4 ms·

I live in Japan. Fingleton is misguided. There is no real increase in living standards since the bubble was popped. Goods are getting cheaper, and Japanese peo

by gkanai 15y ago

I live in Japan. Fingleton is misguided. There is no real increase in living standards since the bubble was popped. Goods are getting cheaper, and Japanese people are increasingly consuming cheaper goods. If you only visit the major cities, you won't see the urban decay. If you travel outside of the urban cities, you'll see the decay in full bloom (a la Spike Japan blog.) http://spikejapan.wordpress.com/ http://spikejapan.wordpress.com/

impendia 15y ago
I dunno about this. I'm sure that what you say is true in many places, but I lived in Fukuchiyama, northern Kyoto, from 2001-2003 which seemed to be a fairly average city of 70,000, about 90 km from any substantially larger city. I happened to visit again recently, and I was struck by all the gleaming new construction, and the impressively rebuilt train station.
angus77 15y ago
I think that definitely depends on where you live. Here in Shizuoka, in the 90s, pretty much all big public works projects came to a standstill. Roads they were building just stopped being built partway through construction. A few years into the 2000s, and they revved things up again, at a pace that makes it look like they were trying to catch up on all the projects that were abandoned in the 90s. A few years ago, the papers announced that rent downtown had bounced back up to Bubble-era rates, and construction downtown has been particularly active.
yummyfajitas 15y ago
There is no real increase in living standards...Japanese people are increasingly consuming cheaper goods. These two statements contradict each other.
- mc32 15y ago
  He means that instead of consuming name-brand goods, they increasingly look to knock-offs or non-premium brands (instead of French and Italian, maybe Uniqlo or low-rent brands). It's not only in the consumer goods sector either. Japanese are now buying more produce from China --which tend to be cheaper. Now, it all depends, some of this choice could increase living standards (more PP) or it could decrease them (subpar goods).
  - yummyfajitas 15y ago
    My bad. I misunderstood what he said.
    - gkanai 15y ago
      Yep that's what I meant.
- gwern 15y ago
  A relevant example: > In the case of Japan over the last decade, we have seen a significant rise in popularity of inferior goods and a decrease in demand for premium goods. Japan’s most notable inferior good of the moment is “third-category beer” — a beer-like beverage with nearly zero malt content that sells for slightly less than real beer. Japanese consumers facing no economic constraint would choose Japan’s most iconic (and not particularly expensive) mass market beers such as Asahi Super Dry or Kirin Ichiban Shibori over third-category beer. So what does it say about the consumer market when Japan will soon have a majority “fake beer” market for malt-flavored beverages? Even with falling demand for beer-like drinks, third category beer is seeing growth. This is a sign that the consumer living standard considered normal just a decade ago has fallen dramatically into a new “basket of goods” that would once have be seen as only appropriate for the relatively destitute. http://neojaponisme.com/2011/11/28/the-great-shift-in-japanese-pop-culture-part-one/ http://neojaponisme.com/2011/11/28/the-great-shift-in-japane... linking to http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/drink/2010-looks-bad-real-beer-621860 http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/drink/2010-looks-bad-real-beer-62...

by gkanai 15y ago

impendia 15y ago

I dunno about this. I'm sure that what you say is true in many places, but I lived in Fukuchiyama, northern Kyoto, from 2001-2003 which seemed to be a fairly average city of 70,000, about 90 km from any substantially larger city. I happened to visit again recently, and I was struck by all the gleaming new construction, and the impressively rebuilt train station.

angus77 15y ago

I think that definitely depends on where you live. Here in Shizuoka, in the 90s, pretty much all big public works projects came to a standstill. Roads they were building just stopped being built partway through construction. A few years into the 2000s, and they revved things up again, at a pace that makes it look like they were trying to catch up on all the projects that were abandoned in the 90s. A few years ago, the papers announced that rent downtown had bounced back up to Bubble-era rates, and construction downtown has been particularly active.

yummyfajitas 15y ago

There is no real increase in living standards...Japanese people are increasingly consuming cheaper goods. These two statements contradict each other.

mc32 15y ago
He means that instead of consuming name-brand goods, they increasingly look to knock-offs or non-premium brands (instead of French and Italian, maybe Uniqlo or low-rent brands). It's not only in the consumer goods sector either. Japanese are now buying more produce from China --which tend to be cheaper. Now, it all depends, some of this choice could increase living standards (more PP) or it could decrease them (subpar goods).
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  My bad. I misunderstood what he said.
  - gkanai 15y ago
    Yep that's what I meant.
gwern 15y ago
A relevant example: > In the case of Japan over the last decade, we have seen a significant rise in popularity of inferior goods and a decrease in demand for premium goods. Japan’s most notable inferior good of the moment is “third-category beer” — a beer-like beverage with nearly zero malt content that sells for slightly less than real beer. Japanese consumers facing no economic constraint would choose Japan’s most iconic (and not particularly expensive) mass market beers such as Asahi Super Dry or Kirin Ichiban Shibori over third-category beer. So what does it say about the consumer market when Japan will soon have a majority “fake beer” market for malt-flavored beverages? Even with falling demand for beer-like drinks, third category beer is seeing growth. This is a sign that the consumer living standard considered normal just a decade ago has fallen dramatically into a new “basket of goods” that would once have be seen as only appropriate for the relatively destitute. http://neojaponisme.com/2011/11/28/the-great-shift-in-japanese-pop-culture-part-one/ http://neojaponisme.com/2011/11/28/the-great-shift-in-japane... linking to http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/drink/2010-looks-bad-real-beer-621860 http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/drink/2010-looks-bad-real-beer-62...