Earlier quoted context omitted.
All well and good, still, the perception and reality I don't think match. I've had this conversation many times where people just instinctually cite 'oh Japan is in decline, doing really poorly, etc', and then I tell them they are 3rd highest GDP in the world, had a huge growth wave in the mid-2010s and I get pikachu-face shocked reactions. Even here, I think you're falling for the meme. Here's a better graph: https:…
My graph cuts off at the same time (2019). I think there is some misunderstanding here about reading a graph for growth rate. Anything that starts off higher is likely to have "higher angles" even if it shows a lower growth rate. Which looking at the numbers, we see-- we already did the arithmetic a couple posts ago. Part of why the per capita series looks so bad: it starts at about the same value so the effect of a…
Easy to endlessly discuss this though, but without good faith on your side it won’t go anywhere useful.
I stand strongly by the point that anyone spouting Japan stagnation memes is just repeating shallow media talking points that are outdated and don’t reflect reality on the ground... yea, stagnation from a trajectory to be bigger than the US in GDP from a tiny island nation. Without so so many of the problems of the US. The quality of life there is incredibly high, they’re incredibly rich, they’re adjusting many soft factors to be better to work, women, and newer economic abilities.
It’s very roughly like if everyone went around talking about how Ferrari is stagnating, when they’ve had 2/5 popular cars in the last decade (incl one this year) and most other carmakers had 3/5 (but most none this year). Ok, maybe you can argue that, and I wouldn’t agree but fine, but it’s still a Ferrari and the rest of the world is driving Kia. The meme has gotten so strong people are actually out there now thinking Kia > Ferrari. I’m just bringing perspective to how it feels day to day there.