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I think Germany taking two decades to catch up combined with Japans higher growth outside the recession looks better, I’d bet Japan next decade based on a lot o

I think Germany taking two decades to catch up combined with Japans higher growth outside the recession looks better, I’d bet Japan next decade based on a lot of things, mostly software and tech. The debt may be a factor, but that’s a hypothesis not a fact so you should state it as such, it’s not stopped other countries from defaulting. Easy to endlessly discuss this though, but without good faith on your side it won’t go anywhere useful. I stand strongly by the point that anyone spouting Japan stagnation memes is just repeating shallow media talking points that are outdated and don’t reflect reality on the ground... yea, stagnation from a trajectory to be bigger than the US in GDP from a tiny island nation. Without so so many of the problems of the US. The quality of life there is incredibly high, they’re incredibly rich, they’re adjusting many soft factors to be better to work, women, and newer economic abilities. It’s very roughly like if everyone went around talking about how Ferrari is stagnating, when they’ve had 2/5 popular cars in the last decade (incl one this year) and most other carmakers had 3/5 (but most none this year). Ok, maybe you can argue that, and I wouldn’t agree but fine, but it’s still a Ferrari and the rest of the world is driving Kia. The meme has gotten so strong people are actually out there now thinking Kia > Ferrari. I’m just bringing perspective to how it feels day to day there.

mlyle 6y ago
Where is the higher growth? I divided 2019 by 2009 GDP much earlier in the thread for the two countries we are talking about, and got a smaller number for Japan. Don't accuse me of bad faith when you will not address this point. You keep telling me about higher or similar growth when the numbers do not support it. As to the debt picture: it becomes more difficult to grow GDP to cover large debt when the working age population is destined to shrink relatively sharply. The demographic squeeze isn't a opinion or theory-- it is a certainty. Even liberalizing immigration policy would not be enough now, and there have only been the tiniest steps in that direction. I would have been on the opposite side of this argument for a long time-- enthusiastic and optimistic for Japan's economics trends to improve, and a fan of many of the country's institutions. But at this point, there has been decades of underperformance-- yes, from a track to outpace the US's GDP on an absolute level to now being 2/3rds of it on a per-capita basis, with ongoing slower growth and terrible demographic trends. The dependency ratio is going to be 0.79 people 65+ for every person 20-64 in 30 years, and the overall population will be 25% smaller. The working age population will be 33% smaller. This is a very difficult environment to have significant absolute growth in. And, again, comparing to Germany is silly... because many of us are also concerned about the same factors-- underperforming growth, demographic shifts -- in Germany.
- nwienert 6y ago
  Germany isn’t doing bad. Here’s your same PPP/GDP graph with a bunch of first world nations, the USA Uk etc + Mexico and Russia, last 5 years or so. Please point out the Japan line which should by your argument be an even semi obvious outlier. https://ibb.co/Btm0ymb https://ibb.co/Btm0ymb All I’ve claimed is at best you can say they are slightly below average for a first world nation, and still very high in absolute terms. To refute, you’d have to show that they are significantly lagging, not just a little as that’s not been my claim ever. It’s just not there. The hype is real.
  - mlyle 6y ago
    > Please point out the Japan line which should by your argument be an even semi obvious outlier. It's like you don't understand my main point: it is difficult to judge differences growth on a linear scale graph. It's like the dishonest COVID-19 graphs early on which showed coronavirus in comparison to other causes of death, and you couldn't see exponential growth it looked boring. That's why sometimes it's useful to use a log scale, or to just divide the numbers and compare them, to understand rates of growth. I think I see why we disagree: your entire argument is based on eyeballing (misleading, linear) graphs instead of comparing numbers. I have hit this point 4 times in the thread so far, and you keep making an argument based on eyeballing graphs.
    - nwienert 6y ago
      You should be a politician! Incredible work. Log scale is absolutely not the right measure, actually didn’t even see that nifty trick because I would never have expected it used! No wonder your graph looked totally wrong. Log scale would work if they were staying constant so we could compare on long time scales, but that’s so far from the case. If you can’t admit that, we can’t have a discussion. You really should know that to be talking about this stuff. These are close values that are fluctuating too much. The swings over the last 10 years is relevant, in absolute values. I can write the numbers out for you, but the graphs are actually less refutable. You insinuate they aren’t, but they are they’re than numbers for this use: comparing relative performance. We want to see how they all are doing, in a straightforward comparison. No, my point is you’re choosing your window very selectively and distorting the numbers to fit your narrative, and when I take the window away your point doesn’t stand, as it doesn’t

mlyle 6y ago

Where is the higher growth? I divided 2019 by 2009 GDP much earlier in the thread for the two countries we are talking about, and got a smaller number for Japan. Don't accuse me of bad faith when you will not address this point. You keep telling me about higher or similar growth when the numbers do not support it. As to the debt picture: it becomes more difficult to grow GDP to cover large debt when the working age population is destined to shrink relatively sharply. The demographic squeeze isn't a opinion or theory-- it is a certainty. Even liberalizing immigration policy would not be enough now, and there have only been the tiniest steps in that direction. I would have been on the opposite side of this argument for a long time-- enthusiastic and optimistic for Japan's economics trends to improve, and a fan of many of the country's institutions. But at this point, there has been decades of underperformance-- yes, from a track to outpace the US's GDP on an absolute level to now being 2/3rds of it on a per-capita basis, with ongoing slower growth and terrible demographic trends. The dependency ratio is going to be 0.79 people 65+ for every person 20-64 in 30 years, and the overall population will be 25% smaller. The working age population will be 33% smaller. This is a very difficult environment to have significant absolute growth in. And, again, comparing to Germany is silly... because many of us are also concerned about the same factors-- underperforming growth, demographic shifts -- in Germany.

nwienert 6y ago
Germany isn’t doing bad. Here’s your same PPP/GDP graph with a bunch of first world nations, the USA Uk etc + Mexico and Russia, last 5 years or so. Please point out the Japan line which should by your argument be an even semi obvious outlier. https://ibb.co/Btm0ymb https://ibb.co/Btm0ymb All I’ve claimed is at best you can say they are slightly below average for a first world nation, and still very high in absolute terms. To refute, you’d have to show that they are significantly lagging, not just a little as that’s not been my claim ever. It’s just not there. The hype is real.
- mlyle 6y ago
  > Please point out the Japan line which should by your argument be an even semi obvious outlier. It's like you don't understand my main point: it is difficult to judge differences growth on a linear scale graph. It's like the dishonest COVID-19 graphs early on which showed coronavirus in comparison to other causes of death, and you couldn't see exponential growth it looked boring. That's why sometimes it's useful to use a log scale, or to just divide the numbers and compare them, to understand rates of growth. I think I see why we disagree: your entire argument is based on eyeballing (misleading, linear) graphs instead of comparing numbers. I have hit this point 4 times in the thread so far, and you keep making an argument based on eyeballing graphs.
  - nwienert 6y ago
    You should be a politician! Incredible work. Log scale is absolutely not the right measure, actually didn’t even see that nifty trick because I would never have expected it used! No wonder your graph looked totally wrong. Log scale would work if they were staying constant so we could compare on long time scales, but that’s so far from the case. If you can’t admit that, we can’t have a discussion. You really should know that to be talking about this stuff. These are close values that are fluctuating too much. The swings over the last 10 years is relevant, in absolute values. I can write the numbers out for you, but the graphs are actually less refutable. You insinuate they aren’t, but they are they’re than numbers for this use: comparing relative performance. We want to see how they all are doing, in a straightforward comparison. No, my point is you’re choosing your window very selectively and distorting the numbers to fit your narrative, and when I take the window away your point doesn’t stand, as it doesn’t