Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Number of babies born in Japan is the lowest since records began

japantimes.co.jp

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 135 posts

Re: Number of babies born in Japan is the lowest since records began

#81

Post by [deleted] »

parrot_11 wrote: post #74
parrot_11 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get what you're trying to say and I find it strange that the democrats in the US have hitched their strategy from improving quality of life of people to importing as many low income immigrants as possible who will vote for them. Makes you think how power hungry they've become.

Looks like my comment got flagged, would anyone care to point out where I was wrong or how my comment is any different from what is being discussed of the current situation in Japan?

[deleted]

Re: Number of babies born in Japan is the lowest since records began

#82

Post by Scarblac »

asianthrowaway wrote: post #51
bayesian_horse wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would that be better? If that worked, it will take 20 to 30 years to see any improvement in the workforce, but will cost a lot up-front. However, financial incentives have never worked. In fact, I don't know of a single political measure which has significantly raise birth rates. The only way that might work would be to discourage women's education, which of course nobody wants (I hope...). Children are massively…

Because immigrants are here to stay. This will forever change the demographic composition of Japan. I think one only has to look at Europe to see that mass immigration of low skilled labor from foreign cultures does a lot of harm in the long run.

What long run harm in Europe are you talking about?

Re: Number of babies born in Japan is the lowest since records began

#83

Post by magic_beans »

diablolicoo wrote: post #72

Maybe they should adopt Islam, as it seems very successful in encouraging people to produce the most amount of babies humanly possible. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_population_growth

Nah, all Japan would need to do is teach abstinence-only education.

Re: Number of babies born in Japan is the lowest since records began

#84

Post by zozbot123 »

parrot_11 wrote: post #74
parrot_11 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get what you're trying to say and I find it strange that the democrats in the US have hitched their strategy from improving quality of life of people to importing as many low income immigrants as possible who will vote for them. Makes you think how power hungry they've become.

Looks like my comment got flagged, would anyone care to point out where I was wrong or how my comment is any different from what is being discussed of the current situation in Japan?

Suggesting that one political party "have become power hungry" is just not good optics. It's definitely the case though that R policies generally lead to more affordable child-rearing and household formation - and I just can't tell why some people here are bringing up "religiosity" as if it had any relevance to this basic fact. The affordances there are what's very different, regardless of any additional difference in inclination.

Re: Number of babies born in Japan is the lowest since records began

#85

Post by NikolaNovak »

parrot_11 wrote: post #74
parrot_11 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get what you're trying to say and I find it strange that the democrats in the US have hitched their strategy from improving quality of life of people to importing as many low income immigrants as possible who will vote for them. Makes you think how power hungry they've become.

Looks like my comment got flagged, would anyone care to point out where I was wrong or how my comment is any different from what is being discussed of the current situation in Japan?

I hadn't and wouldn't flag it; but FWIW, I found it presented no meaningful contribution, and they try to avoid that sort of thing on these forums.

Honestly, it sounded like you took any opportunity, no matter how remote, to put a couple of soundbites from a domestic politics menu. They may be your fervently held beliefs, that's great, but if your goal is to persuade,you need to provide backing and details and reason; if your goal is to contribute, it has to be connected to conversation at hand; if your goal is to rant, mission accomplished but not everybody is interested in this forum becoming a soundbite board.

There's an international audience here, and though we're all amply aware of US politics and have our own opinions, discussing Japanese demographics and as a non-sequitur injecting "Democrats are trying to bring in people to vote for them", well... if you cannot see your post from other people's eyes, you may be too deep into specific partisanship for a random person on the internet like me to aid.

(additional two points: - I would react the same way no matter which side is picked; I don't like Michael Moore any more than Ann Coulter, Al Franken more than Glenn Beck. There's people who want to engage in meaningful discussion, and there's people who want to spew soundbits and propaganda. - That being said, on average Hackernews audience does have an overall leaning, which your post may have gone against)

...My 100 Croatian Kunas :)

Re: Number of babies born in Japan is the lowest since records began

#86

Post by parrot_11 »

zozbot123 wrote: post #84
parrot_11 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like my comment got flagged, would anyone care to point out where I was wrong or how my comment is any different from what is being discussed of the current situation in Japan?

Suggesting that one political party "have become power hungry" is just not good optics. It's definitely the case though that R policies generally lead to more affordable child-rearing and household formation - and I just can't tell why some people here are bringing up "religiosity" as if it had any relevance to this basic fact. The affordances there are what's very different, regardless of any additional difference i…

Looking at politics as a system, you can clearly observe that the victory (outsized) rewards for the progressive wing in US come from low income immigrants that the liberals bank on.

In fact thinking about it a little further, a California citizen would have been in a vastly better situation had it not been home to that many low income immigrants. Of course, that would've also meant hugely lower chances of progressive winning there.

To sum up, the progressives it appears import poverty when the region is doing rather well and then campaign on more taxes to alleviate this said increased poverty.

If this is not plain desire for political victory, what else could it be?

Re: Number of babies born in Japan is the lowest since records began

#87

Post by parrot_11 »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #85
parrot_11 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like my comment got flagged, would anyone care to point out where I was wrong or how my comment is any different from what is being discussed of the current situation in Japan?

I hadn't and wouldn't flag it; but FWIW, I found it presented no meaningful contribution, and they try to avoid that sort of thing on these forums. Honestly, it sounded like you took any opportunity, no matter how remote, to put a couple of soundbites from a domestic politics menu. They may be your fervently held beliefs, that's great, but if your goal is to persuade,you need to provide backing and details and reason…

Looking at my post I see that it was lacking in reasoning, I'll try to post better in future. Thank you for your response! :)

Re: Number of babies born in Japan is the lowest since records began

#88

Post by berbec »

magic_beans wrote: post #83
diablolicoo wrote: post #72

Maybe they should adopt Islam, as it seems very successful in encouraging people to produce the most amount of babies humanly possible. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_population_growth

Nah, all Japan would need to do is teach abstinence-only education.

Works for all those conservative states! My wife's from Louisiana and she can count on one hand the number of female schoolmates who made it out of high school, let alone to 21, without a child.

Re: Number of babies born in Japan is the lowest since records began

#89

Post by faissaloo »

sprash wrote: post #60

If the Japanese government wants to do the right thing, all it has to do is to let the population contract even further until Asset prices begin to freefall. Then everything will be affordable again for young Japanese citizens and a good longterm economic outlook for the future is the best thing you can do to stimulate birthrates. If Japan wants to screw it up, it should allow mass immigration. This way asset prices…

Uh, if asset prices go into freefall aren't business owners screwed?

Re: Number of babies born in Japan is the lowest since records began

#90

Post by humanrebar »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #56
reustle wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A tax for _not_ having babies? I don't think that will go over so well...

People in the US are taxed for _not_ having babies and no one is taking to the streets over it. If you have a child, you get a tax deduction (or credit? I forget). That is effectively the same as a tax for not having a baby. Someone with a child pays less taxes than someone without.

The logic is that parents bear an outsized cost for providing an essential social good: the next generation.

When we are old, we will need taxpayers to pay social security, well trained healthcare workers, emergency personnel, maintained roads, etc.

Parenting is also especially expensive: child care, safety equipment, larger homes, larger vehicles, etc.

Without getting in the weeds on putting a better dollar figure on it, that's the case for subsidizing families.

Post reply on HN