mytest
UPDATES ON TWITTER: arudoudebito
DEBITO.ORG PODCASTS now on iTunes, subscribe free
Hi Blog. Interesting podcasts from The Economist London (November 20, 2010) on how Japan’s economic future all comes down to demographics:
Eight minutes:
Economist Editor: “Unless Japan takes dramatic steps to reenergize its shrinking, greying workforce, its economy will suffer.”
12.5 minutes:
Henry Tricks: “When I set about writing this report, I didn’t start out by looking at population decline. I looked at all the other problems… but everything seemed to come back down to demographics.”
My interpretation: There is no getting around immigration. NJ will come. Whether they find a weakened elderly population in the near future, or an empty island in the far future, they will come. They had better be made into Japanese or there will be no more Japanese. Arudou Debito
3 comments on “Economist.com special report on Japan: How it all comes back down to demographics”
Good thing the government is ending the tax deduction for child dependents. That’ll incentivize people to have more kids!
You are joking (about the tax deduction)??
These bureaucrats truly are stupid. They’ll talk a 39 year old archaic royalties princess into getting knocked up again to bump the birthrate, but then do something completely counterintuitive the other way.
My girlfriend is trying desperately to convince me to stay in Japan after marriage, but when the tax and social security benefits pertaining to dependents of residents and citizens is so much higher (read; existent) in my home country, it’s just another nail in the coffin of her argument.
It’s not a bad place here, but economically, I’m finding less and less reasons to stay. Clueless politicians with heads in sand don’t help any…
@AJ
Amen to that!!
The GOJs one and only argument for women to have kids is “stay at home and make kids”. Here, governments change, but attitudes do not.
The abolition of tax breaks for dependents is driving the last nail in the coffin where I laid those hopes to rest, that I pinned on the new government. They are no better than the LDP kingpins…
Of course, Japan is a nice place to live (at least outside the big cities…), but being European, even Europe with its own set of problems starts looking better and better these days.
And if I don’t like it in one EU country, I’ll pack up, rent a truck and move to another, where I get more value for my tax euros. It’s that simple…
Raising inheritance taxes (in anticipation of gazillions of yen in assets going to change hands!!) to offset a corporate tax present to inefficient and bureaucracy-ridden local white collar industry isn’t going to help either. Wake up! You’re taxing assets, that have already been heavily taxed (income tax, local tax, real estate tax, you name it, they tax it…).