Does the NY Times Editorial board read its own articles? They constantly write about how the US needs to bring in tens of millions of more foreign workers. That is the ticket. Automation to replace millions of US workers and let us bring in 30 MM more foreigners over ten years to compete for the scraps.
Thanks for posting that — it’s an important point.
Over the last while, I’ve commented on Japan’s near-zero immigration policy, in the face of rapidly aging and declining population.
I’ve opined that Japan will be in better shape than Europe and N. America in a few decades. For one — it will still be Japan, and still be populated by ethnic Japanese citizens. At best, the west will be a multiculti mess.
Japan is investing heavily in robot technology. If these robots don’t go all terminator on us, they will provide care services for the elderly, as well as carry out increasingly more industrial tasks. No need to bring in swarms of immigrants, to provide elder care to people they hate.
FWIW, the other reason I’m confident that Japan will adjust to a smaller population is that they are outsourcing a lot of production work to other countries. For instance, they don’t need millions of auto workers living in Japan — they have Americans, Europeans, Chinese, etc. to build the cars. Japan will continue to thrive as a “head-office” economy.