Japan recently made waves with the news that its total debt would hit north of one quadrillion yen over the next several months: a number greater than the GDP of the entire Eurozone. Yet the one saving grace for Japan has long been the strawman that the bulk of its debt is locally held, and thus the risk of a sharp sell off is minimal as the capital has to be recycled within the borders of Japan, especially as the USA and soon the rest of the world will provide the same returns on debt as Japan, which has been locked in a 30 year deleveraging cycle, does. However, one thing that continues to be widely ignored is the demographic top that Japanese society is experiencing as ever more workers enter retirement, and there is no replenishment of young workers (perhaps Spain can export some of its youth to Tokyo?). This may change soon because as the AP reports, the Japanese population will be cut by 30% by 2060. Furthermore the country's workforce of people aged 15 to 65 will shrink to half the population (a BLS wet dream as under those conditions the US unemployment rate would be very negative). Alas, the prospect of Japan's population of 128 million dropping by 1 million every year over the coming decades, should be sufficiently sobering. This naturally means that any existing paper supply-demand equilibrium will soon have to start being reevaluated. But by 2060 we will likely have bigger problems than placing the 1 billion googol in JJBs that have to find a buyer to fund the country's deficit. Lastly, we would love to see one of those charts showing how many working people will have to fund each and every retiree by the year 2060, first in Japan, and then in every other country.
Japan’s population of 128 million will shrink by one-third and seniors will account for 40 percent of people by 2060, placing a greater burden on a smaller working-age population to support the social security and tax systems.The grim estimate of how rapid aging will shrink Japan’s population was released Monday by the Health and Welfare Ministry.In year 2060, Japan will have 87 million people. The number of people 65 or older will nearly double to 40 percent, while the national work force of people between ages 15 and 65 will shrink to about half of the total population, according to the estimate, made by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research.
Nowhere will the demographic crunch courtesy of the welfare state hit the world faste than in Japan, where the natural growth rate has been negative for quite some time:
The institute says Japan has been the world’s fastest aging country, and with its birthrate among the lowest, its population decline would be among the deepest globally in coming decades.Experts say that Japan’s population will keep losing 1 million every year in coming decades and the country urgently needs to overhaul its social security and tax system to reflect the demographic shift.
The implication is that every single aspect of financial life will need a complete overhaul as existing assumptions have to be scrapped and entirely redone.
“Pension programs, employment and labor policy and social security system in this country is not designed to reflect such rapidly progressing population decline or aging,” Noriko Tsuya, a demography expert at Keio University, said on public broadcaster NHK. “The government needs to urgently revise the system and implement new measures based on the estimate.”
Fear not though. As pointed out previously, by 2060 the word sustainable will appear at least once in ever sentence, on its way to dominating the English language entirely another 50 years later... Zero Hedge.
Comments....
Jason T
Robots will support the seniors by then. Bullish on Robots.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 13:59 | 2110385
Ahmeexnal
Fukushima effects on the Japanese population will probably halve the population during the next 3 years.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:01 | 2110392
resurger
Spot on! I go with the guy on top, Super Bullish on Robo!
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:06 | 2110401
economics1996
The biggest boner killer ever created-socialism.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:14 | 2110424
Badabing
Radiation 101
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 18:45 | 2111245
mkkby
How will this be spun as bullish for housing and stocks?
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:19 | 2110406
TruthInSunshine
The Japanese Main & Lame Ass Stream Media (like all other propaganda proxies that we have here in the west) was told to go with this fiction, just like Ahmeexnal said above, to offer an alternate explanation as to why the Japanese population will shrink by 33% over the next several decades.
In the meantime, Fukushima Daiichi still throws off massive amounts of reproductive organ harming radioactive isotopes, into the ground water, soil, air and sea, and will for far longer than a few decades.
Atomic isotope half-life is extraordinarily longer than the affects of central bank interventionism, bitchez.
Skip the nuclear hot level wasabi.
p.s. - Yay, alogbots! Turn another red day green by close. I love the smell of the most manipulated U.S. equity markets in the history of the great Ponzi, and I plan on buying Facebook ASAP, especially given its 100 billion est market valuation, on gross revenue of an alleged 4 billion, and actual profits of anywhere from an alleged 220 million to a -xxxmilion (or maybe -xxxbillion?). Yayyyy.
Oracle of Kypseli
Japanese pensions are being cut every year and the medical insurance copay keeps increasing every year. Eventually, there will be parity. The number of homeless loitering the banks of the canals in Tokyo Bay, increases exponentially. They are very visible as all the makeshift tents are covered with light blue TARPS (no pun intended)
Most foreign workers Philipino and Chinese have no papers and pay ver little tax.
BTW: There are more Chinese immigrants who filed as being cooks (the only profession in need) as there are restaurants in Tokyo.
Similar to more wine and pate de foie gras produced in France than all the goose livers and all the grapes in France were made into pate and wine. Go figure!
Mon, 01/30/2012
Precious
Yeah. Homeless in Tokyo growing expontially. 2, 4, 8, 16. Of course that doesn't count churn.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 19:57 | 2111396
smiler03
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:49 | 2110531
fuu
Tepco can't even keep the pipes from freezing. They lost all flow to spent pool 4 for 2 hours and lost 7 tons of water in reactor 6 over the weekend.
Ten and a half months now this has gone unchecked.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 16:46 | 2111011
Precious
Tepco has a plan to turn the soil into cores for food irradiation machines and export them as household appliances through Walmart.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:23 | 2110458
chubbar
All these reports on what is going to be happening 48 frickin years from now? Gee, no shit, most folks currently 35 or older will be dead, big fuckin news flash. They should be worried about what is going to happen in the next 48 weeks or less, imo.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 15:00 | 2110588
seek
The two are far more closely connected that it initially appears.
Many of the structural issues in the developed economies are tied to these demographic shifts -- it's the whole reason the ponzi is collapsing. Remember the key to the ponzi is to have more victims entering than leaving, and once that reverses, the collapse comes. That's exactly what's happening here.
More deeply interesting to me is that a few years ago it was (correctly, I might add) pointed out that the largest wealth transfer in the history of the world would be happening as the boomers died off, leaving inheritance to their offspring, which are much smaller in number. So in theory the US was going to have a flood of wealthy Gen X'ers.
Funny that the economical collapse that somehow transfers wealth to the banks and governments through fiat dilution would happen just as early wave of this wealth transfer was about to hit.
Mon,
AnAnonymous
If US citizenism was based on the number of people goingin, going out, it would not be that a biggie.
You know, when US citizenism brought a first version of Ponzi to the end, the one that was pushed up during19th century, more people were in than out.
Thinking in terms of people well, nice...
US world order.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 15:04 | 2110610
Whiner
Oh Chubby! Where is your long term perspectiveg and love of humanity?
Stop and think of those who came over on the May Flower. They are the reason you can sit on your fat ass and trade like a monkey, actually making a good living without planting crops. Now consider those poor Japanese, what they did for the Chinese and in the end, their own people during WWll. See there, sins are generational. Economics is also a moral system. Think of the puzzled looks when retirement/welfare beauracrats tell savers and retiree's that there is nothing in their account except unmarketable JBs. Harri-karri or Bonzi. Now, go to the fridge, repent and have a beer. It's almost, cocktail hour.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 15:05 | 2110609
BLOTTO
Ahm & Truth...
Former NSA analyst, Jim Stone, argues that there was no mag 9.0 earthquake. The tsunami was caused by nuclear bombs in the sea and the Fukushima explosion and meltdown was caused by mini-nukes hidden in cameras installed by an Israeli security firm. The motive: punish Japan for offering to enrich Iranian uranium and straying from Illuminati diktat. This website reserves judgment but offers this introduction by James Farganne in the spirit of free discussion.
A 9.0-magnitude earthquake is more than 100 times stronger than a 6.8. A 9.0 should have devastated everything within a 1,000-km radius. There should have been widespread urban carnage, even worse than what Kobe suffered.
Yet the Fukushima quake of 3/11/11 did not cause a single structure to collapse.
But don't take my word for it. Go look up the helicopter footage on YouTube. Look at the infrastructure the tsunami was crashing onto. Not the slightest bit of damage. Common sense is enough to make you wonder.
Jim Stone did more than wonder. He dug up and analyzed the Japanese seismograms. He proved there was no 9.0 quake, and no epicenter out at sea. Instead, there were three simultaneous quakes of much lesser magnitude, all of them inland.
The authorities lied about the 9.0 quake -- made it up out of whole cloth. An earthquake did not cause the tsunami. There must have been another cause.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 15:23 | 2110685
blu Sorry. Basic physics still applies.
francis_sawyer
Thanks KAZOO (with the username "Blotto")...
I feel safe now knowing that you're there bringing the TRUTH to the surface...
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 16:00 | 2110820
BLOTTO
lol @ usernames! Solid post - good contribution.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 20:00 | 2111405
smiler03
Blotto - Definition
"Slang unconscious, esp through drunkenness"
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 20:51 | 2111531
Vlad Tepid
Where to start? OK, here - the reason there was no "widespread urban carnage" was because Tohoku is as rural as you can get in Japan. There was no "urban" to be wiped out. Those YouTube clips you linked clearly show farmhouses a hundred miles away from any epicenter, wait, sorry - underwater nuclear bomb. Kobe is one of the most densely populated conurbations in the world and Osaka, which blends indistinguishably with Kobe only had shattered housewares. I don't know where you're getting this idea that a 9.0 quake in the ocean is supposed to look like an asteriod strike for hundreds of miles, but I think you should enroll in a community college geology class before returning to post on this topic.
The foreshocks and aftershocks were caused by.....? Even mini-er nukes implanted in bumble bees? Singing whales? I would have said plate tectonics but you ruled that out. But I'm glad that you have your consipracy theories. We wouldn't want Japan to enrich any nuclear material for Iran that half a dozen other countries volunteered to process too but, magically and coincidentally, were not hit with a 9.0 earthquake.
akak
You are forgetting about HAARP, as well as the secret Nazi UFO base in Antarctica, whence scalar beam weapons are shot directly through the earth to disrupt the earth's crust at any point of their choosing. I read it once on the internets, so it must be true!
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 22:11 | 2111719
Vlad Tepid
*smacks forehead*
You're right akak. I get so charged when these voodoo conspiracies surface I forget to include their whole, comical breadth. I admit that I also left off the Pat Robertsonian explanation of Japan being divinely punished for crucifying Christian samurai. My apologies to the Hedge.
Tue, 01/31/2012 - 02:38 | 2112041
Hobbleknee
Agreed. The real conspiracy is why they're in no hurry to contain the disaster.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 17:12 | 2111079
karzai_luver
Da BIG ONE Tokyo within 4 years.
GET OUT!
Tue, 01/31/2012 - 06:26 | 2112159
old naughty
not to diminish the effect of the medical bills on the remaining populace (or "effect" of remaining populace on medical needs)?
And they still project 70+millions in 2060?
As more news rise, immigration applicants declines.
All numbers, ONLY. Sad.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:28 | 2110470
walküre
Robots are infinitely better than human labor. We just need to figure out a way to sell credit to these non-carbon based workers and get them leveraged. Robots are currently living like slaves. They want houses too! Give each robot a mortgage to buy a foreclosed house and solve that real estate overhang problem. Of course robots will want to drive cars, perferably the Chevy Volts or such. Then they like streaming online movies from NFLX and cram their iron bodies into LULU wear!
WIN WIN WIN!!!!!
Who needs people to drive an economy anymore! Robots replaced people at pretty much everything else so why not go alllllllllll the way!!!!!????
Matt
"We just need to figure out a way to sell credit to these non-carbon based workers and get them leveraged."
Dude, they're robots; they do what you PROGRAM them to do.
SavingsRate = 0.20;
BuyBonds = True;
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 15:01 | 2110590
Matt
Domo, Arigato, Mr Robotos, for saving our economy, when we needed it!
- Login or register to post comments
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 19:34 | 2111348
philipat
The US could export Mexicans?
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 13:58 | 2110383
resurger
"(perhaps Spain can export some of its youth to Tokyo?)"
Wont work, they are Xenophobic!
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:08 | 2110407
economics1996
They like white chicks with big tits.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:11 | 2110412
mayhem_korner
You say that as if you don't.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:16 | 2110428
economics1996
Have you ever seen a Spanish soap opera with Spanish chicks with little tits? Doesn't exist. White TV has chicks with small tits all the time.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:35 | 2110494
LFMayor
I've seen plenty of Spanish women who could give Tom Sellick a run for the money, too.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 15:45 | 2110779
francis_sawyer
White TV has chicks with small tits all the time.
Those are dudes... with manboobs...
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 18:18 | 2111206
RiverRoad
Resurger:
Right. They're going to have to get over their xenophobia big time if they want their retirements funded.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 22:45 | 2111781
Vlad Tepid
That's where this whole panic-attack dies in it's tracks. The Japanese will easily make the decision to die in xenophobic penury and default than let outsiders in. And I can't say I blame them - they've kept a pretty tidy ship all by themselves.
This whole demographic "time-bomb" is all smoke as far as I'm concerned. They'll go on as they do until it doesn't work and then they'll suffer a catastrophic default and huge crunch on living standards as imports become hard to finance for a few years and then back to good old industrious Japan, minus tens of millions of since-passed-on pensioners. Age and time solves ALL demographic crunches.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 13:59 | 2110384
Unprepared
I'm sure another Hiroshima would purge all outstanding claims.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:00 | 2110386
SeverinSlade
The US should export the welfare queens to Japan because apparently Japanese women don't spread their legs so easily.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:11 | 2110416
economics1996
The big fat ones on Jerry Springer, discount, 3 for 1.
Completely untrue. Try walking down the Roppongi district with your blue passport out and see what happens.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 16:52 | 2111033
Precious
Legalize pot. Problem solved.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:13 | 2110388
Mercury
Many -maybe most- Japanese may not see this as that big of a deal.
They'll hunker down for a generation or so and endure their austerity with dignity. They could reasses their xenophobia and open the door to immigrants too...but I doubut it.
Young wives may soon avoid the fate of moving in with their in-laws for ten years might actually be thrilled at what the future holds.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:13 | 2110423
economics1996
Why would they want diversity? So the Yids could tell them how to live? Like we really like our diveristy/fascism/shit pie.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:23 | 2110435
Mercury
Demographic, not ethnic diversity would be the primary driver of such a policy change.
But if they were desperate enough to expand the tax base Japan (or any country) could do a lot worse than inviting a few hundred thousand Jews to immigrate.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:01 | 2110391
SilverFocker
Does that 30% consider the fallout death numbers? Could it be that the real number could be 50% and the reason for no replacement workers = sterilization of the masses via the Fuka effect.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:02 | 2110394
baseball13
The Obama administration along with other "progressive" governments have already declared the "Fukishima Affect" in play to address the global debt issue over the next decade. Reduce the world population and increase the needs of those remaining...
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:06 | 2110400
NERVEAGENTVX
I always lend little credence to projections that talk about "XYZ will be this by 2030 or 2060". Interesting article as always, but I find linear thinking to often be... well... linear. Too many variables can influence the numbers in a 50 year span.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:06 | 2110402
jannewmx
Are you kidding me never underestimate how well Japanese follow orders. When their government tells them it's time, they'll start popping out a lot of new babies in no time.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:07 | 2110403
erlebach
Consider the fact that the Internet as we use it today only exists since 1996 (15 years), yet you are predicting the state of Japan 49 years into the future based on a linear model. Given the fact that our own economy (together with the worlds) is projected by many on Zero Hedge to go down substantially within the next 1-3 years, what is the point of even talking about anything further out than even 10 years?
BTW, I love your posts Tyler.
Gordon
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 15:13 | 2110653
Matt
"Given the fact that our own economy (together with the worlds) is projected by many on Zero Hedge to go down substantially within the next 1-3 years, what is the point of even talking about anything further out than even 10 years?"
It's an amusing diversion from dealing with our present predicaments.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:09 | 2110409
Random_Robert
That's ok.... I'm sure the Japanese will be over their xenophobia by then...
Heck, they might even be willing to import Chinese labor by then; and what honest, work loving Chinaman wouldn't be thrilled to death to relocate to Japan and see the value of his labor surrendered to paying ever increasing Japanese income tax rates...?
I'm so excited about the prospect of the Chinese labor takeover of Japan that I'm buying my ticket to Tokyo so I can start my "skilled chinese labor" recruiting company right now...
But, the real money will be in the importation of Chinese hookers, since no self-loathing Japanese whore would dare to let herself be filmed on the Internet receiving a bukkake from a bunch of "sick men of Asia"...
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:39 | 2110502
lolmao500
The Dude: Walter, the chinaman who peed on my rug, I can't go give him a bill, so what the fuck are you talking about?
Walter Sobchak: What the fuck are you talking about? The chinaman is not the issue here, Dude. I'm talking about drawing a line in the sand, Dude. Across this line, you DO NOT... Also, Dude, chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian-American, please.
The Dude: Walter, this isn't a guy who built the railroads here. This is a guy...
Walter Sobchak: What the fuck are you...?
The Dude: Walter, he peed on my rug!
Donny: He peed on the Dude's rug.
Walter Sobchak: Donny you're out of your element! Dude, the Chinaman is not the issue here!
Also, there's so much wrong with your post, I won't even begin to comment on it.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 16:37 | 2110931
akak
"Chinaman" is no longer considered acceptable, being a sexist term.
The current, preferred term, which covers both sexes, is now "chink".
Please update your official PC dictionary accordingly.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 21:47 | 2111626
gravedestruction
Or perhaps the proverbial fellow missing a testicle "Won Hung Lo".
Or maybe the gal that has one leg shorter than the other "Irene".
All joking aside, Szechuan Chinese cuisine, some of the best in CA especially Chinatown in SF.
Very good.
Tue, 01/31/2012 - 13:57 | 2113558
Random_Robert
"Also, there's so much wrong with your post, I won't even begin to comment on it."
There are only two kinds of people: Those who saw the cycnicism and sarcasm in my post, and idiots...
...You failed to see either the cynicism or the sarcasm in my post. I can not help you.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 16:29 | 2110944
alien-IQ
Are you assuming that Chinese laborers do not age? Or are you simply looking forward to them being worked to death? Because at the rate of pay they receive, they sure as hell won't be able to save enough money to live on once they get too old to work to survive without assistance.
Are do you just hate all Asians, as your post suggests?
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:10 | 2110411
mayhem_korner
What about the population of Fukishima earless rabbits? That's gotta be skyrocketing.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:13 | 2110414
g3h
Wrong.
By 2020, work force will be defined as "age between 15 and 72" (early retirement means at the age of 68). That solves most, though not all, problems.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:11 | 2110415
ACP
Who cares about the debt?
I think they should print a quintillion yen and buy up all the gold in the world, since people have been dumb enough to overvalue the yen the past 20 years.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:15 | 2110420
alien-IQ
Often times, comments and articles about the problem with funding retirees are found on ZH. What I never do find though is any suggestion of what should be done about said retirees. (perhaps it has been mentioned and I missed it or am forgetting)
So what would the posters here suggest? What should be done with people who have worked all their life and now, no longer able to work, cannot survive without assistance? Or the pension that was guaranteed (or at least promised them)?
Let's hear it...
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:20 | 2110441
Manthong
Non-productive aged Japanese units will get their support allocated like the Obamacare system here is setting up to do.
Japan won't have a problem, but the elderly in Japan will.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:50 | 2110551
carguym14
Soylent Green..........
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 15:36 | 2110744
SILVERGEDDON
Government wants to line up a bunch of those big airport snow blowers, and run retirees through them. Pet food reincarnation free for all !
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 16:24 | 2110923
alien-IQ
So far I've received exactly the the type of replies I suspected I'd get: all snark, no substance.
It's easy to talk about tossing these people off to the side, call them "unproductive units" (does "Brave New World" ring a bell?)...but when you put a face to it, a name (your parents? grandparents?)...are they so easy to disregard? We're talking about people, not toasters.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 21:02 | 2111550
prole
Since you're so superior, they can all come live with you.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 19:03 | 2111277
mkkby
Elderly people will do what they did for the thousands of years before there was a nanny-state retirement system. They will work for themselves as best they can. It's not some horror. It's how life has always been up until a few decades ago. Actually the last few decades are the abberation -- ponzi financing for a false utopia.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 19:34 | 2111349
Totentänzerlied
+1
Families may return to "old-fashioned" multigenerational living arrangements. Imagine that! Living with more people than just your spouse and kid(s). What ever will we do if we don't have our 3,500 square foot houses occupied by all of 2-to-4 people! We might even have to talk to each other at dinner! The horror!
My uncle and aunt have been doing this with her parents (who are from China) in a 2 bedroom apartment with their baby for the past few months. Free daycare and babysitting, live-in maid and chef services ... my apologies fellow Amerifats but it doesn't sound that bad.
When what is historically abnormal has been normal for "so long", mean-reversion will indeed seem strange to those who aren't paying attention.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:13 | 2110421
skepticCarl
Under population is the easiest thing in the world to solve. Firstly, controlled immigration could bring in just the right demographic, and talent pool. And, if the population does shrink noticeably, the quality of life would improve as over crowding is relieved. With a higher quality of life comes higher birth rates.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 19:08 | 2111287
mkkby
It would, but peak oil and many other resources will be kicking in as well. Food will be more expensive as the inputs get more scarce. The entire world will experience population decline because of that. But Japan adapt to that earlier than everyone else in the developed world, so they should be okay.
AnAnonymous
More land, more resources, more open space, less pollution.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////
Sure, sure, back to the gold old times of 1492...
Uh, ah no, US citizens have lived between that year and 2012, guzzling more resources in fifty years than the rest of humanity since dawn of time to 1950.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 16:43 | 2110989
akak
At least US citizens, unlike you chinks, have not been breeding like rabbits for over two millenia, resulting in the wildly polluted, toxic and environmentally unsustainable cesspool that is China.
It is the goal of Chinese citizens to destroy the environment. Such is the eternal nature of Chinese Citizenism.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 16:43 | 2110999
Precious
Your parents met at the coin toss.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 16:49 | 2111022
akak
Chinese citizenism, being opposed to justice and the nature of man, must always lash out blindly at those who rightfully oppose it, Chinese citizens nature being eternal in its repudiation of reality.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 16:52 | 2111035
Precious
blah blah, and blah blah blah. etc.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 21:08 | 2111562
prole
Why don't you go execute a bunch of women.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 20:07 | 2111424
smiler03
Akak,
I see you're having a rascist moment, just like your best buddy Trav7777. I'll take great pleasure in reminding you of that.
Hypocrite.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 23:29 | 2111431
akak
(Apparently, some of you flyby, quick-draw posters here do not know of the trollish posting history of AnonymousAsshole and his strident, repugnant, bigoted anti-Americanism, nor have any sense of sarcasm, irony and humor ---- all of which I am trying to express by rephrasing his absurd and bigoted remarks, and turning them back at him in return. But thanks for shitting in the punchbowl.)
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:41 | 2110516
lolmao500
Yep. Japan needs nukes.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:15 | 2110427
Stuck on Zero
A falling population is a wonderful thing. Less infrastructure to build, a higher standard of living, employers forced to compete for labor, less unrest, lowered environmental demands, more emphasis on productivity instead of driving labor costs down, fewer prisoners, cheaper homes, easier commutes, greener living, and less crowding.
Now consider California. Millions of immigrants crowd in here every year. It's more and more expensive to live here, commutes are getting worse, crime is staggering, welfare & social unrest is exploding, natural resources are running out, infrastructure cannot keep up with demands, the education system is overtaxed, and freedoms are being lost.
The Japanese are to be admired.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:23 | 2110450
Jack Burton
Stuck on Zero, Yes, California is a great model of what overpopulation can do. I spent some time in San Diego back in the 70s when I was in the Navy, saw a lot of the southern California area in that time. You are right!
It was easy to get around even up in LA. Lots of open space, uncrowded beaches. You name it, this was heaven on earth out there at that time.
I was there not too many years ago. My goodness what a hell hole parts of it have grown into. Driving in LA?! Dangerous neighborhoods?
When I lived out there, we knew all our neighbors they were working middle class people. We partied togther, had dinner together. We watched out for each others kids and homes. It was a community built on trust!
I can only imagine what those neighborhoods are like now. Overpopulation and mass illegal immigration what's it good for????
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 23:00 | 2111813
Vlad Tepid
I've been saying what you and Stuck on Zero are saying here for almost a year now vis-a-vis Japan...I am pleased to see that these ideas are getting fewer junks and more green arrows. Underpopulation will never be a problem in a country with less than 15% arable land, a high tech industrial base and an educated workforce. Japan is the ONLY country to my knowledge to have resisted the Pyrrhic victory of "Growth through Third World Invitation," and they will be rewarded in the future by CONTINUING TO EXIST.
To be honest I thought opinion was turning decidedly in our favor and then Tyler posts this - like a smaller population is a bad thing in Japan. Debts are a fiction of the fractional reserve existence that dominates modern financial reality. What really exists is a hard working populace, business and industrial knowhow, a culture that values hard work and community and all the industrial capital residual of 100 years of an industrial economy.
AnAnonymous
The math running crowd.
Falling population tells nothing.
California is expensive because of Smithian economics and concentrated wealth.
The more you concentrate wealth on an area, the more expensive it is to live on that area both absolutely and relatively.
In the future drawn by US citizenism, hirers wont have to pay employers, employers will have to buy jobs from the hirers.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 16:41 | 2110991
Precious
What do you mean in the future. The present is already owned by the GLBT workers in the HR department. If you don't have that color ticket or a network of the same, you're SOL.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 17:30 | 2111031
akak
In the present day drawn by Chinese citizenism, hirers won't have to pay employees, employers merely lock up employees in sweat shops under serf-like, quasi-slavery conditions, from which some are impelled to commit suicide to escape. Such is the eternal nature of Chinese Citizenism.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:16 | 2110431
SmittyinLA
Limited populations have always been the bane of the ponzi schemers and statist govts alike, eventually you run out of new marks.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:26 | 2110466
Jack Burton
Short and sweet. Any economic system that requires constant population growth is a PONZI scheme. Look at China and India! Anyone want to trade places with them? If population growth is always a good, then somebody needs to explain those two hell holes, or as I call them, ant hills!
Exactly!
These clueless, short-term-obsessed economists who blindly declare that we MUST have a growing population --- to have continued economic "growth" (read: metastasis), or to fuel the pension Ponzi scheme, or for whatever other dubious and spurious reason, always make me laugh. When will the earth finally have ENOUGH population---- 20 billion? 40 Billion? 100 billion? 1000 billion? When the entire surface of the earth is like downtown Tokyo, or Mexico City, or Calcutta? THEN what?
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 15:03 | 2110600
Dermasolarapate...
Ellis Island was built up to bring in poor immigants for American industries. Once they had enough woker bees (~1921) Ellis Island was shut down...closed its doors to foreigners.
Ironicly, Grover Cleveland christened the Staute of Liberty the same year Ellis Island began closing its doors to poor immigrants.
Renewal will take care of the boomer problem. That and WWIII wiping out a big portion of the population.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:20 | 2110442
tony wilson
sickness,illness and death in 10 years not 30.
VOLATILIZATION from explosion and daily countrywide burn of radioactive waste.
death will be very japanese descreet quite and private most stated as natural causes.
no enquiry needed as the yakuza have the countries best interests at heart.
i wonder how the american military at the 70 seperate us facilities feel breathing in,drinking and eating all those asian
isotopic freedoms.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 16:38 | 2110978
Precious
Try and stay of the valium for a day, okee?
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:21 | 2110444
Normalcy Bias
Japan will be owned by China.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:21 | 2110447
Turgid_Member
Well I see what needs to be done and am willing
to make the sacrifice. I am flying into Japan
tomorrow, hold a news conference at Narita
International and announce my plans to go on a
non-stop copulatory binge throughout the entire nation,
from Hokkaido to Kagoshima.
Kind of a modern day Hirohito Appleseed if you will.
Woman of Japan - Brace yourselves. You've never had
heaving breasts till now, you lucky devils.
And in 2 decades time I will feel a great sense
of pride upon seeing the fruit of my loins - the sales
clerks, scientists and turret lathe operators working
away making Japans exports number one.
Thank you. No applause please.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 19:17 | 2111311
mkkby
Except you are so fat, ugly and stupid from day dreaming inside a computer game for 40 years, no Japanese woman will ever go near you. And being a virgin for that long, you don't even know how to talk to a woman without breaking into a flop sweat.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 20:11 | 2111437
Turgid_Member
Ain't you the cheerful son-of-a-bitch though.
Just for that I'm going to score with a couple Indonesian chicks too.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 21:18 | 2111574
prole
I thinks Mr. MkKimby is getting a little sensitive.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 22:24 | 2111750
Turgid_Member
Mkkimby is a troll. That being an empty clown
just banging out words in various 'comments'
sections of internet sites. No message, no information
no intelligence, no sense of humor.
They try to get a reaction so they can be somebody.
A pitiful bunch they are.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:22 | 2110451
Flakmeister
So Japan is the first major economy to reflect the peak oil meme....
It could very well be that they they weather the PO fallout the best...
Growth is dead.....
peak oil meme...peak boomer meme.... peak fiat meme......a lot of memes' coming together.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:24 | 2110461
bankonzhongguo
I know more than a few folks from Nanjing that can't wait to pay it back.
Hope all those Japanese robots can pack heat.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:26 | 2110468
debtor of last ...
My grandfather bought a robot already from GS that will do his trading for his pension from now on.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:29 | 2110475
Thomas Jefferson
I think these are modest estimates. The Fukushima straw man will make the remaining folks effectively sterile thereby hastening the demographic decline. I consider Japan to be the single worst place in the world to bug out to.
1. Trapped on an earthquake prone island with a giant nuclear meltdown in the middle of it.
2. A nuclear armed China who inherently hate the Japanese.
3. A midget with nukes in N. Korea.
4. A US military that will be pulling out of Japan once the loss of USD world hedgemony is complete.
Japan doom is the best doom
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:34 | 2110488
AnAnonymous
1. Trapped on an earthquake prone island with a giant nuclear meltdown in the middle of it.
////////////////////////////////////
Ageing nuclear infrastructures... I wonder how US citizens could use that to blackmail their neighbourhood.
After all, radiation wont stop at borders... Better to give aid to help the containment.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:46 | 2110534
lolmao500
Yeah if we are talking about nuclear disaster coming, the US is well placed too with over 104 nuclear reactors. And most of those are inland, not just on the coast like Fukushima.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 15:02 | 2110596
AnAnonymous
None on the border with Canada? What a poor design.
I am sure Canadians will gladly welcome the opportunity of sending resources to the US to help them maintain ageing nuclear sites.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 15:20 | 2110679
Matt
Rumour has it, we are looking into building a large long-term nuclear waste holding facility, and then we can charge the Americans for storing their waste with us. Payment in gold, of course, as we need payment that will still be good for the employees working at the site 10,000 years later. Multi-Generational employment opportunity FTW!
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 17:38 | 2111137
akak
Ageing nuclear infrastructures... I wonder how US citizens could use that to blackmail their neighbourhood.After all, radiation wont stop at borders...
Nor do the rampantly high levels of Chinese pollution and environmental degradation which are currently, and increasingly, spilling over their borders, leading to Chinese dust storms in Korea and even Japan, and high levels of environmental lead and mercury as far as the Arctic and northwestern North America. But in their zeal to pollute the earth and destroy the environment, as well as in their raping of Tibet and brutal suppression of free speech, we see the eternal nature of Chinese citizenism.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:33 | 2110485
ZackAttack
You have to imagine it's crossed some intelligence officials' minds to develop a Logan's Run virus.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:35 | 2110491
lolmao500
Or you know, the Japs could leave Japan in droves.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:47 | 2110527
jmc8888
It's about as funny as watching the 'invest in municipal bonds' tv ad that just played. The kicker it's tax free! ROFL. You won't pay taxes...never mind you'll never get your prinicpal back.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:52 | 2110554
mjk0259
Good for them. There are way too many people in the world. Every road in my area is bumper to bumper almost all the time between 6AM and midnite.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 16:35 | 2110967
Precious
Ah yes. And because your little narcissistic world is all you really know, then everyone else in the future should be banished to make more room for you. Here's an idea. Why don't you take a trip to Wyoming. Bring a sleeping bag and a tent. You wouldn't last a single night you stupid metrosexual fuck.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 14:57 | 2110576
am
Japan will be fine, they will still be a world class exporter. The German population will also decline yet will still also be a world class exporter.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 15:05 | 2110612
ZackAttack
Japan is running a trade deficit now.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 15:03 | 2110603
Don Diego
The Japanese should do just like Spain: bring 8 million Moroccans, Senegalese, and Roma and then let the wonders of diversity fall in: plenty of jobs will be created in the value-added, R&D-intensive fields of home security, social work and ethnic hairdressing.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 15:12 | 2110648
machinegear
Easy problem.
I could fix this issue within 2 years. I digg Asian chicks. All I need is a plane ticket and a Barry Manilow CD.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 16:28 | 2110937
mayhem_korner
Somehow, the notion that Manilow does it for you, coupled with the Barney Fife avatar, makes me think that repopulating with your spawn is a "fix" we might be better off without. :D
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 15:14 | 2110656
ryoma
Japan has been living with 0 to negative growth for the last 20 years. The population knows what this means to them and the trust in government and banks is non existent at this point. We on the other hand have a long way to go to understand what has been inflicted upon us. Western countries are just now beginning to wake up to the fact that the end of the fantasy is near.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 15:14 | 2110658
non_anon
worse type of shrinkage
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 15:30 | 2110718
blu
Japan will vanish as an important global economic player well before 2060. They have no means to get (read, steal) the oil and raw materials their industrial base will need even 10 years from now.
Japan will then slowly revert to an isolated island nation sparsely populated by small-scale farmers and fishermen living in quiet villages under the protection of a Shogunate.
In otherwords, exactly as the world found them.
The last 150 years will have been for the Japanese nothing but a brief diversion from the true art and craft of living.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 15:48 | 2110794
Lord Koos
By 2060 I'll be dead.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 16:02 | 2110834
JohnFrodo
Its class warfare Ninja style, make a human live like a rabbit and they bred not.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 16:05 | 2110845
CoconutPete
Bullish for death panels
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 16:27 | 2110907
Yellowhoard
The answer is simple.
Japan needs more boners.
I believe that, in order to disarm the demographic time bomb that ticks ever more loudly with each passing year, Japan needs to take drastic action to produce more homegrown Japanese.
I suggest the following:
1. 24/7 mandatory porn at all venues. Shopping malls, restaurants, the dentist office, porn, porn porn.
2. Cialis in the water supply.
3. Mandatory push up bras and thongs for all women, even grandma, you never know.
4. National awards for prolific baby daddies.
5. Severe prison sentences for Japanese women that refuse to put out on the first date.
6. Free baby oil for the ladies. It is a fact that women look better when they are soaked in Johnsons Baby Oil.
With these sound principles and hard work, Japan can cum out of this crises.
Without my plan, it's domo arigato bitchez.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 16:21 | 2110914
taketheredpill
As mentioned, the reason Japan's interest rates don't reflect 200% debt/gdp is because external debt is very low, and you can't default on yourself. So long as Japan can keep selling bonds to Japan Post bank there is nothing to worry about.
But as demographics shift, at some point domestic savings will be insufficient to cover government deficits and Japan will have to go offshore for bond buyers.
And 200% debt/gdp does not equal 1% on 10 year debt.
And this will hapen WAY before 2060.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 17:31 | 2111119
Matt
They already figured it out, gold-backed bonds. All they need to do is issue enough of them with low enough yield that they can finance operations, and still have enough left over to import more gold, and they can keep it going for at least two more decades.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 16:31 | 2110951
Precious
OMG. In just 50 years. What are we going to do? Where is my rabbit foot? I'm very concerned.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 16:50 | 2111026
Precious
Tyler. You should be concerned about your own shrinkage, not Japan's.
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 17:15 | 2111086
rosiescenario
" Lastly, we would love to see one of those charts showing how many working people will have to fund each and every retiree by the year 2060, first in Japan..."
I guess we are assuming that, given their recent little reactor problem, these folks live long enough to retire?
Mon, 01/30/2012 - 20:05 | 2111404
Agent 440
Hmmmmm.... massive social ponzi schemes suck the life out of populations? I seem to recall Japan has a staggering abortion rate. I seem to recall someone who worked in a hospital there who said they could barely keep up with demand.
Tue, 01/31/2012 - 00:06 | 2111918
vh070
The problem with long term predictions are the assumptions, not to mention Black Swans. Or the Singularity.
A shrinking population is good...fewer births is very good....all you have to do is look at your own life to see how difficult it is to get into a situation of being able to support yourself.....enough said........the aging population not so good...some are getting far too old......being very old...doesn't make any sense....
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