job in the park the other day. From another person even! But to come back and say everything is peachy is not accurate. I work in finance so it's even less peachy. Pretty gloomy to be honest compared a decade ago. I don't think people have faced the fact that a lot of high dollar businesses left Japan for good. They aren't coming back. That has a pretty damaging effect, but it can take a while before the stench is noticeable. Of course if you own a high rent apartment in Tokyo you already know.

[Randorama]

You have provided a metric where Japan ranks poorly on the basis of such sketchy concepts as "satisfaction with life" or happiness. It wouldn't be unfair to suggest that those metrics are not the most "scientific" or clear metrics out there. In terms of aspects such as life expectancy, education, working standards, healthcare coverage, employment, infant mortality, murder and imprisonment rates, etc. which are much easier to define and measure, Japan generally ranks quite high. So far no one has disputed this other than to suggest the statistics are all lies. The idea that they are more biased, culturally skewed, or flawed than something which measures a concept as vague as "satisfaction with life" is silly in the extreme of course.

Yet those would be the same metrics by which Japan would rank quite high, according to your claims.

Sorry, but any metric you will find around on "quality of life" will tell you (and anyone else) that Japan was among the first ten countries 20 years ago, and among the first 25 by these days. This means that quality of life is declining, and has been declining for decades. It still pretty high, but once more...the trend is shared with several first world countries, though, so Japan would certainly not be exceptional on this.

That said I don't necessarily object to the idea that things like longer working hours, less work flexibility, less freedom, more population density, and the like contribute to a less positive life and that that may be the basis for why other countries would rank higher in such a rating(not that countries like the Scandinavians for example don't theoretically have plenty of other reasons to rank higher anyway). But I am not sure that's the same topic. Unless those things are the causes of Japan's problems discussed in this thread, I'm not sure what relevance they have.

The original topic was about why Otakus are destroying the country of Japan and turn it from paradise to hell, oh dear oh dear! So, declining standards are part of the topic, although we definitely did better than those incompetent fuckwads at BBC (hardly an achievement!).

I don't need you to bring to my attention the fact that others are doing all the heavy lifting for you. If my posts come across as "partial" it is only because the act of responding to a host of extremely negative claims is an inherently one-sided endeavor which is going to narrowly focus the content of those responses.

We are not posting extremely negative claims, we are simply reporting some fact that suggest that Japan is the far from perfect country that any Forbes article claims it to be.
Again, this is hardly news, and its hardly a problem of Japan alone. Most first world countries have been declining as well, sometimes to awful levels (a perfect example being Italy), while countries that were in dire straits 20 years ago are now in much better shape (Australia, NZ, Scandinavia).

Pace partisan magazines such as the economist or Forbes, the reasons for these changes are extremely diverse, and cannot be reduced to one just factor. Say, the economist recently claimed that scandinavian countries recovered their '90s crisis because they adopted liberist policies (basically false, but that's a topic onto itself), people are generally friendly (uh?), and there is virtually no corruption (so what? there has never been any corruption, anyway), and other preposterous claims. Anyone who has studied a bit of mathematical models, whethere they are applied to economic matters or not, knows that such claims are simply non-sensical: not even wrong.

Journalists need to learn one thing: life is more complicated than the single "wow!" factor that jumps at their attention while they write their nonsense.

[Wenchang]

The ones I talked about were pretty straight forward. They asked the participants point blank if they were happy. I don't know how much more scientific it gets from that.

Happiness is a vague, immeasurable concept.

Everything on paper is definitely above the curve. Your list above definitely needs some asterisks. Working standards. This is a joke, right?

Perhaps a poorly worded statement because it leaves open the idea that higher working hours themselves are a problem(and they are). I had more in mind things like worker safety and the like, which are not particularly problems in Japan.

Healthcare coverage is good. However the health care provided is pretty questionable.

No citizen of any country on Earth seems to be happy with their healthcare system, but if you actually look at measurable metrics Japan ranks fairly well(extremely well in some areas like infant mortality). Not the best, but well. There are certainly some issues with the distribution of health services to the less populated areas of the country for example, but by world standards Japan's healthcare system is mostly effective. Finally when considered in terms of spending, Japan's healthcare system is extremely efficient as they spend far less on healthcare than most of the 1st world.

You're still leaving quite a few out. What about human rights?

What does that have to do with the topic? If you think Japan's deficiencies in human rights, which I have said absolutely nothing about, are the source of most of its problems talked about in the thread, then fine, make that case. But if your point is just to suggest "everything's not great in Japan." Well fine, I never said it was though. All of my posts were addressing economic and demographic concerns, and briefly saying I don't think issues like otakus or whatever had much to do with Japan's problems in those areas. I never argued the Japanese were happier or more fulfilled or whatever. Women's rights which you mentioned earlier do seem a relevant topic to bring up with regard to questions of birth rates and such, but I'm not sure what point this other stuff like conviction rate etc is addressing.

If it is intended to address my mentioning of low crime rates and such, I will simply point out that these types of things are a major cost to public services and general stability, and so are highly relevant to the state of the economy and investment, which is why I brought them up in the first place in case that's not clear. But it's unclear that most of those other things aside from women's rights really play that much of a role with regard to things like economic conditions, birth rates, and those things which that documentary talks about. Maybe you can argue if you want to that they are part of the reason people are not having sex, but again, there's not much to argue since it's all speculative there. Again, I brought up those points as examples of how Japan is not doing as poorly as people think they are. Areas like human rights and happiness are important, but they're not what the documentary was focusing on, and I think they're mostly a separate issue and it's important not to confuse them(which is like when people in the U.S. often say "they're not as innovative because they're not as free as us" and that sort of crap).

It's a debate. Your painting a picture that everything's hams & plaque.

Only because I'm responding to points which make negative claims. Now maybe I could have worded some of the claims about living standards better but fundamentally I don't think any point I have made is inaccurate. In particular because I have acknowledged many times the problems that actually do exist in Japan(and not the mythical ones like debt burdens).

Statements like the following:
"I realize that my posts may make it sound like I think everything is rosy in Japan. It obviously is not, and in many ways Japan has stagnated over the years. However, the picture of Japan in the West is highly misleading(and also highly self-serving when it comes to economic matters, as the usual solution is "be more like us"), and, if you actually look carefully, you will find Japan is doing better in many domains than the Western counterparts from which these stories originate." use words like "many" and not "all" or "all that matters" etc. I don't think I've claimed anywhere that everything is awesome in Japan. I have merely highlighted some areas where I think, by the standards of other 1st world countries, Japan still ranks well, which makes a lot of the Japan is doomed stories seem ridiculous and over the top.

[Skykid]

Yowza, great walls of text in here.

Good reading material on all sides. I think GP's domesticated perspective is always going to identify internal problems that we can't pick up on as external amateur economists and whatnot, but it's interesting to pick up on all the different dynamics of the argument.

The original topic was about why Otakus are destroying the country of Japan and turn it from paradise to hell, oh dear oh dear!

The original topic was about a BBC documentary called 'No sex please, we're Japanese' that looked at the country's declining birth rate, and happened to look at sexless proponents of the Otaku fad as one of many possible causes or effects of an obviously complex issue. It didn't really examine anything in any depth, but that's because it's more magazine article than thesis.

[Randorama]

The original topic was about a BBC documentary called 'No sex please, we're Japanese' that looked at the country's declining birth rate, and happened to look at sexless proponents of the Otaku fad as one of many possible causes or effects of an obviously complex issue.

It might be (again...statistically insignificant, is it really hard to understand this notion? And, besides, this is what mentioned before, not you or the documentary), but the problem is below:

It didn't really examine anything in any depth, but that's because it's more magazine article than thesis.

Then, why bother? There are good articles to start from. Etcetera, because I don't want to go through topics we discussed already.

But it's unclear that most of those other things aside from women's rights really play that much of a role with regard to things like economic conditions, birth rates, and those things which that documentary talks about.

Generally speaking, there is a strong correlation between good welfare for mothers and fathers and birth rate, but also with productivity, since parents who can find good and cheap kindergartens go back early to work (as in Scandinavian countries). I am sure that the current far-right prime minister in South Korea and her government are under pressure to introduce system of maternity and paternity leaves, for this reason. I am also somewhat convinced that Japan had a similar system, until the '70s or so. This is an aspect of life that several other first world countries addressed in a spectacularly bad manner.

[GaijinPunch]

Happiness is a vague, immeasurable concept.

Perhaps for some worldwide, quantified list of measuring the level of happiness of one society to another. If a statistical majority flat out say, "we are not happy" this is when I bring in that ancient Chinese proverb: If it looks like shit, and smells like shit, it's probably shit.

Perhaps a poorly worded statement because it leaves open the idea that higher working hours themselves are a problem(and they are). I had more in mind things like worker safety and the like, which are not particularly problems in Japan.

The hours are only the beginning. Women's rights (lol) is just as big of a factor in the declining population as anything else. The seniority-based pay system I've always seen as a detriment to the end product as well, not to mention feeds the entire money machine that Japan seems to have become, which is why they are now losing money hand over fist. Work like a slave until you're 50, then relax and get a big paycheck... none of which rewards people for standing out. Not a great business model.

[

No citizen of any country on Earth seems to be happy with their healthcare system, but if you actually look at measurable metrics Japan ranks fairly well(extremely well in some areas like infant mortality). Not the best, but well. There are certainly some issues with the distribution of health services to the less populated areas of the country for example, but by world standards Japan's healthcare system is mostly effective. Finally when considered in terms of spending, Japan's healthcare system is extremely efficient as they spend far less on healthcare than most of the 1st world.

The US could learn a lot from Japan's system. The reverse can always be said. I don't think Japan's system is a total joke, but it is a partial joke. You can't just go to a dentist and get a teeth cleaning. They will only do 1/4 of your mouth, b/c they can only get so much from the insurance system . Result: 4 trips to get a cleaning. Super efficient. I mean shit... look at all the snaggle teeth! Japan also boasts a horribly decentralized hospital system. A few years ago a woman died in labor in an ambulance after being turned down from some 30 hospitals that were "full". I personally accompanied a stranger that couldn't speak Japanese to the ER... only to watch the ambulance take 20 minutes to get the stretcher through the door. Second largest economy in the world, ladies and gentlemen. I came to grips quite early in my tenure that if I had a heart attack in Japan, I was going to die.

You're still leaving quite a few out. What about human rights?

What does that have to do with the topic?

Dunno. Direct impact on quality of life?

But it's unclear that most of those other things aside from women's rights really play that much of a role with regard to things like economic conditions, birth rates, and those things which that documentary talks about. Maybe you can argue if you want to that they are part of the reason people are not having sex, but again, there's not much to argue since it's all speculative there.

Areas like human rights and happiness are important, but they're not what the documentary was focusing on, and I think they're mostly a separate issue and it's important not to confuse them

Again, we were talking about quality of life. Might have been a bit tangental, but I thought it should have been mentioned. I have no statistic, and I would say if there is one it is small, but I could see it as another tick in the cons column to have a child, knowing that if the marriage goes south you will have zero rights to see your child. I often ask myself if I could do it all over again what would I do? It's retarded hypothetical to consider, however I do warn any youngsters I meet (J or gaijin) of the disasters that follow when you get married and setup your homebase in Japan. It's more so for the white people, but it sucks for Japanese (usually men) as well.

Statements like the following:
"I realize that my posts may make it sound like I think everything is rosy in Japan. It obviously is not, and in many ways Japan has stagnated over the years. However, the picture of Japan in the West is highly misleading(and also highly self-serving when it comes to economic matters, as the usual solution is "be more like us"), and, if you actually look carefully, you will find Japan is doing better in many domains than the Western counterparts from which these stories originate." use words like "many" and not "all" or "all that matters" etc. I don't think I've claimed anywhere that everything is awesome in Japan. I have merely highlighted some areas where I think, by the standards of other 1st world countries, Japan still ranks well, which makes a lot of the Japan is doomed stories seem ridiculous and over the top.

I would agree. As a foreigner life is still pretty easy here. I think as a competent Japanese person, still not too bad although I think this generation of 20-somethings is going to get fucked in the ass hard once they get into their 50's and 60's . I just don't think the Japanese business model can sustain itself. That's not going to help the birth rate either. It's getting a little better, but I will stick to a claim I made a few years ago. The world is changing at a pace Japan can't keep up with, it seems. Adaptability is one of natures most important virtues. History will prove me right or wrong. I hope I'm wrong. I have a son who should be able to come and live here and enjoy half his heritage if he wants. The way things are going he better pick a different profession than his old man though.

The original topic was about a BBC documentary called 'No sex please, we're Japanese' that looked at the country's declining birth rate, and happened to look at sexless proponents of the Otaku fad as one of many possible causes or effects of an obviously complex issue.

Indeed. Ages ago I made a conclusion that people (not just Japanese) were coming more and more detached from reality, but in true Japanese form, they were exceeding at doing it. Japan's ability to merchandise the living fuck out of anything should be a decent illustration as to why I think that way. This was long before the BBC published anything, so of course as a few years passed and major publications (no matter how inept) start throwing it out there, I tend to agree.

[Aguraki]

do japanese chicks dig foreigners or this is both genres that gave up on sex?

ps:sellfish question

[GaijinPunch]

do japanese chicks dig foreigners or this is both genres that gave up on sex?

ps:sellfish question

Japanese chicks never really "dug" foreigners. Not across the board. There's a certain mystique around gaijin, and some chicks dig on that... definitely not all. There's plenty of J-Girls (the majority probably) that just aren't going to date a gaijin. There are some that go only after white cock (conversely, some that only like black dudes). Gaisen is the word for someone that only dates foreigners. Generally Roppongi is where one can view the gaisen en masse, in it's natural habitat, which is why it's over flowing w/ GI's and other undesirables.

[Wenchang]

Semi-related to the discussion, not relevant to the original premise of the thread, but not worth starting a new thread over:

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablo ... hs-science

It should speak for itself, but look at what region of the world is dominating the very top of the education rankings here. Even the Vietnamese are on the rise. The world is indeed changing fast.

[Randorama]

Semi-related to the discussion, not relevant to the original premise of the thread, but not worth starting a new thread over:

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablo ... hs-science

It should speak for itself, but look at what region of the world is dominating the very top of the education rankings here. Even the Vietnamese are on the rise. The world is indeed changing fast.

They don't. You need to actually compare results with previous results of the same type, to have a meaningful picture.

So:

The PISA rankings pertain to high schools, and the results reported in in 2012 confirm that Japanese high school education has gone back on track. Quality lowered consistently in the last few years, only to get back among the first. Interestingly, there seem to be new countries, in the world: Shangai, Macau and Hong Kong. Never heard that they became independent. And where is Mainland China, in these charts? Oh, the mysteries of charts...

Then again, Higher University rankings are more revealing (here: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/w ... ld-ranking ), since higher education is what determines whether a country can produce new and skilled workers, researchers (and so on) or not. On those matters, Asian countries are improving (see 2012: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/w ... ld-ranking, in which Seoul University and KAIST, Peking and Tsinghua, among others, were much lower). USA and UK, on the other hand...maintain their absolute lead.

You can certainly look at other rankings than the THES', but they don't give a really different picture (say, the Shangai system or what is called...). And you can certainly complain that the the rankings are euro-centric, since the current version gives a score to universities based on their research output (how many cited papers are published, per researcher, regardless of the language), and the quality of the teaching, for the most part. Case in point, the sudden leap forward of Peking and Seoul University is based on their much improved performance in publications' output.

So, exaclty what the "domain" of asian "countries" in multiple choice tests for teenagers is supposed to prove is anyone's guess. Except mine, of course.

EDIT:

And let's look at the amount of universities in the top 100, compared to the size of a country's population, to see if all these smart, thinking teenagers can go to uni and produce results that will benefit everyone else.

Some results stand out:

Switzerland: 3 unis, 8 M people (2,66 ratio: one top-level uni every 2,66 M citizens)
NL: 8 unis, 16 M people (2 ratio)
Sweden: 3 unis, 9,5 M people (3,16 ratio)
Singapore: 2 unis, 5,4 M people (2,7 ")
Japan: 2 unis, 125 M people (62 ratio)
China: 2 unis, 1,2 B people (600 )
South Korea: 3 unis, 50 M people (17 )
Shangai: zip, 40 M people (zip )
Hong Kong: 2 unis, 7 M people (3,5 )
Germany: 5 unis, 90 M people (22 )
UK: 13 unis, 57 M people (4,2 )
USA: 48 uni, 310 M people (6,3 )

It looks like the ex-british colonies and European (well, "small" and Germanic) countries with a solid tradition in education are doing fine, but Shangai is not. Except Sweden, a bizzarre outlier: Sweden's 2012 (and 2009, 2006, 2003) PISA results are horrible, and in a clear downward spiral.

My morale for this story: small, REAL countries (not Shangai or Macau, you clowns) with a plan and a tradition of long-term goals are doing fine, on educational matters and possibly the rest. Other countries are in the doldrums, and only WEEABOOS could both to argue the immensely preposterous idea that Japan, or Asia for that matter, are doing fine and are the model for the future. Please, get a grip, thank you.


...But I am fairly sure than Singaporean and Hongkongese don't fuck much, while Dutch, Swedish and Swiss should breed like rabbits. In case we want to connect this topic to OP, y'know.

[Wenchang]

A very predictable response..

Interestingly, there seem to be new countries, in the world: Shangai, Macau and Hong Kong. Never heard that they became independent. And where is Mainland China, in these charts? Oh, the mysteries of charts...

Macau and particularly Hong Kong are separated from the mainland for good reasons, and moreover this has been standard practice in many indicators for many decades now. So it's disingenuous to single out this study with those examples. The separation of Shanghai is the real issue and the reason is perfectly clear, there's no reason for you to be sarcastic when everyone knows the reason is that China is an extremely unequal country and that by design they are only providing data for their strongest performers. Undoubtedly the high rating would collapse if we had good data for China as a whole. That might be a damning point if I was making a post proclaiming the brilliance of the Chinese model, too bad I was focusing on general tendencies of the East Asia region in general. In which case your point reduces to mere nit-picking.

This habit by the way of focusing only on China overly is typical of most discussion these days. "The rise of China" is a defining topic in contemporary discussion, and while that type of narrative isn't technically inaccurate, it's largely missing the point. The real story is the rise of East Asia, which started with Japan and has spread to much of the rest of the region. China is merely the largest, most unstable, most militaristic of those countries.

Then again, Higher University rankings are more revealing (here: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/w ... ld-ranking ), since higher education is what determines whether a country can produce new and skilled workers, researchers (and so on) or not.

You do not spend even one sentence defending your premise(which is telling), which is that higher university rankings are more important, and instead decide to elaborate on it by providing a bunch of data. I do not happen to agree with your premise. The very top skilled professions by and large probably do need higher education(no coincidence that many of them would rather go to places like MIT given the chance), but how this reflects on the overall economy or standard of living is pretty sketchy, certainly when compared to High Schools in which the vast majority of the population go. So while it is certainly good for country A to have better universities than country B, the idea that country A's prosperity is so highly linked to having superior universities is comical at best(. Most people don't go to top ranking universities, in any country.

If I was to accept your premise I would have to conclude that the stagnation and decline in the American education system isn't that big a problem because places like MIT after all are just as good if not better than they always have been. That's clearly not a very good argument, especially considering there are examples of prosperous European countries who have exactly 0 universities in the list you provided(and others which have only 1). The U.K.'s high rankings in your link is probably the most telling example. If I was to accept your premise about the correlation with a country's ability to produce skilled workers I would expect that industry in the U.K. or almost any high-skilled jobs(in terms of their production) to be superior to Germany for example. But of course that argument would be laughable, as outside of some pharmaceuticals the U.K.'s productive capacity is certainly not on par with Germany to say the least.

It is also common sense that lower standards in high school and below will negatively impact higher education, but that point is irrelevant to your argument because you ignore the impact of education on the population or the country as a whole and instead focus on stand-outs. It is also common sense that those university graduated elites who are supposed to be building a nation's future need workers, and most of their workers won't be MIT and Oxford graduates. There then, the ability of those brilliant elites to expand is limited by their ability to employ workers, and there you will find the correlation between high employment is much stronger in the nations with a better education system at pre-college levels(note which countries, notably the U.K. and U.S., have employment issues lol) than with places which have some incredibly rich universities with high standards but overall have a lower standard for education. In summary your argument is poor and besides the point, and the hubris which accompanies it in the final paragraph is embarrassing.

Frankly this is like arguing the U.S.' health system is better because the care offered at the most expensive, best of the best institutions are some of the best in the world(and they are). But all this shows is that places like the U.S. have a combination of extreme richness combined with extreme levels of inequality. But that's just stating the obvious isn't it? I don't know why you even brought up researchers.

My morale for this story: small, REAL countries (not Shangai or Macau, you clowns) with a plan and a tradition of long-term goals are doing fine, on educational matters and possibly the rest. Other countries are in the doldrums, and only WEEABOOS could both to argue the immensely preposterous idea that Japan, or Asia for that matter, are doing fine and are the model for the future. Please, get a grip, thank you.

Holding the country with among the highest life expectancy up as an example of good policies is hardly preposterous. Weeaboos would more likely be focusing on the kinds of crap that was discussed primarily on page 1 of this thread, none of which interests me frankly. "Model for the future" are your words not mine. The more prosperous East Asian nations should be looked at as barometers that can show precisely which areas Western nations have stagnated, declined, and are quite simply losing in(because it is only the last few decades where Western nations are suddenly dropping in the rankings, you don't have to be a weeaboo to wonder why) and changes in policies should be considered. This accusation of being a "weeaboo" puts me in an odd position because most of my posts have been disagreements with Westerners living in Asia(not that I'm calling them weeaboos lol), whereas I do not live in Asia and frankly have no interest in living anywhere besides the southeastern U.S. I do however think economically the East Asians are right now on a better track in most respects, and I am hardly alone in that view by the way.