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Japan's Growing Poverty Defies Glib Explanations

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Re: Japan's Growing Poverty Defies Glib Explanations

#71

Post by jfoutz »

Chris2048 wrote: post #62
nihonde wrote: post #43

It's depressing to read all the misguided commentary about Japan in western media. We're talking about one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations, which currently has the longest life expectancy, and one of the lowest crime rates. Japan will endure, as it has for thousands of years. I'm more worried about where America and Europe are headed. Prosperity is one thing. Greed, corruption, and exploitation are ano…

> which currently has the longest life expectancy, and one of the lowest crime rates lowest reported life expectancy, lowest reported crime rate.

Hilarious.

Any evidence? even the slightest?

Look, yes, it may be the case that there is widespread corruption in the reporting of those statistics. But really, this is the same culture that produced the joke: no more that 1% failure rate in product, that ships 9900 perfect products and another box with 100 failures.

Yes, salarymen may not tell the whole truth, but pervasive corruption seems, well, unlikely

Re: Japan's Growing Poverty Defies Glib Explanations

#72

Post by nihonde »

facepalm wrote: post #69
nihonde wrote: post #43

It's depressing to read all the misguided commentary about Japan in western media. We're talking about one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations, which currently has the longest life expectancy, and one of the lowest crime rates. Japan will endure, as it has for thousands of years. I'm more worried about where America and Europe are headed. Prosperity is one thing. Greed, corruption, and exploitation are ano…

Thinking of WWII, Japan's culture was not always on the right track... Coming from Germany, I also wonder how much of the economic success stories of Japan and Germany is really because of cultural aspects, and how much is due to protectionism for example from the US. I think Germany was supported by the US a lot, as a shield against communism. Maybe a similar reasoning was at work in Japan.

Nothing happens in a vacuum. There are no "good guys" or "bad guys". Japan and Germany both pursued an agenda that were each ultimately misguided for a variety of different reasons. If you look for it, you will find similarly awful (and sometimes far worse) encroachments on the rights of human beings perpetrated by all kinds of people against all kinds of people.

The important point is that the people who did those things are dead now. It's up to you and I to understand how they got to that point, and make decisions to avoid it happening again. Unfortunately, the history we're taught in school is very simplistic and does little to illuminate the causes for such an effect.

In the end, the fact that Japan and Germany made a run for world domination is a signal that there is great strength and power in those civilizations. We should be looking for all the ways to harness that power to good ends.

Re: Japan's Growing Poverty Defies Glib Explanations

#73

Post by Malarkey73 »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #12

Basically there are two definitions of poverty with two crowds of followers. 1. People are poor if they can't afford (basic) things. People are very poor if they go hungry to bed. 2. People are poor if they earn less [1] than the average (not median) household. From the article "The report looked at the gap between the income of the poorest Japanese families with children and the average household income." When does…

Firstly the price of beans, CPUs and clothes may have fallen - but the price of education, healthcare, energy and especially housing have not fallen. They take up more and more of disposable income - and it's hard to argue that they are luxuries.

Second "when some people get a lot richer" this especially pushes up the cost of housing (arguably education too) a rationed good. The experience here in the UK is that more and more people are renting from those who have the money to corner the housing market. A vicious cycle of money being redistributed upwards.

No doubt type 1 and type 2 poverty are linked.

Re: Japan's Growing Poverty Defies Glib Explanations

#74

Post by ekianjo »

nihonde wrote: post #43

It's depressing to read all the misguided commentary about Japan in western media. We're talking about one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations, which currently has the longest life expectancy, and one of the lowest crime rates. Japan will endure, as it has for thousands of years. I'm more worried about where America and Europe are headed. Prosperity is one thing. Greed, corruption, and exploitation are ano…

> I would rather live in a "poor" Japan than in a "rich" America any day of the week. You can't put a price on peace of mind and the general atmosphere of civility and willingness to come together for a common cause.

It's not like you have only these two choices. You can live in fast developing countries as well, or even Europe can be a fine place to live depending on your location and you wages.

Re: Japan's Growing Poverty Defies Glib Explanations

#75

Post by shasheene »

jfoutz wrote: post #71
Chris2048 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which currently has the longest life expectancy, and one of the lowest crime rates lowest reported life expectancy, lowest reported crime rate.

Hilarious. Any evidence? even the slightest? Look, yes, it may be the case that there is widespread corruption in the reporting of those statistics. But really, this is the same culture that produced the joke: no more that 1% failure rate in product, that ships 9900 perfect products and another box with 100 failures. Yes, salarymen may not tell the whole truth, but pervasive corruption seems, well, unlikely

Japan had a widespread pension fraud scandal that made headlines in 2010: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11258071

From my understanding, the government is extremely inefficient technologically (it wouldn't surprise me if most population records are still in paper form and faxed between government departments)

Re: Japan's Growing Poverty Defies Glib Explanations

#76

Post by achamayou »

nihonde wrote: post #64
achamayou wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the way America and Europe are represented in Japanese media is hardly accurate either. I think you should temper your depressed feelings with some bemusement at how cultures never quite understand each other. That's what I would expect a wise oji-san to do anyway.

I lived in America for almost 40 years. I'm familiar with the place.

I wasn't suggesting otherwise. I've lived in Japan and in Europe for a number of years, and I've always found that the respective media failed to describe the other place in a way that I felt was accurate. I've come to be rather amused by that, that's all.

For what it's worth I do agree with you, for all the doom and gloom about Japan post-recession in the western media, it is very good place to live. I do believe that the overwhelming majority of the residents agree, and are voting with their feet accordingly.

Re: Japan's Growing Poverty Defies Glib Explanations

#77

Post by facepalm »

nihonde wrote: post #72
facepalm wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking of WWII, Japan's culture was not always on the right track... Coming from Germany, I also wonder how much of the economic success stories of Japan and Germany is really because of cultural aspects, and how much is due to protectionism for example from the US. I think Germany was supported by the US a lot, as a shield against communism. Maybe a similar reasoning was at work in Japan.

Nothing happens in a vacuum. There are no "good guys" or "bad guys". Japan and Germany both pursued an agenda that were each ultimately misguided for a variety of different reasons. If you look for it, you will find similarly awful (and sometimes far worse) encroachments on the rights of human beings perpetrated by all kinds of people against all kinds of people. The important point is that the people who did those t…

I didn't say they are still fascists, just pointed out that their culture has also gone wrong at times, too.

Re: Japan's Growing Poverty Defies Glib Explanations

#78

Post by stevetrewick »

mikekchar wrote: post #32
GreaterFool wrote: post #10

"The survey compared the incomes of the bottom 10 percent of households with children to the average income of 41 countries who are members of the OECD or the European Union. The income gap in Japan was found to be 60.21 percent, meaning the household income of the nation’s most underprivileged families with children was less than 40 percent of the average." I'm not sure how to read this. Income gap be damned, what i…

¥900,000 is almost exactly what I spent on average over a 5 year period from 2007-2012 living in rural Japan (Shizuoka prefecture). A couple of caveats: I was single at the time. I had subsidized housing (worth about ¥250,000 yen a year). I didn't have a car. That was the money I spent , and I made considerably more than that so was able to save quite a lot. However, I was very comfortable with that level of expendit…

For context, ¥900,000 is about $8,000

Re: Japan's Growing Poverty Defies Glib Explanations

#79

Post by minikomi »

mikekchar wrote: post #58
adrianN wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What job did you have during that time? Living in rural Japan sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me.

I was teaching English at the time. I'm currently in the same area programming on contract. It is quite wonderful. To be honest I'm hoping to expand and hire people, but haven't got everything sorted out yet. It occurred to me that it might be possible to find good people who want to live in rural Japan :-). Probably won't get my act together for another year or so...

Currently living in Tokyo (8 years) .. Interested in hearing from you when you have something more solid worked out!

Re: Japan's Growing Poverty Defies Glib Explanations

#80

Post by shiro »

shasheene wrote: post #75
jfoutz wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hilarious. Any evidence? even the slightest? Look, yes, it may be the case that there is widespread corruption in the reporting of those statistics. But really, this is the same culture that produced the joke: no more that 1% failure rate in product, that ships 9900 perfect products and another box with 100 failures. Yes, salarymen may not tell the whole truth, but pervasive corruption seems, well, unlikely

Japan had a widespread pension fraud scandal that made headlines in 2010: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11258071 From my understanding, the government is extremely inefficient technologically (it wouldn't surprise me if most population records are still in paper form and faxed between government departments)

The citizen and resident registration system in Japan has already become electronic. The online system has little to do for the fraud, since you need human staff to check if the online record match the reality anyway (unless you implant chips in citizens and monitors them mechanically).

The government inefficiency comes not from the technology, but the complicated rules and ambiguous responsibility between sections.

Note also that the "missing" has different nuance in Japan and in US (I only lived these two countries, so I can only tell about them). In Japan, every resident must register his address to the city or county office; if someone doesn't live in the registered address, the person could be technically "missing" for the purpose of statistics or census (police investigation or other official matter uses more strict definition of "missing", off course.)

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