5 ms·

If the Japanese government wants to do the right thing, all it has to do is to let the population contract even further until Asset prices begin to freefall. T

by sprash 8y ago

If the Japanese government wants to do the right thing, all it has to do is to let the population contract even further until Asset prices begin to freefall. Then everything will be affordable again for young Japanese citizens and a good longterm economic outlook for the future is the best thing you can do to stimulate birthrates. If Japan wants to screw it up, it should allow mass immigration. This way asset prices can stay high and the native Japanese will eventually cease to exist. We will speak of them in the future as great ancient civilization. Similarly we speak of ancient Greeks today.

parrot_11 8y ago
I get what you're trying to say and I find it strange that the democrats in the US have hitched their strategy from improving quality of life of people to importing as many low income immigrants as possible who will vote for them. Makes you think how power hungry they've become.
- parrot_11 8y ago
  Looks like my comment got flagged, would anyone care to point out where I was wrong or how my comment is any different from what is being discussed of the current situation in Japan?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - zozbot123 8y ago
    Suggesting that one political party "have become power hungry" is just not good optics. It's definitely the case though that R policies generally lead to more affordable child-rearing and household formation - and I just can't tell why some people here are bringing up "religiosity" as if it had any relevance to this basic fact. The affordances there are what's very different, regardless of any additional difference in inclination.
    - parrot_11 8y ago
      Looking at politics as a system, you can clearly observe that the victory (outsized) rewards for the progressive wing in US come from low income immigrants that the liberals bank on. In fact thinking about it a little further, a California citizen would have been in a vastly better situation had it not been home to that many low income immigrants. Of course, that would've also meant hugely lower chances of progressive winning there. To sum up, the progressives it appears import poverty when the region is doing rather well and then campaign on more taxes to alleviate this said increased poverty. If this is not plain desire for political victory, what else could it be?
  - NikolaNovak 8y ago
    I hadn't and wouldn't flag it; but FWIW, I found it presented no meaningful contribution, and they try to avoid that sort of thing on these forums. Honestly, it sounded like you took any opportunity, no matter how remote, to put a couple of soundbites from a domestic politics menu. They may be your fervently held beliefs, that's great, but if your goal is to persuade,you need to provide backing and details and reason; if your goal is to contribute, it has to be connected to conversation at hand; if your goal is to rant, mission accomplished but not everybody is interested in this forum becoming a soundbite board. There's an international audience here, and though we're all amply aware of US politics and have our own opinions, discussing Japanese demographics and as a non-sequitur injecting "Democrats are trying to bring in people to vote for them", well... if you cannot see your post from other people's eyes, you may be too deep into specific partisanship for a random person on the internet like me to aid. (additional two points: - I would react the same way no matter which side is picked; I don't like Michael Moore any more than Ann Coulter, Al Franken more than Glenn Beck. There's people who want to engage in meaningful discussion, and there's people who want to spew soundbits and propaganda. - That being said, on average Hackernews audience does have an overall leaning, which your post may have gone against) ...My 100 Croatian Kunas :)
    - parrot_11 8y ago
      Looking at my post I see that it was lacking in reasoning, I'll try to post better in future. Thank you for your response! :)
  - jlawson 8y ago
    Your last line about the Dems was kind of lame and pointlessly inflammatory; it gave an excuse to delete. However, a number of comments downthread have also been rapidly flagged to death. The speed of it suggests a moderator has decided that his morals are so much better than others' that he has the right to silence others' views despite those views not breaking any rules. It's common in any thread like this on HN. I suggest reading with showdead on (you can turn it on in your profile settings). You get a wider variety of opinions that way. It's nice to break the filter bubble. In case anyone wants to avoid their own flag/ban, the hidden but eagerly-enforced rules seem to include: -- You are not allowed to speak roughly when making a point against San Francisco ethics position (you're allowed to speak roughly in favor of SF ethics). (This is the hidden rule you broke.) -- You are not allowed to give any notion that different population groups have any sort of characteristics distinct from each other (especially not IQ). Note that it's accepted in mainstream science that ethnic IQ differences can be consistently measured, but there is disagreement whether the cause is genetic or environmental, with significant support among scientists for both positions [0]. Basically, for moral reasons, HN requires that you support one side of this ongoing debate. It may or not be actually correct (scientists still arguing about that) but it is certainly politically correct. (Some commenters downthread broke this hidden rule). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence
mc32 8y ago
A fly in that ointment is that people continue to flock to Tokyo mostly thereby depopulating the countryside. So even as overall pop is decreasing, it’s increasing in Tokyo putting upwards pressure on housing there. There are probably ways to incentivize populating the countryside, but it hasn’t been addressed successfully.
screye 8y ago
In some ways, I can see what you are saying. Japan is in a very different position than Western countries such as the US or Canada. They have a very small % of non mountaneoues land suitable for city building. Add to that their inability to build tall buildings and the huge population, and it is quickly apparent that Japan could do with fewer people in the country. Now the obvious problem of having an aging population is collapse of any system that depends on the young to fund an aging generation that is now a net burden for the government. Option 1 : When immigration is not an option to artificially ramp up net contributors, the population will have to come to terms with an uncomfortable reality. That, the aging population can't avail the benefits they were promised when they worked their asses off, because the smaller young population can't bear their burden. This ofc, is extremely difficult to implement in practice, because older people are big on voting and will destroy any politician who even suggests this. But, the other alternative could lead to an even worse outcome than the mass migration idea. Option 2 : The aging population keeps drawing from the system at the cost of an increasingly burdened working population and the debt keeps rising. Eventually, debt will be too large and the one generation capable of putting a dent in it will be far too crippled by economic burden of now dying populace. Your comment seems to be an eventual outcome of option one. Where government support for systems for the retired vanish, and again people start liquidating assets to make up for vanishing welfare. As a result, housing may become affordable and the younger generation could gain some much needed stability and options. I am not an economist and the economic implications of any of these events go over my head. It will however be interesting too see an experiment where a country tries to maintain a stable economy and QOL for their population for a country with much older average citizen, than he norm.
- codewiz 8y ago
  The stereotype of Japan being overcrowded comes from high-density wards in the middle of Tokyo. Everywhere else, there's plenty of unused land. In fact, the government is trying to give away 8 millions of abandoned homes in areas where the population is declining: https://www.thisisinsider.com/japan-program-free-abandoned-homes-2018-11 https://www.thisisinsider.com/japan-program-free-abandoned-h... While Tokyo keeps growing at the expense of smaller cities and rural areas, a constant supply of new, taller buildings kept prices from skyrocketing like they did in London, New York, and San Francisco. Today, Tokyo doesn't feel like an overcrowded city: public transportation keeps expanding and increasing capacity, traffic jams are exceedingly rare, and the municipality has been hard at work to plant more trees and improve the air quality. Quality of life is truly excellent here. You can see for yourself by watching some of these excellent videos made by a Canadian national who relocated to Japan 5 years ago with his family: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqwxJts-6yF33rupyF_DCsA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqwxJts-6yF33rupyF_DCsA
faissaloo 8y ago
Uh, if asset prices go into freefall aren't business owners screwed?
beginningguava 8y ago
One of the better takes I've seen on the situation: https://imgur.com/a/Zg32EAl https://imgur.com/a/Zg32EAl cheaper housing, higher wages, less crime, less pollution The only people hurt by stable population are giant corporations who want cheap labor and more consumers. Japan will be fine, they'll just increase productivity with technology rather than throwing bodies at problems US should solve the problem by giving bigger tax deductions to incentivize middle class to have more kids and free child care. But instead of the logical decision, our politicians tell us we need to bring in millions of immigrants
- Trill-I-Am 8y ago
  Don’t most social insurance/safety net schemes require a growing population?
- Eleopteryx 8y ago
  I see you straightfacedly posting screencaps taken from /pol/ and I'm going to take it as the first sign that this site is now on a cultural downturn.
Latty 8y ago
> the native Japanese will eventually cease to exist Uh, what? After a generation, those immigrants will have children who are Japanese. Their native home will be Japan. If your point is about ethnicity, then I don't see what the problem is. It's also ridiculous to suggest that Japanese ethnicity will cease to exist. Sure, you'd see more race mixing, but again, how is that a problem? The US still has native American ethnicity, and that's pretty much as extreme as immigration gets - any modern immigration system is never going to have that level of disparity. The quality of life for young people is not good in Japanese society right now, sounds like your motivation is more about preserving some notion of racial "purity" than anything that actually matters.
- saywhatnowman 8y ago
  It's very offensive to imply that the Japanese have nothing unique to offer the world other than a passport. In fact it comes off as very hateful and rude. Japan is more than a piece of land, or a group of people who make television programs and video games for you to enjoy. They are many millions of families each with a rich history that the world would be poorer for losing. And yes, if they stop having children or they lose their island then all of that will be lost. Denying them this is tantamount to denying their humanity.
  - irrational 8y ago
    I don’t know if this is a good argument. The Sumerians, Etruscans, Olmecs, etc. had a rich history that the world is probably the poorer for losing, but how often do any of us fret about that?
    - saywhatnowman 8y ago
      Perhaps, but then again, why shouldn't we care? Don't we care about animal species going extinct? There is value in preserving various approaches to life. Both at a biological and cultural level. It's a pity to see ways of life stop existing when they could have been spared.
  - Latty 8y ago
codewiz 8y ago
Your argument implies that young immigrants will somehow find it affordable to have babies in Japan when Japanese citizens do not. This is perhaps true for skilled workers? But unskilled Japanese workers cannot fill that demand, and without access to a wider pool of skilled labor the Japanese industry will continue to stagnate. Another factor that you didn't consider is that prices dropping due to economic decline doesn't make life cheaper for people who live in that same economy. Their income is of course linked to demand on the labor market. And last but not least, population can also drop due to expatriation, which inevitably grows in times of economic decline.

by sprash 8y ago

parrot_11 8y ago

I get what you're trying to say and I find it strange that the democrats in the US have hitched their strategy from improving quality of life of people to importing as many low income immigrants as possible who will vote for them. Makes you think how power hungry they've become.

parrot_11 8y ago
Looks like my comment got flagged, would anyone care to point out where I was wrong or how my comment is any different from what is being discussed of the current situation in Japan?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- zozbot123 8y ago
  Suggesting that one political party "have become power hungry" is just not good optics. It's definitely the case though that R policies generally lead to more affordable child-rearing and household formation - and I just can't tell why some people here are bringing up "religiosity" as if it had any relevance to this basic fact. The affordances there are what's very different, regardless of any additional difference in inclination.
  - parrot_11 8y ago
    Looking at politics as a system, you can clearly observe that the victory (outsized) rewards for the progressive wing in US come from low income immigrants that the liberals bank on. In fact thinking about it a little further, a California citizen would have been in a vastly better situation had it not been home to that many low income immigrants. Of course, that would've also meant hugely lower chances of progressive winning there. To sum up, the progressives it appears import poverty when the region is doing rather well and then campaign on more taxes to alleviate this said increased poverty. If this is not plain desire for political victory, what else could it be?
- NikolaNovak 8y ago
  I hadn't and wouldn't flag it; but FWIW, I found it presented no meaningful contribution, and they try to avoid that sort of thing on these forums. Honestly, it sounded like you took any opportunity, no matter how remote, to put a couple of soundbites from a domestic politics menu. They may be your fervently held beliefs, that's great, but if your goal is to persuade,you need to provide backing and details and reason; if your goal is to contribute, it has to be connected to conversation at hand; if your goal is to rant, mission accomplished but not everybody is interested in this forum becoming a soundbite board. There's an international audience here, and though we're all amply aware of US politics and have our own opinions, discussing Japanese demographics and as a non-sequitur injecting "Democrats are trying to bring in people to vote for them", well... if you cannot see your post from other people's eyes, you may be too deep into specific partisanship for a random person on the internet like me to aid. (additional two points: - I would react the same way no matter which side is picked; I don't like Michael Moore any more than Ann Coulter, Al Franken more than Glenn Beck. There's people who want to engage in meaningful discussion, and there's people who want to spew soundbits and propaganda. - That being said, on average Hackernews audience does have an overall leaning, which your post may have gone against) ...My 100 Croatian Kunas :)
  - parrot_11 8y ago
    Looking at my post I see that it was lacking in reasoning, I'll try to post better in future. Thank you for your response! :)
- jlawson 8y ago
  Your last line about the Dems was kind of lame and pointlessly inflammatory; it gave an excuse to delete. However, a number of comments downthread have also been rapidly flagged to death. The speed of it suggests a moderator has decided that his morals are so much better than others' that he has the right to silence others' views despite those views not breaking any rules. It's common in any thread like this on HN. I suggest reading with showdead on (you can turn it on in your profile settings). You get a wider variety of opinions that way. It's nice to break the filter bubble. In case anyone wants to avoid their own flag/ban, the hidden but eagerly-enforced rules seem to include: -- You are not allowed to speak roughly when making a point against San Francisco ethics position (you're allowed to speak roughly in favor of SF ethics). (This is the hidden rule you broke.) -- You are not allowed to give any notion that different population groups have any sort of characteristics distinct from each other (especially not IQ). Note that it's accepted in mainstream science that ethnic IQ differences can be consistently measured, but there is disagreement whether the cause is genetic or environmental, with significant support among scientists for both positions [0]. Basically, for moral reasons, HN requires that you support one side of this ongoing debate. It may or not be actually correct (scientists still arguing about that) but it is certainly politically correct. (Some commenters downthread broke this hidden rule). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence

mc32 8y ago

A fly in that ointment is that people continue to flock to Tokyo mostly thereby depopulating the countryside. So even as overall pop is decreasing, it’s increasing in Tokyo putting upwards pressure on housing there. There are probably ways to incentivize populating the countryside, but it hasn’t been addressed successfully.

screye 8y ago

In some ways, I can see what you are saying. Japan is in a very different position than Western countries such as the US or Canada. They have a very small % of non mountaneoues land suitable for city building. Add to that their inability to build tall buildings and the huge population, and it is quickly apparent that Japan could do with fewer people in the country. Now the obvious problem of having an aging population is collapse of any system that depends on the young to fund an aging generation that is now a net burden for the government. Option 1 : When immigration is not an option to artificially ramp up net contributors, the population will have to come to terms with an uncomfortable reality. That, the aging population can't avail the benefits they were promised when they worked their asses off, because the smaller young population can't bear their burden. This ofc, is extremely difficult to implement in practice, because older people are big on voting and will destroy any politician who even suggests this. But, the other alternative could lead to an even worse outcome than the mass migration idea. Option 2 : The aging population keeps drawing from the system at the cost of an increasingly burdened working population and the debt keeps rising. Eventually, debt will be too large and the one generation capable of putting a dent in it will be far too crippled by economic burden of now dying populace. Your comment seems to be an eventual outcome of option one. Where government support for systems for the retired vanish, and again people start liquidating assets to make up for vanishing welfare. As a result, housing may become affordable and the younger generation could gain some much needed stability and options. I am not an economist and the economic implications of any of these events go over my head. It will however be interesting too see an experiment where a country tries to maintain a stable economy and QOL for their population for a country with much older average citizen, than he norm.

codewiz 8y ago
The stereotype of Japan being overcrowded comes from high-density wards in the middle of Tokyo. Everywhere else, there's plenty of unused land. In fact, the government is trying to give away 8 millions of abandoned homes in areas where the population is declining: https://www.thisisinsider.com/japan-program-free-abandoned-homes-2018-11 https://www.thisisinsider.com/japan-program-free-abandoned-h... While Tokyo keeps growing at the expense of smaller cities and rural areas, a constant supply of new, taller buildings kept prices from skyrocketing like they did in London, New York, and San Francisco. Today, Tokyo doesn't feel like an overcrowded city: public transportation keeps expanding and increasing capacity, traffic jams are exceedingly rare, and the municipality has been hard at work to plant more trees and improve the air quality. Quality of life is truly excellent here. You can see for yourself by watching some of these excellent videos made by a Canadian national who relocated to Japan 5 years ago with his family: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqwxJts-6yF33rupyF_DCsA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqwxJts-6yF33rupyF_DCsA

faissaloo 8y ago

Uh, if asset prices go into freefall aren't business owners screwed?

beginningguava 8y ago

One of the better takes I've seen on the situation: https://imgur.com/a/Zg32EAl https://imgur.com/a/Zg32EAl cheaper housing, higher wages, less crime, less pollution The only people hurt by stable population are giant corporations who want cheap labor and more consumers. Japan will be fine, they'll just increase productivity with technology rather than throwing bodies at problems US should solve the problem by giving bigger tax deductions to incentivize middle class to have more kids and free child care. But instead of the logical decision, our politicians tell us we need to bring in millions of immigrants

Trill-I-Am 8y ago
Don’t most social insurance/safety net schemes require a growing population?
Eleopteryx 8y ago
I see you straightfacedly posting screencaps taken from /pol/ and I'm going to take it as the first sign that this site is now on a cultural downturn.

Latty 8y ago

> the native Japanese will eventually cease to exist Uh, what? After a generation, those immigrants will have children who are Japanese. Their native home will be Japan. If your point is about ethnicity, then I don't see what the problem is. It's also ridiculous to suggest that Japanese ethnicity will cease to exist. Sure, you'd see more race mixing, but again, how is that a problem? The US still has native American ethnicity, and that's pretty much as extreme as immigration gets - any modern immigration system is never going to have that level of disparity. The quality of life for young people is not good in Japanese society right now, sounds like your motivation is more about preserving some notion of racial "purity" than anything that actually matters.

saywhatnowman 8y ago
It's very offensive to imply that the Japanese have nothing unique to offer the world other than a passport. In fact it comes off as very hateful and rude. Japan is more than a piece of land, or a group of people who make television programs and video games for you to enjoy. They are many millions of families each with a rich history that the world would be poorer for losing. And yes, if they stop having children or they lose their island then all of that will be lost. Denying them this is tantamount to denying their humanity.
- irrational 8y ago
  I don’t know if this is a good argument. The Sumerians, Etruscans, Olmecs, etc. had a rich history that the world is probably the poorer for losing, but how often do any of us fret about that?
  - saywhatnowman 8y ago
    Perhaps, but then again, why shouldn't we care? Don't we care about animal species going extinct? There is value in preserving various approaches to life. Both at a biological and cultural level. It's a pity to see ways of life stop existing when they could have been spared.
- Latty 8y ago

codewiz 8y ago

Your argument implies that young immigrants will somehow find it affordable to have babies in Japan when Japanese citizens do not. This is perhaps true for skilled workers? But unskilled Japanese workers cannot fill that demand, and without access to a wider pool of skilled labor the Japanese industry will continue to stagnate. Another factor that you didn't consider is that prices dropping due to economic decline doesn't make life cheaper for people who live in that same economy. Their income is of course linked to demand on the labor market. And last but not least, population can also drop due to expatriation, which inevitably grows in times of economic decline.