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Japan Falls into Recession

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Re: Japan Falls into Recession

#81

Post by pm90 »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #37
techdragon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immigration is painfully unlikely due to cultural issues. It's oft suggested by non Japanese people looking at the problem but at least from what I can see, the majority of the Japanese voting public don't want immigration. There's reasons if you want a fun read. Particularly interesting is the history of people of Korean decent who are native Japanese residents for a generation or two.

> the majority of the Japanese voting public don't want immigration The vast majority of the American public don't want it either, but businesses do, so it happens anyway.

American society is much more accepting of outsiders than any other, as far as I know. Its not like others are deliberately racist, but just that America's history has been one of accepting immigrants from all over the place, so I guess having people who don't look like you or have the same beliefs/culture/language is more accepted than in other countries. At least that's my theory.

I've lived in America for just 3 years, yet have never felt unwelcome. In fact, most Americans I meet are very curious to know about my origins and the country I grew up in. But maybe that's because I live in a very liberal city (Austin) and can communicate well in English.

I've lived in Korea for some time and unfortunately never learned much Korean to be considered fluent. So I did have a hard time. Its also a very homogenous country so I guess it makes sense why they're so exclusive; I think its the same case in Japan too.

Historically, Koreans and Japanese ( and to an extent, the Chinese) have placed an almost absurd weight on purity of their race. I don't know the situation for other places.

Re: Japan Falls into Recession

#82

Post by deciplex »

logfromblammo wrote: post #34
efjhewjfnkew wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't mean for it to be interpreted too literally. Since QE increases the value of the stock market at the expense of a currency's value, it is actually eating away at the wealth and savings of individuals and redistributing it to stockholders. These stockholders tend to already be quite wealthy themselves. Herein lies the problem. Very wealthy individuals tend to spend a much smaller fraction of their accumulated…

This is correct. The concentration of capital grows so large that the owner literally cannot spend it faster than it grows. If it was simply vaulted and ignored, deflation would result, from that cash being removed from circulation. Thanks to our central banks, any deflation pressure is seen as a license to print more money, which is a tax on non-circulating savings. To avoid this, holders of cash do their best to in…

> Investment is emphatically not economically equivalent to spending. It's a lot like spinning your cash around in place so everyone knows you can still spend it. It does not create jobs or help the middle class; only actual spending does that.

This is a little strong, isn't it? Investment can certainly lead to job creation for the middle and working classes, if that investment is going into enterprises that need more labor and have the potential for growth. Whether there is much potential for growth after decades of regressive tax policies and hoarding by the upper and ruling classes, with everyone else living paycheck to paycheck, is quite debatable (my money is on 'no'), as is how much new labor is actually needed in the first place. But private investment can certainly create jobs and economic growth.

Re: Japan Falls into Recession

#83

Post by hudibras »

dimitar wrote: post #43

Here is the common ground and controversy between most economists on the situation, I think it is interesting how much common ground there is: The common ground: * The government of Japan faces budget constraints; it cannot tax more than a certain amount and that includes seigniorage (taxing using inflation). * Right now Japan doesn't seem to be immediately close to those constraints since interest rates and inflatio…

There's so much about your post which is incorrect that I don't have time to debunk it all. So let me just hit the biggest error, so that others don't have to waste their time:

It's literally impossible for Japan to default on their debts, which are almost completely in Japanese currency.

Re: Japan Falls into Recession

#86

Post by mc32 »

cturner wrote: post #79
hindsightbias wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even thought (sic) some of them might agree that B were right If you have a citation for that, I'd love to read it. But I think cats and dogs will start raining from the sky first. You don't go anywhere if consumers expect prices to remain the same or deflate.

Why is this? Computers get rapidly cheaper for example.

I think because while average prices for individual devices go down, you make up for that with volume in an expanding market. Once you saturate the market, then you have to diversify, create new markets or consolidate (buy more market share).

Re: Japan Falls into Recession

#87

Post by econew99 »

I don't understand following - Japan had QE measure in place thus increasing money supply. But then they also increased sales tax from 5% to 8%.

Why take conflicting measures ? How increasing sales tax is going to make consumers and middle class spend more ?

Have Japan's economists not considered it ?

Re: Japan Falls into Recession

#88

Post by MarkMc »

mimighost wrote: post #72
mc32 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true Japanese aren't very accepting of immigration, historically --and having to be blood to be a true national is a bit of an odd theory for citizenship; however, unless they (or anyone else) devise an alternative to neo-liberal capitalism which provides a decent living for its population while that population is in decline, the Japanese may have to reconsider their position on immigration.

Well if they change their mind on immigration, they better be quick. Japan's neighboring countries are quickly catching up, if not surpassing, in a lot of respects, such as PPI and HDI. Even in China, on the east coast, in certain sector, especially high-tech and finance, local companies can offer competitive salary and a better potential for career progress. It is not like in 80s, when Japan is the envy of all kids…

If neighbouring Asians are too rich to immigrate, there will still be plenty of poor Africans for decades.

Re: Japan Falls into Recession

#89

Post by ekianjo »

j_lev wrote: post #75
ekianjo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Deflation tells consumers not to buy as you wait 6 months and it'll be cheaper. I live in Japan for many years and I have never seen such thing as deflation here. Prices have remained stable for most items or have increased a little bit. The idea that stuff becomes cheaper as you wait is ludicrous in Japan.

The deflation is often masked by advances in technology. A new 150,000/month condo in Tokyo in 2014 has much better facilities than a then-new 150,000/month condo in Tokyo in 1994. Indeed, the latter is probably struggling to achieve rents of half that today.

That has virtually nothing to do with deflation. This has to do with housing/land regulations in Japan, causing the value of apartments to decrease over time. There was an excellent article about that on HN a couple of months back, by the way.

On top of that, buying a new apartment has nowhere got cheaper than it was 10 years ago. Prices have been pretty much stable until they pumped up the tax recently.

Re: Japan Falls into Recession

#90

Post by jpatokal »

hudibras wrote: post #83
dimitar wrote: post #43

Here is the common ground and controversy between most economists on the situation, I think it is interesting how much common ground there is: The common ground: * The government of Japan faces budget constraints; it cannot tax more than a certain amount and that includes seigniorage (taxing using inflation). * Right now Japan doesn't seem to be immediately close to those constraints since interest rates and inflatio…

There's so much about your post which is incorrect that I don't have time to debunk it all. So let me just hit the biggest error, so that others don't have to waste their time: It's literally impossible for Japan to default on their debts, which are almost completely in Japanese currency.

It's "literally impossible" only in a very literal sense of the word. In other words, yes, Japan can indeed get out of a debt of 17 gazillion yen simply by printing 17 gazillion yen, but I'm not sure flooding the money supply like this would cause much less damage than an actual default (=the Japanese government telling its bondholders that it's not going to repay them).
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