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>..., and yet a totally stagnant economy. I mean I understand a lot of the reasons, but it's still weird. Totally explainable by the fact that Japan has the wo

>..., and yet a totally stagnant economy. I mean I understand a lot of the reasons, but it's still weird. Totally explainable by the fact that Japan has the world's fastest aging (and now shrinking) population. [1] 1950: 84 million 1975: 112 million 2000: 127 million 2025: 124 million 2050: 110 million [1] http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/worldageing19502050/pdf/119japan.pdf http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/worldageing195...

martinald 9y ago
Yes, the problem with ageing population is that a lot of your GDP growth which would otherwise go into disposable incomes etc instead goes to care for a lot of old people. TBH virtually all developed economies have slowed down over the past 10+ years, I often wonder if this is the real reason, more than just the financial criss. The only spurts of growth seem to be either sudden windfalls from resource extraction booms or big credit runups that tend to leave a big hangover.
- zanny 9y ago
  How is it different to have revenue going to services retirees need instead of going to new sports cars of big tvs? An aging population is only a problem if you are broke and have no capital to use to finance your lifestyle. Japan is nothing like that - they are a rich country with divested interests in many industries that all output world class goods and services. Built by the people now entering retirement. Worry about Japan when their per-capita starts slipping dramatically.
  - delhanty 9y ago
    There's more to it than just available capital though. A still-shrinking working-age population will have to look after a still-expanding retired population. IIRC (no reference), Japanese pensioners on aggregate have lots of savings. However, they will surely be competing with one another for services rendered by the shrinking labor pool, so one would expect the costs of those services to rise, negating the effect of having lots of savings. I live in Japan now and, unsurprisingly, the retirement home business appears to be booming, especially in and around Tokyo. But even if there are lots of retirement homes, they will have to be staffed. By robots perhaps?
    - neltnerb 9y ago
      Yeah, I agree. Robots for sure. If the cost of developing an AI that can do this is less than the cost of hiring scarce labor... in 2050? Sounds almost obvious now that you say it.
    - GFischer 9y ago
      Hopefully they'll relax immigration requirements? Maybe from Southeast Asia and the Phillipines? They're very used to working in the hospitality industry, a lot of cruise staff are Filipinos for example.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >How is it different to have revenue going to services retirees need instead of going to new sports cars of big tvs For one, the people buying those sports cars and big tvs are productive citizens and have decades of work and payments ahead of them...
techdragon 9y ago
Doesn't help them that the country overall has a pretty pervasive anti immigration stance... and longstanding xenophobia issues.
- njwi332 9y ago
  In some ways this might show the steady state of a developed economy. Other developed nations are growing in large part through immigration - if the whole world was developed and there was nowhere for immigrants to come from, it's not implausible that we would see something like this start to happen everywhere.
  - pm90 9y ago
    I hadn't thought about this much, but this is an excellent point. I imagine the only thing that would change this in the future is if we made child bearing and rearing a lot less burdensome than what it is right now.... but that seems like a pipe dream, even as I write it down. I imagine economics are only one part of the difficulty with having children; the emotional consequences are probably much more significant.
- honestoHeminway 9y ago
  At least they are not waving flags to welcome radical conservatives escaping theire messed up countrys.
- GFischer 9y ago
  I don't know why you're being downvoted. The anti-immigration stance is a well known problem in Japan, relaxing it in a sane way would definitely solve some of their social services problems.
  - muninn_ 9y ago
    The downvotes are coming from people who think the West is racist and xenophobic and anything contrary to that narrative means downvotes. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of the world exhibits some form of racism and in many countries, such as Japan, its institutionalize. The U.S. And U.K. get a bad rap on this issue for some reason, but take a few million migrants from all over the world and plop them into Tokyo or Beijing and let me know how it goes.

martinald 9y ago

Yes, the problem with ageing population is that a lot of your GDP growth which would otherwise go into disposable incomes etc instead goes to care for a lot of old people. TBH virtually all developed economies have slowed down over the past 10+ years, I often wonder if this is the real reason, more than just the financial criss. The only spurts of growth seem to be either sudden windfalls from resource extraction booms or big credit runups that tend to leave a big hangover.

zanny 9y ago
How is it different to have revenue going to services retirees need instead of going to new sports cars of big tvs? An aging population is only a problem if you are broke and have no capital to use to finance your lifestyle. Japan is nothing like that - they are a rich country with divested interests in many industries that all output world class goods and services. Built by the people now entering retirement. Worry about Japan when their per-capita starts slipping dramatically.
- delhanty 9y ago
  There's more to it than just available capital though. A still-shrinking working-age population will have to look after a still-expanding retired population. IIRC (no reference), Japanese pensioners on aggregate have lots of savings. However, they will surely be competing with one another for services rendered by the shrinking labor pool, so one would expect the costs of those services to rise, negating the effect of having lots of savings. I live in Japan now and, unsurprisingly, the retirement home business appears to be booming, especially in and around Tokyo. But even if there are lots of retirement homes, they will have to be staffed. By robots perhaps?
  - neltnerb 9y ago
    Yeah, I agree. Robots for sure. If the cost of developing an AI that can do this is less than the cost of hiring scarce labor... in 2050? Sounds almost obvious now that you say it.
  - GFischer 9y ago
    Hopefully they'll relax immigration requirements? Maybe from Southeast Asia and the Phillipines? They're very used to working in the hospitality industry, a lot of cruise staff are Filipinos for example.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >How is it different to have revenue going to services retirees need instead of going to new sports cars of big tvs For one, the people buying those sports cars and big tvs are productive citizens and have decades of work and payments ahead of them...

techdragon 9y ago

Doesn't help them that the country overall has a pretty pervasive anti immigration stance... and longstanding xenophobia issues.

njwi332 9y ago
In some ways this might show the steady state of a developed economy. Other developed nations are growing in large part through immigration - if the whole world was developed and there was nowhere for immigrants to come from, it's not implausible that we would see something like this start to happen everywhere.
- pm90 9y ago
  I hadn't thought about this much, but this is an excellent point. I imagine the only thing that would change this in the future is if we made child bearing and rearing a lot less burdensome than what it is right now.... but that seems like a pipe dream, even as I write it down. I imagine economics are only one part of the difficulty with having children; the emotional consequences are probably much more significant.
honestoHeminway 9y ago
At least they are not waving flags to welcome radical conservatives escaping theire messed up countrys.
GFischer 9y ago
I don't know why you're being downvoted. The anti-immigration stance is a well known problem in Japan, relaxing it in a sane way would definitely solve some of their social services problems.
- muninn_ 9y ago
  The downvotes are coming from people who think the West is racist and xenophobic and anything contrary to that narrative means downvotes. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of the world exhibits some form of racism and in many countries, such as Japan, its institutionalize. The U.S. And U.K. get a bad rap on this issue for some reason, but take a few million migrants from all over the world and plop them into Tokyo or Beijing and let me know how it goes.