How Japan Bankrupted Itself: The story of Japan’s decline — and the lessons for Europe.

The Globalist ^ | 12/22/2014 | By Daniel Stelter

[indthkr]

"The West has committed suicide, for short term gain."

Exactly.

[palmer]

10. A country that has spent decades trying to undermine confidence in its currency will never recover.

Analysts make the mistake of believing that lack of inflation means the currency is not a long term worry. But that is not true. The cheapening of the currency has a snap-back built in because of the carry trade unwinding and bubble popping. The central bank pursues the same failed policy endlessly. Since there can be no long term confidence in the value of the currency, there can be no long term investment, just short term speculation and carry trade. Abenomics is the ultimate manifestation of that stupidity. The falling savings rates that they are celebrating are a symptom of the problem.

[glorgau]

It’s very simple, Japan will go back into pre-Meiji era isolation before it raises immigration. The rest of the debt, and money problems are just numbers to be moved around as needed.

[Reeses]

the Japanese government built up a huge debt load, rising from about 50% of GDP at the end of the 1980s to close to 250% today.

The debt isn't the problem but what the borrowed wealth was used for: government consumption, wealth never to be seen from again. You can't burn massive amounts of wealth and expect to be wealthier.

[Ronin]

You just hit the nail right on the head. People talking about the dismal state of the Japanese economy really need to take a look at the average Japanese shopping center. I was at Kichijoji (West Tokyo) on Sunday to pick up a new heater for the apartment — every shop is full, every restaurant is packed, teeming is the word commonly used, and it fits.

What makes Japanese debt different than that of any other country is a combination of “wari wari nihongin” (we are all Japanese) and the realization that the largest percentage of debt is owed to other Japanese — who have no expectation that it will ever be paid back.

Like most long term foreigners living in Japan, I had to jump through a sizable number of hoops to get my visa. It wasn’t automatic 25 years ago, and it still isn’t. I just renewed for another three year visa last October. Japan will accept foreigners who have trades and skills they need, with restrictions on a lot of things, but mostly with the full understanding that you the foreigner are a guest, and better be a well-behaved guest, or you will leave.

There is no intention of changing those rules. However, since there are no freebies for the immigrants who go arrive here, it is not a popular destination in any case. There is certainly no, nor will there ever be, a “guest worker” program like Europe’s. Japan saw long ago what untrammeled immigration did to the EU, what it is doing to the US, and they do not want any part of that.

[bubman]

Yup..China is Japan on steroids. When the bubble bursts look out below. Massive deflationary pressure to come. China has an even worse demographic imbalance than Japan. I read somewhere that more than 400M people will be of retirement age in China by 2060. If trends continue with 1.18 child per woman (some of the lowest in the world)...China will get old before getting rich. Please read interesting article from the Brookings Institute:

http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2012/06/china-demographics-wang

[CincyRichieRich]

10. A highly corrupted government.

[MSF BU]

So when do the pension checks start to bounce?

[Regulator]

Look around on The Globalist web site.

waterboarding is really just a re-assertion of...white supremacy.

Got it. We’re all just Waciss for wanting to find out where the nuke is.

This dim bulb article purports to be about economics. It is not.

It’s just multiculti claptrap about why successful nations are the ones that fling open their doors to ever increasing numbers of immigrants...who must not look, talk, or act like you. Doncha know.

More Diversity Uber Alles nonsense with a thin veneer of econochat.

[Jan_Sobieski]

Ping

[Jack Hammer]

Socialism simply does not work, as Obama has clearly demonstrated.

[RightOnTheBorder]

I’m guessing that Japan doesn’t have an underclass anywhere near the size of ours, and that their welfare is not structured to favor chronically dependent baby factories. If you dig into the US demographics, birthing age people of the middle and upper classes have birthrates just as low as the Europeans.

[Jabba the Nutt]

"It would also be very bad news for central bankers and politicians in the west as well. It would prove that Keynesian policies don’t work in a world of too much debt and shrinking populations."

Let me fix this.

"It would also be very bad news for central bankers and politicians in the west as well. It would prove that Keynesian policies don’t work."

OK, that does it.

[1010RD]

The author totally misses the fact that Japan is centrally planned and burdened with a regulatory nightmare. Has he ever heard of MITI, now METI?

Japan is the failure of crony capitalism and central planning.