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Japan Must Let Zombie Companies Die

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Re: Japan Must Let Zombie Companies Die

#91
post #15
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The corporations can't take care of their employees forever, so does the government can't take care of the corporations forever.. Wouldn't they not want this to hit a dead end?

The rationale is that the more successful divisions of corporations support the existence of less successful divisions, and more successful corporations support the existence of less successful corporations. This is socialism -- social ownership of risk. The rising tide lifts us all. There are fewer winners and fewer losers, and it's only sustainable when everybody buys into it and nobody gets greedy or envious. Such…

> national identity will fall by the wayside as they come to the crushing realization that national identity doesn't put food on the table or keep the lights on

You know, every other nation in Europe has a period in history when they were persecuted and being deliberately destroyed, both physically and psychologically. Sometimes for hundreds of years. We've got "killing fields" and battlefields everywhere - please, do take into an account a legacy of more than 2000 years of non-stop, all-out wars - and more than one such a field was created specifically for people of one nationality. On the other hand, almost every single nation in Europe has a (mostly real! but sometimes imagined) "golden age" in their history they can cling to; a period where that nation was (possibly a part of) a global superpower.

Given that, I don't believe nationalism is going to die just because people are getting hungry. I mean, lots and lots of death, torture, persecution, as well as preaching, propaganda, and education didn't kill nationalism - why do you think lack of money would? Some European nations are practically built upon martyrdom and, if anything, it made European nationalism even harder to leave behind, change or even soften a little.

> Europe will start to look more like Canada and the US

I'm repeating myself here, but discarding more than 2k years of history is dangerous when making predictions about the future. Europe already was a melting pot of cultures for a while, back when nation-states were not fashionable yet. A few times, at that, in different ages. Never once did this make Europe a peaceful continent or made nationalism disappear.

US and Canada are unique in that, historically, it's a bunch of people getting together and promising to leave the past behind. That, of course, doesn't take into account American natives, but whatever: that's NOT happening in Europe. You'd have to demolish most of the cities to destroy thousands of buildings and sculptures still, remainding Europeans about just how heinous their neighbour is or just how just was their neighbours massacre. And that's the easiest part, because then you'd have to destroy and eradicate a good part of culture and art. And then, after a couple of generations under heavy propaganda, maybe you'd have a place roughly comparable with US.

Re: Japan Must Let Zombie Companies Die

#92
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this really true? (I have no idea, it just sounds so implausible that I feel like I have to ask.) Is there any good reading on this topic?

According to another HN user the unemployment rate is only 3% so it doesn't appear to be that bad. Those 3% may not include discouraged workers though.

I'd raise my eyebrows at that 3% stat. Spend a week in Japan and you'll see that it isn't a 50-50 ratio of women: men commuting to work. Are all those housewives classified as employed?

Re: Japan Must Let Zombie Companies Die

#93
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to another HN user the unemployment rate is only 3% so it doesn't appear to be that bad. Those 3% may not include discouraged workers though.

I'd raise my eyebrows at that 3% stat. Spend a week in Japan and you'll see that it isn't a 50-50 ratio of women: men commuting to work. Are all those housewives classified as employed?

People who don't have a job and aren't interested in getting one, like housewives, are not included in unemployment numbers. What is measured is how much of the labour force is currently unemployed. If you're not in the labour force, you're neither employed nor unemployed. You're just not covered by those particular statistics, just like children and pensioners.

If you're interested in how large a fraction of the working age population is employed, see employment rate.

Re: Japan Must Let Zombie Companies Die

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From numerous YT videos of well-established foreigners in Japan I understand that just moving house and being accepted for a rental contract is very difficult. Often foreigners are asked to pay higher deposits even though their income is from Japan and have lived there for years, and have rented without problem elsewhere. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odahzHioQQ4

Yup that is spot on. My company wouldn't act as a guarantor for me so the only way to get a rental contract was to pay an additional $800 (and $100 per year after) for a special company to act as my guarantor. This is with a good salary and pay stubs to match. Don't even get me started on the rental company that takes a 1 month rent cut... or 2-3 months rent for "key money"... or ...

I would advise staying away from large rental companies because they charge a lot to do a little, but I believe key and gratitude money are set by the landlord.

1 month rent is the rental company's "finder fee", which is standard.

It's all the other fees they sting you with that really hurt. I ended up paying about and extra month of rent per year for dumb shit that they decided to charge me for. And you had better make sure your apartment is better-than-spotless when you move out.

Japanese law says that you don't have to pay for damage or wear and tear caused through everyday living, but they'll still try to keep your deposit or charge you for repairs.

Re: Japan Must Let Zombie Companies Die

#95
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the issue is - is it possible to produce a valid measurement? In scientific method, part of an experiment involves a control. There's no way to produce one in economics - the systems are too complicated. You can't know whether measurements you take are the result of your change directly, or caused by network effects of the change as part of other things going on, or just weather from unrelated things happening in…

> Austrian instincts are partly about [...] Am I the only one who finds the word "instincts" used in this context deeply disturbing? We've got many well-intentioned people in history who acted according to their instincts and beliefs. Some of these invented and practiced eugenics, others tried to create an "agrarian communist society" while killing off some 2 million people in 4 years (I read about Khmer Rouge regime…

Modern economics isn't Austrian. The Austrian School are heterodox, and have largely only become popular among laypeople thanks to political lobbying by, for instance, the Koch Brothers.

Re: Japan Must Let Zombie Companies Die

#96
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the issue is - is it possible to produce a valid measurement? In scientific method, part of an experiment involves a control. There's no way to produce one in economics - the systems are too complicated. You can't know whether measurements you take are the result of your change directly, or caused by network effects of the change as part of other things going on, or just weather from unrelated things happening in…

> Austrian instincts are partly about [...] Am I the only one who finds the word "instincts" used in this context deeply disturbing? We've got many well-intentioned people in history who acted according to their instincts and beliefs. Some of these invented and practiced eugenics, others tried to create an "agrarian communist society" while killing off some 2 million people in 4 years (I read about Khmer Rouge regime…

[deleted]

Re: Japan Must Let Zombie Companies Die

#97
post #46
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the issue is - is it possible to produce a valid measurement? In scientific method, part of an experiment involves a control. There's no way to produce one in economics - the systems are too complicated. You can't know whether measurements you take are the result of your change directly, or caused by network effects of the change as part of other things going on, or just weather from unrelated things happening in…

I'm not sure if the response to difficulties in measurement is to build a system out of faith and assumptions. We can analyze different policy decisions, either by modeling human behavior (based on experiments which can be controlled and analyzed), or through natural experiments (e.g., What happens when a bunch of states and municipalities alter their minimum wage policies?)

    > What happens when a bunch of states and
    > municipalities alter their minimum wage policies
What kind of sizes to you need to be statistically significant?

How can you be confident that there are not network effects in play that you don't know about. Immigration patterns, organised crime networks, political corruption, the subtleties of quality in supply chain companies, measurement variation, the culture of particular trade unions. What if someone else is running other economic experiments in parallel to you?

What if there's network effects created by the contrast between the areas you're changing? In municipality A you raise wages and not in muni B. Labour will feel pull to flow from one to the other while you're running the experiment.

You'll never come close to modeling all this.

Worse yet - these are fundamentally political issues that relate to practice of power and allocation of resources. Everyone has an agenda in how they play out, and this further muddies the water of the experiment and the analysis.

    > I'm not sure if the response to difficulties in
    > measurement is to build a system out of faith and
    > assumptions.
I have these concern also. As I look at it - everyone is operating on faith and assumptions. The Austrian position is strange in that it's honest about it.

Re: Japan Must Let Zombie Companies Die

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla's prices need to fall by at least 75% before Detroit has anything to worry about.

The infrastructure/economies of scale to make that profitable don't exist yet, but Tesla is working at setting them up. Elon Musk: "Model 3, our smaller and lower cost sedan will start production in about 2 years. Fully operational Gigafactory needed." http://www.techinsider.io/we-now-know-when-teslas-cheaper-mo... Two things are at play: 1. Tesla doesn't really give a crap about owning the entire market. If their co…

Lower cost is still not interesting to Detroit unless it's well south of $50k. About the only thing they have in that price range is the Corvette, and I don't see Corvette buyers jumping to an alternative.

Re: Japan Must Let Zombie Companies Die

#99
post #77
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. But you'd be funding people to live in the most expensive country in the world and where there's hardly any startup infrastructure. Even if you have funding, can you rent an office? Can you furnish it without paying for 100 people's worth of office furnishing? If there's a hardware element, are there businesses that will produce a prototype quickly? Can you recruit people? What are you going to do about series…

Exaggerate much? Tokyo might not have the SV's startup "scene" but apart from funding, it has pretty much all infrastructure a software startup needs, just like any large city in a developed country does: fast, reliable internet connection, a functioning legal system, and enough qualified labor. Generally speaking, Tokyo is considerably cheaper than San Francisco or NYC at the current exchange rate (rather, at the ex…

This would be a better comment without the snarky first sentence.

Re: Japan Must Let Zombie Companies Die

#100
post #99
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exaggerate much? Tokyo might not have the SV's startup "scene" but apart from funding, it has pretty much all infrastructure a software startup needs, just like any large city in a developed country does: fast, reliable internet connection, a functioning legal system, and enough qualified labor. Generally speaking, Tokyo is considerably cheaper than San Francisco or NYC at the current exchange rate (rather, at the ex…

This would be a better comment without the snarky first sentence.

Point taken (though no snark was intended).
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