8 ms·

Japan's Public Didn't Buy Fumio Kishida's New Capitalism

35 points by segasaturn 2y ago

dauertewigkeit 2y ago
https://archive.is/Z6tAy https://archive.is/Z6tAy
bobthepanda 2y ago
The problem with an export led growth model for a large country is that eventually workers make too much money to be reasonably supported by only exports. There’s a ceiling to this model because exporters need willing purchasers.
- Longlius 2y ago
  This. By definition, you can't outgrow your customers and yet we continue to see exporting countries try to outgrow their consumer counterparts simply by doubling down on exports rather than transitioning to consumer economies (or worse - trying to supplement exports with bad investments).
- micah94 2y ago
  I think Japan has grown considerably beyond this by exporting their Yen through extremely low interest rates. But even that too has a ceiling. Stretching to the obscene in 100 years, the Japanese people may go extinct, but the Yen will live on continuing to prop up financial markets across the world. The way the US dollar was taken off the gold standard, the Yen has been taken off the Japanese people standard...
nemo44x 2y ago
> ...revive a flagging birth rate. Just about every developed nation has this problem today and no one has an answer. It seems no amount of money can be thrown at the problem as people just don't want as many kids as they used to. And I'm not sure they wanted so many of them back then either but rather lived with the consequences of their actions as birth control wasn't nearly as available. To face the problem we need to really consider how to make people far more productive in the fields where it really matters and we face a logjam. That's healthcare and hospitality/services for aging and end of life people. Today's methods and approaches will obviously not work down the road since the human capital simply won't be there. The current solution of desperately importing human capital, almost exclusively low value human capital, in the hopes that enough of them and/or their offspring will be able to and willing to change adult diapers, go shopping, and cook meals for the resident elderly is clearly causing social issues of their own right now and appears destabilizing and unsustainable. Governments need to open up innovation in the healthcare industry especially as it pertains to elderly and aging people. We need automation in the elderly care industries.
- bobthepanda 2y ago
  with Japan the problem is well known; women can have career progression or kids but rarely both, due to both cultural factors like sexism as well as the general long working hours. Spreading the parental burden is not popular; the environment minister a few years ago got in controversy for taking his paternal leave for two weeks, despite the fact that on paper he is legally entitled to an entire year. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/world/asia/japan-koizumi-paternity-leave.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/world/asia/japan-koizumi-... Japan has had the lowest labor-hour productivity of any G7 nation for five decades: https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h01196/ https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h01196/ In such a system it is no wonder that people are not having kids, especially since Japanese wage growth is stagnant because of the poor productivity.
  - solidsnack9000 2y ago
    The "women can have career progression or kids but rarely both" problem is not just a problem in Japan. It is probably unavoidable if all real work is done in offices or factories. Things are getting better with work from home; and it may be that progressively more advanced virtual office technologies are what can actually help us turn the corner here.
    - bobthepanda 2y ago
      In the case of Japan there is active, heavy discrimination against women, particularly pregnant women. The very first ruling that firing a woman for pregnancy was discriminatory only happened in 2017. https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170203/p2a/00m/0na/011000c https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170203/p2a/00m/0na/01... 20% of women have reported maternity harassment in Japan. https://mataharanet.org/en/what-is-matahara/ https://mataharanet.org/en/what-is-matahara/
      - solidsnack9000 2y ago
        In countries where this does not happen, the TFR has nevertheless fallen. I believe this is a case where people are overindexing on something specific to Japan in order to explain an effect that is far more general.
Dalewyn 2y ago
Kishida's problem is that he isn't a leader, it really is as simple as that. He says nice things but doesn't do anything. Great way to handle diplomacy (Kishida was once Japan's Foreign Minister), not so much leading an entire country. He doesn't put the leader in leadership. That's why his politics have been stagnant, it's a leaderless ship. The recent LDP financial scandals merely finally broke the back of a camel who was already suffering arthritis. None of this is to say the LDP will lose governmental power, though. The opposition parties are somehow even worse.
- LZ_Khan 2y ago
  Listening to Kishida talk, he is so toneless. I doubt he knows what he's talking about.
lvl155 2y ago
Japan is an enigma in the sense that they have an extremely talented labor force. They also do not have to deal with brain drain. They’d benefit if they open up to more lax immigration policies. Contrast Japan to S.Korea where they have been more receptive to addressing labor shortage with seasonal and permanent migrant workers.
- rayiner 2y ago
  Immigrants would not be able to assimilate into Japan and mass immigration would effectively mean the end of Japanese society. Nearly the whole developed world, from Sweden to Japan, countries became rich in the first place without immigrants. What’s changed that they need immigrants now?
  - Barrin92 2y ago
    >What’s changed that they need immigrants now? For one the premise is shaky, a lot of developed countries depended strongly on migrant labor, German Gastarbeiters, the Anglosphere in general etc, but what's actually changed is that the average Japanese person is 50 years old. If you have any interest in maintaining a growing economy you need more capital flowing to the young rather than the young paying for the old, in particular in a democracy where a geriatric population threatens to just vote in more benefits for itself. This is pretty much the sole reason for America's absurd economic strength among developed countries. In 1990 Japan's GDP was 60% of Americas. Today it's 20%. The astonishing thing is when you adjust for working age population and purchasing power, real productivity grew at similar rates, it's not as often assumed the fax machines. The demographics have simply obliterated Japan.
    - hollerith 2y ago
      Gastarbeiters were introduced after 1945 when Germany was already rich, so mentioning them is not a refutation of grandparent's "Nearly the whole developed world . . . became rich in the first place without immigrants".
      - 2y ago
gamepsys 2y ago
Out of all of Japan's problems, I think the fundamental root is they need to import a significant amount of energy. They do not have significant coal, oil, uranium. They have limited access to solar and wind for their population size. To offset all of their energy imports, they need to work very hard to produce a lot of exports. The economic troubles are centered around having to pay a premium to import energy. The birth rate is negatively impacted by the economic situation. Their foreign policy has to keep energy access as a main priority.
- kredd 2y ago
  > The birth rate is negatively impacted by the economic situation Only to a certain extent. Looking at data of every single rich country, and my own circles, there’s just no appetite for most of people to have 3 children (2.1+ needed for replacement). I weirdly think about this issue way too much, since I’m a part of a problem. All my girl friends, who want children, only want one or two. Why would anyone sacrifice, at the very bare minimum, 6 years of their youthful years for 3 children? There’s just too much opportunity loss compared to lower income / less rich countries. I have no idea how to tackle this problem, but would be very interested to read about or somehow even contribute to potential solutions that are beyond “people have to have lots of children for cultural reasons!” argument.
  - lawpoaster 2y ago
    [dead]
  - calf 2y ago
    It's not a "real" problem unless 7 billion people really need a net positive replacement rate.
    - dr-detroit 2y ago
      [dead]
    - sushibowl 2y ago
      Unfortunately a shrinking population leads to a situation where there are more older people alive than young people, which makes our retirement and health care systems quite unsustainable.

35 points by segasaturn 2y ago

https://archive.is/Z6tAy https://archive.is/Z6tAy

The problem with an export led growth model for a large country is that eventually workers make too much money to be reasonably supported by only exports. There’s a ceiling to this model because exporters need willing purchasers.

Longlius 2y ago
This. By definition, you can't outgrow your customers and yet we continue to see exporting countries try to outgrow their consumer counterparts simply by doubling down on exports rather than transitioning to consumer economies (or worse - trying to supplement exports with bad investments).
micah94 2y ago
I think Japan has grown considerably beyond this by exporting their Yen through extremely low interest rates. But even that too has a ceiling. Stretching to the obscene in 100 years, the Japanese people may go extinct, but the Yen will live on continuing to prop up financial markets across the world. The way the US dollar was taken off the gold standard, the Yen has been taken off the Japanese people standard...

nemo44x 2y ago

> ...revive a flagging birth rate. Just about every developed nation has this problem today and no one has an answer. It seems no amount of money can be thrown at the problem as people just don't want as many kids as they used to. And I'm not sure they wanted so many of them back then either but rather lived with the consequences of their actions as birth control wasn't nearly as available. To face the problem we need to really consider how to make people far more productive in the fields where it really matters and we face a logjam. That's healthcare and hospitality/services for aging and end of life people. Today's methods and approaches will obviously not work down the road since the human capital simply won't be there. The current solution of desperately importing human capital, almost exclusively low value human capital, in the hopes that enough of them and/or their offspring will be able to and willing to change adult diapers, go shopping, and cook meals for the resident elderly is clearly causing social issues of their own right now and appears destabilizing and unsustainable. Governments need to open up innovation in the healthcare industry especially as it pertains to elderly and aging people. We need automation in the elderly care industries.

bobthepanda 2y ago
with Japan the problem is well known; women can have career progression or kids but rarely both, due to both cultural factors like sexism as well as the general long working hours. Spreading the parental burden is not popular; the environment minister a few years ago got in controversy for taking his paternal leave for two weeks, despite the fact that on paper he is legally entitled to an entire year. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/world/asia/japan-koizumi-paternity-leave.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/world/asia/japan-koizumi-... Japan has had the lowest labor-hour productivity of any G7 nation for five decades: https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h01196/ https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h01196/ In such a system it is no wonder that people are not having kids, especially since Japanese wage growth is stagnant because of the poor productivity.
- solidsnack9000 2y ago
  The "women can have career progression or kids but rarely both" problem is not just a problem in Japan. It is probably unavoidable if all real work is done in offices or factories. Things are getting better with work from home; and it may be that progressively more advanced virtual office technologies are what can actually help us turn the corner here.
  - bobthepanda 2y ago
    In the case of Japan there is active, heavy discrimination against women, particularly pregnant women. The very first ruling that firing a woman for pregnancy was discriminatory only happened in 2017. https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170203/p2a/00m/0na/011000c https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170203/p2a/00m/0na/01... 20% of women have reported maternity harassment in Japan. https://mataharanet.org/en/what-is-matahara/ https://mataharanet.org/en/what-is-matahara/
    - solidsnack9000 2y ago
      In countries where this does not happen, the TFR has nevertheless fallen. I believe this is a case where people are overindexing on something specific to Japan in order to explain an effect that is far more general.

Dalewyn 2y ago

Kishida's problem is that he isn't a leader, it really is as simple as that. He says nice things but doesn't do anything. Great way to handle diplomacy (Kishida was once Japan's Foreign Minister), not so much leading an entire country. He doesn't put the leader in leadership. That's why his politics have been stagnant, it's a leaderless ship. The recent LDP financial scandals merely finally broke the back of a camel who was already suffering arthritis. None of this is to say the LDP will lose governmental power, though. The opposition parties are somehow even worse.

LZ_Khan 2y ago
Listening to Kishida talk, he is so toneless. I doubt he knows what he's talking about.

lvl155 2y ago

Japan is an enigma in the sense that they have an extremely talented labor force. They also do not have to deal with brain drain. They’d benefit if they open up to more lax immigration policies. Contrast Japan to S.Korea where they have been more receptive to addressing labor shortage with seasonal and permanent migrant workers.

rayiner 2y ago
Immigrants would not be able to assimilate into Japan and mass immigration would effectively mean the end of Japanese society. Nearly the whole developed world, from Sweden to Japan, countries became rich in the first place without immigrants. What’s changed that they need immigrants now?
- Barrin92 2y ago
  >What’s changed that they need immigrants now? For one the premise is shaky, a lot of developed countries depended strongly on migrant labor, German Gastarbeiters, the Anglosphere in general etc, but what's actually changed is that the average Japanese person is 50 years old. If you have any interest in maintaining a growing economy you need more capital flowing to the young rather than the young paying for the old, in particular in a democracy where a geriatric population threatens to just vote in more benefits for itself. This is pretty much the sole reason for America's absurd economic strength among developed countries. In 1990 Japan's GDP was 60% of Americas. Today it's 20%. The astonishing thing is when you adjust for working age population and purchasing power, real productivity grew at similar rates, it's not as often assumed the fax machines. The demographics have simply obliterated Japan.
  - hollerith 2y ago
    Gastarbeiters were introduced after 1945 when Germany was already rich, so mentioning them is not a refutation of grandparent's "Nearly the whole developed world . . . became rich in the first place without immigrants".
    - 2y ago

gamepsys 2y ago

Out of all of Japan's problems, I think the fundamental root is they need to import a significant amount of energy. They do not have significant coal, oil, uranium. They have limited access to solar and wind for their population size. To offset all of their energy imports, they need to work very hard to produce a lot of exports. The economic troubles are centered around having to pay a premium to import energy. The birth rate is negatively impacted by the economic situation. Their foreign policy has to keep energy access as a main priority.

kredd 2y ago
> The birth rate is negatively impacted by the economic situation Only to a certain extent. Looking at data of every single rich country, and my own circles, there’s just no appetite for most of people to have 3 children (2.1+ needed for replacement). I weirdly think about this issue way too much, since I’m a part of a problem. All my girl friends, who want children, only want one or two. Why would anyone sacrifice, at the very bare minimum, 6 years of their youthful years for 3 children? There’s just too much opportunity loss compared to lower income / less rich countries. I have no idea how to tackle this problem, but would be very interested to read about or somehow even contribute to potential solutions that are beyond “people have to have lots of children for cultural reasons!” argument.
- lawpoaster 2y ago
  [dead]
- calf 2y ago
  It's not a "real" problem unless 7 billion people really need a net positive replacement rate.
  - dr-detroit 2y ago
    [dead]
  - sushibowl 2y ago
    Unfortunately a shrinking population leads to a situation where there are more older people alive than young people, which makes our retirement and health care systems quite unsustainable.