This reminds me of an entry level Business Japanese class I took many years ago from Peter Firkola at the University of Hokkaido, except as applied to modern da

This reminds me of an entry level Business Japanese class I took many years ago from Peter Firkola at the University of Hokkaido, except as applied to modern day Japan. My memory is a little fuzzy about the specifics, but the following is the main gist of it. Basically the Japanese government funds a large number of "pointless" projects, such as freeways to nowhere, large sea-facing cement walls, or things like subsidizing construction companies and the like (this is why you'll see 6 people standing around a hole in the ground, 3 "bosses" doing absolutely nothing, 2 of them old men flagging traffic, 1 person doing the actual digging). This is how Japan manages to keep their unemployment rate low, and thus keep money moving through the economy - by making sure people are able to obtain a job, even if it's useless or redundant. At the top of it all you have the massive Zaibatsu (big conglomerates) which fund the lower level companies under their umbrella which in turn pay these meager salaries and keep people employed, typically as some kind of tax write off and the side benefits of having all of these various companies at their disposal (concrete, construction, real estate, etc). The bottom of the system is incredibly inefficient, but it helps make sure that a bare minimum quality of life is available for people willing to try to get any old job. Interesting article which sums up big infrastructure projects and their long term drawbacks/benefits better than I can (2009) - https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/world/asia/06japan.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/world/asia/06japan.html