VELOCITY OF MONEY -- WORKERS GOING OUT Twenty years ago, middle class workers went out quite a bit more often and quite a bit more luxuriously than they do now

VELOCITY OF MONEY -- WORKERS GOING OUT Twenty years ago, middle class workers went out quite a bit more often and quite a bit more luxuriously than they do now. Some examples: - The typical end-of-year party (bounenkai) 20 years ago at a some small-sized (20-30 people) organization I knew and/or worked at would cost about $150-$400. These days, it's more like $50-$100. - After a big party in the 90s, you would frequently go to a second, third, and fourth parties. Now you often only go to one or maybe even to none. Total cost per person for these big parties and after-parties were often in the $500-$1000 range. - There number of "big" parties used to be much higher 20 years ago than they are now. As a simple example, some places that used to have 3 or 4 a year now only have 1. - There used to be a lot of parties throughout the year -- maybe a small party for a small win like reaching a milestone in a project, maybe a small and wild off-the-hook party for a promotion (e.g., kachou, buchou, etc.). These are largely gone or toned down significantly. Note that these are for middle class folks, which is basically all of Japan. Multiply these seemingly small figures by the multitudes of small offices and organizations throughout Japan. This guts the service industry. As I mentioned before, the number of bars, snacks, and small restaurants seems to have fallen precipitously. Those closed shops are a big reduction of unskilled or semi-skilled jobs and a reduced velocity of money. [Interesting side note: There were no shortage of owners of small/tiny bars who made $X00,000 annual incomes in the 90s. These low-prestige jobs clobbered the typical salaryman wage, but most "smart kids" were not willing to start bars because it was largely stigmatized. For some reason, jobs at "normal" bars were grouped with jobs at "hostess" bars.] Also note that a lot of times these modest expenditures are not being made due to limited finances -- a lot of these people have really stable jobs and make really good money. Rather, it seems like there is a perceived need to be more frugal. Perhaps this is due to social pressures, perhaps this is due to irrational fears, perhaps it's just more efficient.