4 ms·

This is an honest question borne of ignorance: in what ways does that matter? I'm sure it does, but people over there are employed, they have a larger safety ne

This is an honest question borne of ignorance: in what ways does that matter? I'm sure it does, but people over there are employed, they have a larger safety net, more accessible healthcare access AND better outcomes, seemingly less crime, education seems to be something of a wash (though there is so much variability in the US it's almost a waste of time to do a nation-to-nation comparison). I only know the major bullet points though, and I haven't found this terribly easy to parse myself. I'm also quite confident that stagnation in the US would manifest differently (not that it must but that it would) so this is really just overall curiosity.

marcusverus 4y ago
This seems like a very hand-wavy comparison. By the numbers, the difference is enormous--Japan's average household net-adjusted disposable income per capita is $28,900. For direct comparison, the USA's average is 77% higher than Japan's at $51,100. Japan's average is even below the OECD average (which includes a mix of leading Western countries and less developed countries like Costa Rica and and Hungary) by 5%. [0]https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/japan/ https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/japan/ [1]https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/united-states/ https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/united-states/
- HelloMcFly 4y ago
  > This seems like a very hand-wavy comparison. That's a pretty ungenerous response when I was asking in good faith to understand, even expressing my own ignorance. I only know people that hold dual citizenship, and their experience of Japan certainly isn't some big step down from the US.
spaceman_2020 4y ago
It doesn't, really. A society that plateaus at a high standard of living is a very good end result. However, the world isn't equal, nor is the wealth equally distributed. If all of the rich, developed world was to slow down and become stagnant like Japan, where will the demand for goods and commodities made by the developing world come from? Huge western demand helped lift hundreds of millions in China and India out of poverty, for instance. Stagnant growth might be good for an individual country, but it can doom developing countries to similar stagnancy.

marcusverus 4y ago

This seems like a very hand-wavy comparison. By the numbers, the difference is enormous--Japan's average household net-adjusted disposable income per capita is $28,900. For direct comparison, the USA's average is 77% higher than Japan's at $51,100. Japan's average is even below the OECD average (which includes a mix of leading Western countries and less developed countries like Costa Rica and and Hungary) by 5%. [0]https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/japan/ https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/japan/ [1]https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/united-states/ https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/united-states/

HelloMcFly 4y ago
> This seems like a very hand-wavy comparison. That's a pretty ungenerous response when I was asking in good faith to understand, even expressing my own ignorance. I only know people that hold dual citizenship, and their experience of Japan certainly isn't some big step down from the US.

spaceman_2020 4y ago

It doesn't, really. A society that plateaus at a high standard of living is a very good end result. However, the world isn't equal, nor is the wealth equally distributed. If all of the rich, developed world was to slow down and become stagnant like Japan, where will the demand for goods and commodities made by the developing world come from? Huge western demand helped lift hundreds of millions in China and India out of poverty, for instance. Stagnant growth might be good for an individual country, but it can doom developing countries to similar stagnancy.