Percentage of Elderly In Japan Continues to Grow as Number of Children Drops

First time accepted submitter Cornelie Roe (3627609) writes in with some bad news about the population of Japan. "The number of children in Japan has fallen to a new low, while the amount of people over 65 has reached a record high as the population ages and shrinks, the government said. There were an estimated 16.33 million children aged under 15 as of 1 April, down 160,000 from a year earlier, the internal affairs and communications ministry said on Sunday. It was the 33rd straight annual decline and the lowest level since records began in 1950. Children accounted for 12.8% of the population, the ministry said. By contrast, the ratio of people aged 65 or older was at a record high, making up 25.6% of the population. Jiji Press said that, of countries with a population of at least 40 million, Japan had the lowest ratio of children to the total population – compared with 19.5% for the United States and 16.4% for China. Last month, the government said the number of people in the world's third largest economy dropped by 0.17% to 127,298,000 as of 1 October 2013. This includes long-staying foreigners. The proportion of people aged 65 or over is forecast to reach nearly 40% in 2060, the government has warned."

Comments

Jiji press?

[Anonymous Coward]

How appropriate. :P

Re:Jiji press?

[EuclideanSilence]

...for those who haven't seen 10000 hours of anime (shame on you), JIJI is japanese slang for a man old enough to be a grandfather. It's like saying "old fart".

Re:Jiji press?

[lgw]

Where I grew up, "old enough to be a grandfather" meant "30". Now my friends are having their first kids around 40.

Something pretty basic is broken with work-family balance IMO. It's great that we left "one parent works, the other does family" behind, but "both parents work, and neither does family" is even worse. As automation increases, and unemployment with it, you'd think we could move to shorter work weeks and "both parents work, and have plenty of time for family too"!

It's far easier medically to have kids in your 20s, and far easier to cope with their teenage years in your 30s than your 50s! Society needs to be built on more than just career, and I think we're getting it completely backwards with the ongoing division between workaholics and government-dependents.

Re:Jiji press?

[lgw]

It was common enough for people to have kids at 15-16, and become grandparents in their early 30s. Not the healthiest culture, but still better than our current "two or fewer kids per woman" culture, which leads inevitably to extinction (fortunately the US has plenty of immigrants, unlike Japan, so our population remains stable despite low native birth rates).

Re:Jiji press?

[AmiMoJo]

It's great that we left "one parent works, the other does family" behind

Why? That seemed like a pretty good set-up. One person devoted to parenting and bringing up children well, with time to prepare good food, read and help with homework etc. Maybe return to work when the children get older, but taking a decade or more out just to look after them seems to work well.

I agree on your other point though. Advancement at work tends to suffer if someone has to say no to overtime or seems like they want to be out the door at 5 to pick up the kids.

Re:Jiji press?

[vivian]

I think perhaps when we get down to the last billion or so people we can start talking about extinction then. In the meantime, what we really need to do is figure how to build an economy that does not depend on perpetual growth forever - which in turn depends on an ever growing population and ever increasing resource availability.
We need to be able to reach a stable equilibrium, or at least a dynamically stable system where the highs and lows are not too great.
Part of that is keeping people employable past the age of 65, if we want to enjoy longer lives, and not declaring anyone over 50 as unemployable.

Re:Jiji press?

[knightghost]

Where I grew up, "old enough to be a grandfather" meant "30". Now my friends are having their first kids around 40.

Good point. The whole "over 65" is the underlying illusion. We're living longer. For most, retirement will never be more than a dream.

Re:Jiji press?

[sillybilly]

Have you seen pictures of japanese people at public pools? Try google images, or, e.g. http://gmtristan.com/i-hope-yo... They feel overcrowded, and smart people when they are overcrowded they pop less kids, to adjust to comfortable levels, to what they can sense their resources - energy, food, room/space will comfortably accomodate tomorrow. Trying to predict tomorrow and adapting it to it today.

Re:Jiji press?

[lgw]

depend on perpetual growth forever - which in turn depends on an ever growing population and ever increasing resource availability.

I'm so tired of seeing this BS on Slashdot, of all places. Did you know there's a word for producing more (perpetual growth) from the same resources? "Technology"

If you don't even understand what that word means, why have you been hanging out here so long?

Re:Jiji press?

[lgw]

Because "stay at home mom" is simply not spiritually fulfilling for many. And, much as it's valuable and underrated, it's a second-class position in society. For anyone who is fulfilled by that work, more power to you, but it's a bad default setting.

Re:Jiji press?

[lgw]

For most, retirement will never be more than a dream.

True, but largely self-inflicted. The only thing stopping people in the US from reaching financial independence after 30 or so years or work and investment is a lack of understanding/education about how money works. It's a profound failure of our culture, that such a tiny percentage of people succeed at a task that requires only understanding, willpower, and patience (exactly the sort of things a functional culture is supposed to instill in each generation).

Re:Jiji press?

[knightghost]

For most, retirement will never be more than a dream.

True, but largely self-inflicted. The only thing stopping people in the US from reaching financial independence after 30 or so years or work and investment is a lack of understanding/education about how money works. It's a profound failure of our culture, that such a tiny percentage of people succeed at a task that requires only understanding, willpower, and patience (exactly the sort of things a functional culture is supposed to instill in each generation).

And yet another factor is that when inflation, total benefits, and productivity are all factored, the median hourly wage is half of what it was 40 years ago. HALF. 50%. Sure, people can live on rice and beans to sock away more money, but the vast majority of people won't do that. Partly because, well, rice and beans suck, and partly because we are constantly educated (marketed to) that we deserve everything we want right now and that "later" will magically work out. "Can" is irrelevant - "Do" matters.
Don't blame the people when the deck is overwhelmingly stacked against them.

Re:Jiji press?

[dryeo]

Technology can be used to increase everyones wealth or it can be used to increase population so there is an increasing base of poor people slaving away to support an upper class who get richer beyond imagination.
Me, I'd like to see everyone being rich to some degree including having leisure time to enjoy their life.

Re:Jiji press?

[volmtech]

My now eighty year old mother never needed a job. Helping my dad, brother and me on our farm and raising my two sisters was fulfillment enough. No more farm but she fills her time with walks, quilting, and gardening. My wife has only worked full time for four years and five years part time in our 28 year marriage. She partially home schooled our two children and now spends time caring for her ailing mother, who never had a job, and making art. I have a 5 ft by 7 ft replica of "Creation of Adam" in my living room. At the moment she is sewing a quilt.

My two daughters work, one a teacher and one a hairdresser.

Re:Jiji press?

[sydbarrett74]

Technology only goes so far. There are certain limits imposed by the laws of physics (e.g., thermodynamics) that are unyielding.

Re:Jiji press?

[PlusFiveTroll]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Jiji press?

[lgw]

Sure, and in the course of centuries that might be relevant, One hopes that by then we won't be so planet bound - but there's that technology thing again.

Re:Jiji press?

[lgw]

an increasing base of poor people slaving away to support an upper class who get richer beyond imagination.

How can any sober, sane, rational person see all the automation around us and think that "people slaving away" has anything to do with supporting a few rich? It doesn't make any sort of sense. The "rich" simply don't consume very much more than anyone else these days. Even with the wealth of Gates, you can only eat so much, drink so much, have so many surgeries, drive so many cars, etc. No one has non-trivially less stuff available because of all the stuff Gates and Buffett etc consume. It's just not relevant.

Re:Jiji press?

[volmtech]

Do you really believe all those Mexican-American children will assume the British-West European culture America has now? "Our" culture is going extinct. Unlike all other extinctions we could have done something about it. That is what Japan is doing. They are contracting their population but maintain their culture. If they import breeders to boast population levels the "breeders" will raise the children in the breeders culture. France and Britain are maintaining their populations with Muslim Arab immigrants. We all know how that is going to end.

Re:Jiji press?

[Grishnakh]

The problem is you need money to raise kids, and when you're young, you don't have any money. You need to borrow a bunch of money, in fact, to go to college so you can get a good job, and work in that career a while and build up wealth, so you can afford a decent house and to raise a family, and that takes time. By the time you're well-off, you're now 40 or so, and at that age, women have a hard time getting pregnant.

So we need to either change to a society where women are encouraged to avoid college and just marry older men and be their breeders, or we need to develop medical advances so that women can have children in their 40s-60s (and both parents can feel youthful and energetic at that age), or we need to adopt line marriages like Robert Heinlein discussed in his stories.

Re:Jiji press?

[Grishnakh]

Human behavior is mostly learned, not hereditary. Cultures is passed down because parents raise their own kids, usually. Send the kids off to foster care and they're fucked up for life, regardless of their lineage. The problem with immigrants is that their kids are raised by themselves, so they mostly retain their parents' culture, or become caught between incompatible cultures and develop all kinds of behavioral problems as a result.

Re:Jiji press?

[Grishnakh]

It's especially bad because it has no insurance. If your husband turns out to be abusive, or if he gets hit by a speeding bus or a meteorite, then suddenly you have no way of supporting your family at its previous standard of living.

Re:Jiji press?

[Grishnakh]

And what's your wife going to do when you're hit by a speeding bus one day? How's she going to support the kids without your income?

Re:Jiji press?

[lgw]

Culture either evolves or becomes a disaster. Maintain too long and you end up being the guy decreeing death by stoning for homosexuality. America historically has been great at integrating the parts that work best from many cultures - but it's a multigenerational task. The Hispanic culture will no more replace ours than the Irish, or Italian, or Scandi, or etc etc did.

Re:Jiji press?

[lgw]

Wages have little to do with wealth. That's a fundamental lesson in becoming wealthy. The deck has always been stacked against us - so what? Just win anyways. Live below your means, accumulate wealth, and it's just a matter of "when".

Re:Jiji press?

[volmtech]

My wife could move in with my son, he has an extra house. She could move back into her old room at her parents, she spends many days over there anyway taking care of her invalid mother. She could sell some of our property and live off of that for years. She married me because I had a home and my own business. Women used to think of things like that before they took up with a man.

Re:Jiji press?

[Grishnakh]

My wife could move in with my son,

Ok, forget that, because obviously you've been lucky and haven't gotten hit by a bus or a meteorite before you got your kids out of the house.

Rewind 10-20 years, back to when your kids were 5-10 years old. You get hit by a bus, or drop dead from a heart attack because you overworked yourself with your own business. You don't have much property, because you're still young, and the business hasn't been generating positive returns for very long. Your house is mortgaged and has very little equity.

Now what does she do? She has no skills, little money saved, and a bunch of kids to take care of.

Re:Jiji press?

[Grishnakh]

If it was 10-20 years ago, she may be young enough to still be employable.

Assuming you had a good income, she's not going to pay the mortgage and raise the kids on a waitress's income.

If it was 10-20 years ago, she could go back home to her then-healthier parents

Not everyone has parents who will take in their adult kids and then take over parenting responsibilities for them until the grandkids are in college. That's a lot to ask of your parents really.

If worst comes to worst, she can give up the kids.

There's no shortage of abuse in foster situations. Anyone who really cares about their kids wouldn't give them up to the state.

Re:Jiji press?

[stoatwblr]

The global population is unsustainably high. Until it falls back down to 3-4 billion, smaller families should be encouraged.

The problem is poor forward planning and economic models which only allow for growth mean that massive population falls can't be allowed to happen.

Re:Jiji press?

[knightghost]

Wages have little to do with wealth. That's a fundamental lesson in becoming wealthy. The deck has always been stacked against us - so what? Just win anyways. Live below your means, accumulate wealth, and it's just a matter of "when".

When? I don't think I'd live 500 years. I have to deal with reality rather than the fantasy of reagonomics.

Re:Jiji press?

[lgw]

*shrug* Worked for me. If you think the task impossible, you've already failed. But I guess each of us must find our own path to happiness, and if grousing about The Man keeping you down is what you find fulfilling, more power to you. A bit of wealth is remarkably empowering though - you might try it one day.

Re:Jiji press?

[HuguesT]

You might want to read "limits to growth" and then try to debunk the authors' work. I'm not so optimistic.

Re:Jiji press?

[HuguesT]

Right now the West has a choice between economic contraction due to population aging and loss, or massive immigration, with its own set of problems, mostly inequality and cultural issues. It has chosen the latter so far, but it may change. Perhaps economic success elsewhere will drive emigration in the West in a few decades.

Re:Jiji press?

[HuguesT]

Look up "Weeds", the tv series.

This may be crass but...

[ZorinLynx]

This may sound crass, but this is a problem that'll solve itself in a couple of decades, after which you'll have a much lower population on the island, which given the lack of space (especially in large cities) is probably a good thing.

There are way too many people on the planet in general. Breeding more is NOT the answer. Do the best we can to take care of our elders, and when they're gone, let's be more responsible about population growth going forward.

Re:This may be crass but...

[CRCulver]

I would imagine that Japan's cities will stay as crowded as ever for a long time. As the population in the countryside thins out and becomes greyer, what young people there are will flock to the cities for better opportunities. So, you'll have densely populated cities and an increasingly empty rest of the country.

Look at Russia where the population has fallen significantly, but Moscow just keeps growing. If you visit the hopeless backwaters, all the young people there dream of leaving their collapsing communities for the big city.

Re:This may be crass but...

[Ardyvee]

It seems something that the government could try to solve by trying to invest in these less-developed areas and turning them into attractive areas for industry and businesses, in turns making people want to live in the less populated areas. I have always found it odd that there is little push towards homogenizing the population and instead everyone just seems to head towards the one or two large cities, slowly getting overcrowded.

Re:This may be crass but...

[ColdWetDog]

Read this book (Planet of Slums) on how this is a world wide phenomena that is becoming increasingly intractable.

We're doomed.

Re:This may be crass but...

[HangingChad]

This may sound crass, but this is a problem that'll solve itself in a couple of decades

It's not crass, it's just a biological fact. That's what pisses me off about people attacking social security and medicare, that problem will solve itself over time. Expenses will climb to a peak and then level off as the population declines. By 2035 that big, fat swath of baby boomers will start running into the meat grinder of old age.

Focus on cost control and the actuarial tables will take care of the rest.

Re:This may be crass but...

[bluegutang]

On the contrary, in a couple decades, things will be much worse in Japan. The number of retirees will rise, and the number of younger working people will decline. The ratio of retired to working people will rise, and there won't be anyone to pay for the medical care of the old people. That's a recipe for immense suffering, both personal and economic.

Japan currently averages about 1.4 kids per family. A stable, sustainable rate would be about 2.1 kids. (Not 2.0 because a small number will die before reaching reproductive age.) Japan's rate is much too low for a healthy society. Northern European countries have rates of 1.6-2.0 (plus some immigration of young people), while the US rate is 2.1 (plus some immigration). Those are healthy rates. Japan, for cultural reasons, is not even willing to supplement its 1.4 rate via immigration.

You are correct that the planet does not need any more human beings. But the solution is to decrease birth rates in Africa and South Asia (where they are as high as 7 kids per family in some countries), not to further decrease birth rates in Western countries, where they are already at or below sustainable levels.

Re:This may be crass but...

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

This may sound crass, but this is a problem that'll solve itself in a couple of decades, after which you'll have a much lower population on the island, which given the lack of space (especially in large cities) is probably a good thing.

Ireland has one of the lowest population densities in the world. This did not stop one of the world's worst per capita property bubbles forming and bursting, and now re-inflate itself in the capital.

The principal determiner of housing afford-ability is bank policy, and after that the level of influence landlords have over government policy. I imagine both are high in Japan, and the result has in part contributed to the literal decay of the entire country.

If young people in developed countries cannot afford a place to live and raise children, they will not marry, they will not have children, and the country will slowly die. Property prices and rents will remain propped up on an artificial floor, but in consequence the country will simply die.

Re:This may be crass but...

[Ol Olsoc]

This may sound crass, but this is a problem that'll solve itself in a couple of decades, after which you'll have a much lower population on the island, which given the lack of space (especially in large cities) is probably a good thing.

Then exactly how in the hell are we going to have enough young people to send off to fight in wars and die?

Re:This may be crass but...

[Ol Olsoc]

This may sound crass, but this is a problem that'll solve itself in a couple of decades

It's not crass, it's just a biological fact. That's what pisses me off about people attacking social security and medicare, that problem will solve itself over time.

There are Cayman Island bank accounts that can better use that money. You know, nothing like the invisible hand of the free market bitch slapping all those worthless old people.

Re:This may be crass but...

[AthanasiusKircher]

On the contrary, in a couple decades, things will be much worse in Japan. The number of retirees will rise, and the number of younger working people will decline. The ratio of retired to working people will rise, and there won't be anyone to pay for the medical care of the old people. That's a recipe for immense suffering, both personal and economic.

This is unnecessarily alarmist. In the early 1900s (until about 1940) the Japanese birth rate was approximately 4 times what it is now. Who do you think paid to feed all those kids or for their medical care, etc.? Yeah, conditions were worse, but the point is that all of those resources that previously went from working adults directly into raising kids are no longer necessary.

As long as older people are relatively healthy, it's not like having to care for 2 parents (shared among their children) for 10 years more is going to require more in terms of food, etc. than taking care of 5 or 6 kids for 20 years as they grow up (as was needed in years gone by).

Now I know the big objection about this is going to have to do with health care -- obviously older people cost more in terms of health care, but this is a relatively novel phenomenon, mostly having to do with a general push toward life extension without consideration of quality of life. Older people who are not suffering from chronic medical issues are probably not going to cost society as a whole much more than the multitude of children every family had in years gone by. But, to take an even more "crass" perspective, at some point humans will have to start seriously considering quality of life issues, rather than extending lives in pain for years or decades at great expense. Maybe we're not there yet... but unless someone comes up with the "fountain of youth" elixir in the next couple decades, a LOT of Western societies are going to need to start dealing with this issue.

Japan currently averages about 1.4 kids per family. A stable, sustainable rate would be about 2.1 kids. (Not 2.0 because a small number will die before reaching reproductive age.) Japan's rate is much too low for a healthy society.

Yeah, who gets to decide what's "healthy"? The planet as a whole ecosystem, with us included, would probably be much "healthier" if we spent a few centuries with a declining birthrate on the order of Japan's. I agree with you that the bigger issue is large birth rates in other parts of the world, but -- if you're talking from a strictly environmental perspective -- we probably should be talking about a long-term decrease, not "healthy" stability.

Re:This may be crass but...

[afgam28]

Having lived in both Japan and the US, I've noticed that people in Japan tend to think "living in a small town would be inconvenient because I wouldn't be able to get to a train" whereas people in the US tend to think "living in a big city would be inconvenient because I wouldn't be able to drive my car".

So the Japanese tend to be drawn towards large cities (about 60% live in one of the 3 biggest metro areas - Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya) and Americans tend to self-organize into a fairly uniformly sparse suburban environment.

It's interesting how people can't seem to see beyond their society's local maxima, but anyway this leads to vastly different ideas of what it means to be "overpopulated".

When I lived in Japan I didn't find it to be overpopulated at all, even in the middle of Tokyo. The high population density isn't a problem that needs solving - it's a defining characteristic that makes the city great, and has attracted 35 million people to live there. There are plenty of rural backwaters north of Tokyo in Tohoku but not many people want to live there.

So what for? If a society prefers large cities, why not let them self-organize into a two or three big cities? Which is what Japan has pretty much already done.

Re:This may be crass but...

[Fuzzums]

And the rest of Asia and America and Europe and .......
And actually they all indeed do.

Re:This may be crass but...

[Alomex]

This may sound crass, but this is a problem that'll solve itself in a couple of decades,

Erh, if couples are having less than two children on the average, as indeed they are, the problem won't "solve itself in a couple of decades".

This trend will simply carry on for many decades with the population steadily dwindling. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since not long ago Japan had less than 60m people, but the skewed ratio ain't going away.

Re:This may be crass but...

[iONiUM]

I've never lived in Japan, but I've visited there many times over the last decade, and I disagree that it isn't "overcrowded." I never felt like I could be alone in Tokyo (I.e. >20m from another human). In addition, have you even used the Tokyo Metro during rush hour? Shinjuku station? They really do use polls on people, and you're packed in like a goddamm sardine. That's not life, that's not living. That's being a meat popsicle. No thanks.

Re:This may be crass but...

[CrimsonAvenger]

t's not like having to care for 2 parents (shared among their children) for 10 years more

Note that if you have 1.4 kids per family on average, five families will have seven kids, and ten parents to support. It's really easy to support the elderly at ten workers per elderly with a 50% chance that any elderly will live long enough to collect Social Security (or the Japanese equivalent). Which was about what we had when SSA was invented in the '30s.

Well, now it's heading toward a 50% chance that any particular elderly will collect SSA benefits for 20 years or more, and the number or workers doing the support is closer to three than to ten.

And it's going to be getting worse as time goes along. For at least the next 30 years, probably longer (it's unlikely we've reached peak lifespan for humans yet).

Re:This may be crass but...

[PrimaryConsult]

Japan, for cultural reasons, is not even willing to supplement its 1.4 rate via immigration.

I agree with most of your post, but disagree with this one. Japan allows immigration of skilled labor. The difference between them and elsewhere is they *only* allow the skilled laborer, and not the rest of the family (unless, of course, the rest of the family is able to meet the immigration criteria individually). This filters out anyone who could possibly be a burden on their social systems. A side effect of this is that the few who do immigrate tend to assimilate into Japanese culture, but that is also necessary: their society does not have rules or laws spelled out for every little thing. There are things the legal system allows that no Japanese person would ever do, except in special circumstances. Trying to allow for legitimate exceptions in laws is hard, but when things are enforced by cultural norms, it's easier to have no law.

Re:This may be crass but...

[Ardyvee]

FWIW, I lived in Caracas, and it definitely felt overcrowded. Now I live in what I consider a town in Portugal (for some reason local population insists in calling it a city). I'm not sure which one I like more if I control for the lack of security in Caracas. I have no idea how USA/Japan cities compare besides what I've seen on TV (which we know isn't that reliable).

My biggest complain is the insistence on trying to live in a gigantic city (it tends to be hard to solve commuting issues) when the population could live in large cities instead (still a city, still with good public mass transport, still with great services and access and everything else, just with less population and perhaps more breathing room on the streets).

Re:This may be crass but...

[fustakrakich]

Then exactly how in the hell are we going to have enough young people to send off to fight in wars and die?

Clones

Re:This may be crass but...

[Ralph Spoilsport]

You are wrong. People reproducing in places like Africa and South Asia use a tiny fraction of the resources a Westerner uses. In terms of the ecology, one American family consumes as many resources and energy as a village in east Africa. So, as far as the biosphere is concerned, the millions of poor africans and asians are one thing, but they're not nearly as much of a problem as Americans and Europeans.

Re:This may be crass but...

[amiga3D]

It's hard to fight the inevitable. I've seen a lot of "investment" in dying communities where they try to turn them around and start growth again. It may work sometimes but I've yet to see it.

Re:This may be crass but...

[luis_a_espinal]

I would imagine that Japan's cities will stay as crowded as ever for a long time. As the population in the countryside thins out and becomes greyer, what young people there are will flock to the cities for better opportunities. So, you'll have densely populated cities and an increasingly empty rest of the country.

This. People who claim Japan overcrowded are only looking at numbers without the appropriate context. Japan is no small nation (just slightly smaller than California), and there is a lot, a lot of empty, rural spaces. Overcrowding might be a problem in the cities, but then again, Japanese cities are very well organized and clean so that overcrowding is not really an issue (I know, I've been there.)

But the country as a whole is not overcrowded as it has the capacity to feed and clothe its population my modern, developed standards, a capacity that will have for the rest of this century and the next... barring Godzilla or something.

Re:This may be crass but...

[luis_a_espinal]

I've never lived in Japan, but I've visited there many times over the last decade, and I disagree that it isn't "overcrowded." I never felt like I could be alone in Tokyo (I.e. >20m from another human). In addition, have you even used the Tokyo Metro during rush hour? Shinjuku station?

Well, he lived there, so most likely his answer would be in the affirmative.

They really do use polls on people, and you're packed in like a goddamm sardine. That's not life, that's not living. That's being a meat popsicle. No thanks.

That's a subjective position. It's your right to have it of course, but it is still subjective. I've been in Tokyo and Yokohama, and at first, the sight of so many people during rush hour is quite shocking. But people adapt. Outside of the monster commute (be it packed like a sardine or stuck on the expressway for 1+ hour... one way as it is the norm in many American cities), people adapt and seek/get what they want.

The trade-off of the sardine commute is in living in a vibrant, elegant and financially rich (and relatively crime free) megapolis with all the benefits that come with it. I never really had a need of a car, not even for grocery shopping. There was a pharmacy on the first floor of the building where I was living, and a grocery store on the first floor of the building next door... and so on and so on...

... and the nice thing about the Japanese way of life is that most stores, even the smallest ones, have a delivery service. You buy your stuff, in bulk if you one, pay $10 (1000-something yen IIRC), and voila they'll deliver it to your apartment. Every major train/subway station/nexus has a mall so shopping (and buying delivery) is also conveniently located.) Try to do that anywhere in the US.

Here in the US we trade for space, which will always feel much better than the sardine commute, but then again, we have to drive just to get toilet paper. Few cities have trains for commute so a commute is not only long, but also physically consuming. When you get used to it, you can go zzz while standing in a Tokyo sardine commute. Try doing that when driving.

And there there is the lack of crime. And the level of education that you encounter, customer service, etc, etc, etc. We don't have that here, and yet, we will call this life, but their way of life is not "life"? WTF?

At the end of the day, we are dealing with subjective perceptions here. And you are entitled to it, so long as you acknowledge how subjective you are.

Re:This may be crass but...

[khallow]

It's more tractable than it was in 1950. There are a lot more wealth in those areas and a lot more opportunity for those people than there was in the past. And it's worth noting that the developed world has much better slums than the third world does with less of their population in those slums.

Re:This may be crass but...

[khallow]

That's what pisses me off about people attacking social security and medicare, that problem will solve itself over time.

With substantial benefits cuts.

Expenses will climb to a peak and then level off as the population declines.

In the case of Medicare, it'll plateau at a level that can't be supported by the entirety of federal government funding. One could take all government revenue in around 2040 and still not cover present-day Medicare promises made for that year.

Focus on cost control and the actuarial tables will take care of the rest.

Again, substantial benefits cuts.

Re:This may be crass but...

[AmiMoJo]

Privacy is at a premium in Tokyo, which is why there are so many businesses offering it. Internet/manga cafes with private booths, love hotels, karaoke rooms, small bars etc.

It's not to everyone's tastes. Personally I love it and don't find it crowded exactly. Busy, but in exchange for that you get to live somewhere with a very vibrant and varied cultural life. When you need open space it's only a train ride away, and outside of peak times the trains are not that packed. In fact even during peak times it isn't as bad as it used to be, because they actually invest in increasing capacity.

Re:This may be crass but...

[AmiMoJo]

It will put an impossible burden on people in the mean time. There won't be enough working age people to pay for the retirement of older people. Even if you were willing to cut off the state pension and state healthy insurance people would still want to support their parents and grandparents individually, forcing them into poverty too. That in turn lowers their productivity, and prevents them from saving for their retirements etc.

Chances are society would collapse and Japan would become a poor country before the problem "solved itself".

Japan needs to maintain its population level, either by getting the birth rate up or by bringing in immigrants. The latter is not an easy option, because Japanese is not a common second language. The writing system in particular is hard to deal with for pretty much anyone except the Chinese.

Re:This may be crass but...

[AmiMoJo]

There is a small but not insignificant movement of companies out of major cities in Japan to more rural areas. It is usually internet based companies, or those that otherwise would benefit from more space (for warehousing or small factories) and don't really need to be right in the city. Often they start there because that's where the founder lives, but then move out and offer employees lower housing costs and free transport into the city when they want it.

Re:This may be crass but...

[JanneM]

It's easy to say we want to make the rural areas as attractive as the big cities. Notably, I've yet to see any credible ideas for actually achieving it.

Big cities are amazing. Because of network effects and the efficiencies of small distances and dense accumulation of resources, competing directly is extremely difficult. It's like deciding you want to make a new, fledging social network as attractive to users as the current big ones. The only thing you could feasibly do in both cases is to push it as a niche for special interests.

Re:This may be crass but...

[Gramie2]

Japan is nowhere near able to feed itself. It produced under 40% of its caloric needs in 2011. It does produce all the rice it needs (thanks to ridiculously subsidized and protected farmers), but is the world's largest importer of corn.

I would also be surprised if it had any significant textile/clothing industry; everything now comes from other countries in Asia.

Re:This may be crass but...

[Bryan Ischo]

"ou buy your stuff, in bulk if you one, pay $10 (1000-something yen IIRC), and voila they'll deliver it to your apartment. Every major train/subway station/nexus has a mall so shopping (and buying delivery) is also conveniently located.) Try to do that anywhere in the US."

You may know alot about Japan but your ignorance of the USA is showing here. What you describe is possible in many parts of the USA.

Our family hardly ever shops anymore, we just buy it all online and have it delivered. Groceries too. The only place we ever go out to is farmer's markets, because a) they don't deliver, and b) they're often more of an experience than just a shopping trip.

BTW we live in Cupertino, CA.

Disclaimer: it's possible that you meant "this kind of shopping arrangement is not found in every part of the USA" instead of how I interpreted your statement, as "this kind of shipping arrangement is not find in *any* part of the USA"). If this is the case, then I expect the same is true in Japan. I have been to rural parts of Japan and I'm pretty sure they weren't delivering toothpaste off of subway cars there ...

Re:This may be crass but...

[manu0601]

they *only* allow the skilled laborer (...) This filters out anyone who could possibly be a burden on their social systems.

Working immigrants do not tend to be a burden on social systems. Remember that they contribute to it through their work, while they cost nothing to raise and educate for the host country. And if they go back home when they get older, they do not cost because of age-related problems either.

Re:This may be crass but...

[turp182]

This is happening across rural America as well. The kids don't want to stay and can't find jobs either. To the cities they flow.

This is what I see in the midwest. I'm talking about towns of 5,000 or less, many of them will not exist 20 years from now.

Re:This may be crass but...

[mjwx]

This may sound crass, but this is a problem that'll solve itself in a couple of decades, after which you'll have a much lower population on the island, which given the lack of space (especially in large cities) is probably a good thing.

The big problem is what happens in the mean time (Japan has one of the longest life spans in the world). You have a large number of people retired, even though they're still adding to the economy as consumers but you're still losing production.

I agree with you, ultimately we need fewer people born to avoid massive resource scarcities but there is going to be a bit of an economic problem when the baby boomers retire. Sadly the only solution politicians can think of for this economic problem is "have more babies".

Re:This may be crass but...

[khchung]

"ou buy your stuff, in bulk if you one, pay $10 (1000-something yen IIRC), and voila they'll deliver it to your apartment. Every major train/subway station/nexus has a mall so shopping (and buying delivery) is also conveniently located.) Try to do that anywhere in the US."

You may know alot about Japan but your ignorance of the USA is showing here. What you describe is possible in many parts of the USA.

Our family hardly ever shops anymore, we just buy it all online and have it delivered. Groceries too. The only place we ever go out to is farmer's markets, because a) they don't deliver, and b) they're often more of an experience than just a shopping trip.

You are showing your ignorance here. Of course Japan also have online stores, but that's another thing entirely.

What the GP said was to be able to *physically* go to a store, *hand pick* what you want to pick (i.e. you can pick and choose, e.g., the fruits, one by one), and the pay at the counter THEN have the store deliver what you picked to your home.

Living in the US you might think that is stupid, why would you take the trouble to go (drive) to the mall and then not carry the stuff back home? The difference is, in Japan (and also applies to many Asian metropolis), as the GP mentioned, there are malls *everywhere*. Next to metro stations, around the corner, right beneath your home, etc.

So during the normal course of a work day, you would probably pass malls/shops on your way to work, during lunch break, and on your way home. Then it became natural for you to scan the shops and probably, once in a while, notice something you want to buy, but you are on your way to work/lunch break/dine with friends/etc and obviously *not driving*, so you don't want to carry the stuff with you around. THAT's where the delivery comes in to play. You pick, you pay, and they deliver while you go on your merry way, just 3 minutes spent.

That convenience of practically going through shopping malls along the way of everywhere you go is what GP meant. You are literally 10 minutes away from everything you need/want to buy, almost all the time, and you never need to "take time" to buy anything at all.

And no, Americans living in suburbs where they have to drive 10 minutes to buy toilet paper, and do a "shopping trip" to Walmart once a week just to stock up on groceries won't be able to imagine what it is like, the convenience of being able to buy a fresh apple (just one), on the way home, every day, by just stopping for 30 seconds at the grocery that you pass by daily anyway.

Re:This may be crass but...

[rtb61]

Something needs to occur to 'energise' them generate the need and desire for growth. In the Japan case there is no where to go, nothing new to achieve, just continuing on. They need the surge of change to drive adventure and a reach for the future. Likely they need to start looking at an EU style union, to promote change and balanced growth. The problem for them, especially considering the immigration rules which is an important part, is whom to partner with. The only logical regional partner at this stage would be Australia. For the obvious access to resources, opportunities for development, and the challenges represented in aligning the cultures. Creating challenge often represents the best means of stimulating growth, making the most of the advantages both countries offer to generate a far greater outcome via that union. Certainly not easy but it would definitely energise both countries. Other countries, perhaps just Pacific Island countries, could then be invited once the initial union had resolved most issues.

Re:This may be crass but...

[Grishnakh]

Have you forgotten South Korea? It's right next door, and is fairly similar culturally and economically.

The main problem is that's it. They're nothing like NK or China (and are at odds with both of them), and anything else is quite a long distance away. They're probably a lot closer to Hawaii than Australia.

Re:This may be crass but...

[Grishnakh]

Japan may be slightly smaller than California, but much of its land is highly mountainous and not arable. California is so productive because not only does it have large cities, it also has an enormous amount of agriculture, because it's mostly flat and has great weather for growing crops. Japan does not.

Re:This may be crass but...

[Ol Olsoc]

The solution is robots. Robots can care for the elderly that are unable to care for themselves, and robots can go and fight in our wars.

Well, Robots to care for the old might work, but we're humans. we have a deep seated need to kill each other.

Re:This may be crass but...

[Bryan Ischo]

You are right, I misunderstood what the O.P. was saying.

I personally don't see the value in having someone else carry my shopping items home for me, but perhaps that's because I hate to shop and don't find the idea of being to browse through a real life store and order items for delivery any more appealing than being able to browse through an online store and order items for delivery.

Also, there are plenty of city dwellers in the USA that have more or less the same "anything I want is a 5 minute walk away" experience. Maybe it's not *exactly* the same experience as in Japan, but it can be close.

Your post smacks a bit of cultural superiorism, by the way.

Re:This may be crass but...

[rtb61]

South Korea offers Japan nothing that it already doesn't have apart from the huge problem of North Korea.

Re: This may be crass but...

[antifoidulus]

Actually there is a decent sizzler textile industry in japan, but almost all of the labor is prison labor..

Re:This may be crass but...

[micahraleigh]

The planet needs ... ?

I couldn't care less about the planet. I care about people.

Re:This may be crass but...

[HuguesT]

Oh but they are too. Desertification in Africa, and pollution in China. Don't underestimate the power of a few billion people.

Re:This may be crass but...

[HuguesT]

Europe and the USA offshore their "dirty" production in the third world. They consume most of the resources of this planet and pollute everywhere, so their population is a problem too.

What's wrong with that?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish this was the norm.

Re:Good For Them

[fizzer06]

Japan is not a city.

It has to happen sometime

[dugancent]

Economic policies based on an ever growing population are failed policies.

Re:It has to happen sometime

[benjfowler]

The pindicks who make our economic policies still haven't gotten the memo.

Re:It has to happen sometime

[garyebickford]

Unfortunately nobody has ever come up with an economic model that is stable without growth in both population and economic activity. I expect that Japan's accelerated work on advanced robotics may be an effort to create a new model that replaces those people with robots and allows renewed economic growth with a shrinking but ever wealthier population - at least until SkyNet! :P

Re:It has to happen sometime

[cold fjord]

That could be the epitaph for the Western welfare state. Europe is heading in the same direction as Japan.

Re:It has to happen sometime

[AmiMoJo]

No, it's not about lack of a growing population, it's about massive population decline. The current population is about 125m, and is set to fall to about 90m by 2050. People in Japan live a long time, and it puts a burden on current tax payers. If there are too few people paying tax either the older ones can't be looked after properly, or the tax rate gets ridiculously high.

It has nothing to do with growth, and everything to do with people living for decades after they become too old to be economically productive and without having enough children to support them.

This is the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a problem at all. This is an indicator that Japan is moving even further into the Post-Industrial stage of their country's development. They are effectively controling their population growth, the rest of the world would do well to follow their example.

Re:This is the solution

[Luckyo]

Not when you're an island nation. There is a distinct advantage to being one, that is that many problems that hit the rest of the world can be largely avoided.

Japan, for example, doesn't have much in terms of cheap labour force problem driving unskilled and semi-skilled labour market into the ground.

Re:This is the solution

[Luckyo]

That's interesting, considering that pretty much all of Japanese themselves in fact widely accept that they have a major demographic problem on their hands.

Big problems ahead

[hsmith]

The aging population relies on the tax base of the young to sustain any old age benefit program.

What happens when you don't have enough young people to sustain the program the old people depend on?

Will the young revolt? Will the old vote heavier taxes on the young so they can live their lifestyle?

There are massive socioeconomic problems that will not only impact Japan but America and other western countries.

The young will be piggy banks for so long before getting tired of it.

Re:Big problems ahead

[Anonymous Coward]

The young will be piggy banks for so long before getting tired of it.

The old run the show, you pathetic little bitch.

Accept that or be ready to accept the consequences of your pointless futile rebellious ideas.

Re:Big problems ahead

[ShanghaiBill]

What happens when you don't have enough young people to sustain the program the old people depend on?

Improve productivity through the use of automation, robotics, and AI, while simultaneously reducing resource consumption through the use of advanced composite materials and intelligent sensors. Progress happens. It is silly to extrapolate demography while assuming everything else will stay the same.

Re:Big problems ahead

[Intrepid imaginaut]

The "young" and the "old" aren't political classes, especially since one rather quickly becomes the other. In any case it's the middle aged who pay by far the most taxes and drive the engine of consumerism through property purchases, vehicle purchases, etc, not to mention taxation applied on company profits and the like. The economy is complicated.

However Japan is an interesting case. The rise of the "herbivores", a phenomenon whereby young men are opting out of not just society but long term relationships on a reported scale I frankly have difficulty crediting, is a symptom of a society at war with itself. This isn't a deliberate attempt to control or reduce the population but rather a culture where traditional norms were thrown out en masse before and during world war 2, to be replaced by a fervid desire to excel on the national level right up until the early 90s, and now that's been done Japanese men are finding that an angry boss at work and an angry woman at home isn't what they want out of life.

It's unknown territory, socially, and it remains to be seen if the west will follow suit.

Re:Big problems ahead

[CRCulver]

Obligatory military service has been abandoned across nearly all developed countries, and besides, isn't one of the motivations for Japan's investment in robotics R&D being able to take care of the elderly even with a considerably smaller labour force?

Re:Big problems ahead

[benjfowler]

Italy is, by virtue of its ageing population, a gerontocracy, with the old hogging the levers of power.

Expect cultural stagnation (e.g. conservatism) as a consequence.

Re:Big problems ahead

[stoploss]

What happens when you don't have enough young people to sustain the program the old people depend on?

Default, at least. A few years ago I decided to investigate why everyone was freaking out over Greece's 100% debt-to-GDP ratio but not the US' same level. I found that Japan has a *200%* debt-to-GDP ratio, yet eswentially everyone is silent about it. How does that work?

Well, government debt is treated like a savings program there. People can buy government debt at their post office, etc. So, all these old people have been saving their money for years and years by buying these savings bonds. This hasn't been a problem for Japan so far because all these people are rolling over the debt as it matures (taking the money from the retired bond and using it to buy a new one).

Much like a Ponzi scheme, this works until people want to cash out... then they find the money isn't there to do that. Who is likely to want to cash out? Well, perhaps elderly people who are retired and now are counting on using the money they saved all their lives.

I know some economists like Krugman disingenuously state that a government in control of its own currency printing presses can never default, but that's a lie. If these people bought the bonds in good faith and the government decides to pay them off with hyperinflated, worthless currency that they printed, then that's theft (at least morally speaking).

Not honoring one's obligations in debt is a default (ethically speaking), whether that's in the form of refusing to pay one's debts, disavowing debts, or paying them with worthless scrip.

Re:Big problems ahead

[garyebickford]

Well, actually they've been freaking out about the Japanese debt problem for a long time - 20 years or so. Most economists that I've read now believe that it would have been better to 'bite the bullet' back then and let the banks fail, then pick up the pieces. Instead they've been slowly bleeding to death for 20 years and dragging down the Japanese economy. See Iceland vs. UK and several other Euro countries. Iceland told the banks (and Europe) to F*-off - no "too big to fail" BS. The country went through some hard times for a few years, now they're doing well. But other countries all over Europe are now in the bleeding to death for 20 years phase. And, IMHO the US is going that way as well but we're doing it by inflationary theft.

I read recently that Japan's 'safe' Postal Savings system had been exposed - it had been systematically and secretly looted by successive governments for the last 20 years, to cover up the financial problems and prop up the banks. It was originally a true savings system, but no longer. The money's not actually there any more. It's now financially more like the US Social Security system, where they're paying the present oldsters with money paid in by youngsters.

Re:Big problems ahead

[cpt kangarooski]

I know some economists like Krugman disingenuously state that a government in control of its own currency printing presses can never default, but that's a lie. If these people bought the bonds in good faith and the government decides to pay them off with hyperinflated, worthless currency that they printed, then that's theft (at least morally speaking).

No, it's not theft. It's just the Super Chicken rule: they knew the job was dangerous when they took it.

Bond purchasers know that currencies may be debased, and that governments may even just default; happens all the time. But they gambled that the likelihood of getting a return on their investment was greater than of losing it, and that it was a better option than putting the money elsewhere. But there's no rock solid guarantee that absolutely cannot be broken.

Next you'll say that discharging debts in bankruptcy is immoral or something similarly stupid.

Re:Big problems ahead

[stoploss]

Thanks for the smarmy reply, I guess. I already understand all that, but it wasn't salient to the topic of Japan. If you read my post, you will see that I disagree about countries that print their own currency. It's tantamount to a default if you spool up the presses and pay it off with worthless hyperinflated currency.

FYI, you should read about what typically happens with sovereign debt denominated in another currency. The government may not control the printing presses, but they control the laws and judiciary of the nation. Surprise unilateral contract modification.

The real risk, of course, is if a country issues bonds under a foreign government's laws. Greece "surprise modified" their sovereign debt that was issued under Greek law, but they paid out in full their debt issued under English law.

Is that simple enough for you?

Re:Big problems ahead

[ShanghaiBill]

Those gains don't accrue to everyone; they only accrue to the owners of capital.

This is only true if you have tunnel vision. In the developed countries of North America and Europe, most economic gains in the last few decades have gone to the owners of capital. But if you look at the whole world, that is not true at all. The big gains have been at the bottom. Nearly a billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty. Per capita GDP has gone up eight-fold in China, with 300 million Chinese entering the middle class.

Re:Big problems ahead

[benjfowler]

Easy. You force the old to pay for their retirements by making them buy private pensions. You force them to sell their houses to pay for aged care, and soak them through taxes.

The boomer generation hogs all the wealth and political power; they will be forced to pay for their own mess, because there is no alternative.

Re:Big problems ahead

[stoploss]

Bond purchasers know that currencies may be debased, and that governments may even just default; happens all the time. But they gambled that the likelihood of getting a return on their investment was greater than of losing it, and that it was a better option than putting the money elsewhere. But there's no rock solid guarantee that absolutely cannot be broken.

I'm sure the American public would love to hear the truth you just expressed. I agree with you that the full faith and credit of the US government is *not* inviolable, but they may not be so happy to hear that their savings bonds and Social Security Trust Fund (cf. the SDR bonds that constitute almost the entire the Trust Fund) are risky investments that are subject to being debased and paid out with worthless scrip.

But, hey, you know: they knew what they were getting into when they decided to play the market. It's their own fault they have money locked up in government debt.

I see you're a lawyer. Here's a shibboleth for you: when two parties agree on terms for exchange of considerations, and then one party unilaterally modifies the agreement to their advantage in order to inflict loss upon the other party, do you call that savvy maneuvering or unethical? This scenario is in a vacuum, BTW, so there's no background to read into it. What's your take on it, prima facie? If we don't agree on basic semantics then there's no point in debating.

PS. Krugman and his ilk constantly say that you can't equate macroeconomics to microeconomics, so I don't know what you were trying to insinuate with your bankruptcy comment.

Re:Big problems ahead

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in China. The economy is growing on a building boom. Unfortunately we have already built a lot more than we can use/need. Whole communities are empty. It's going to collapse sooner or later.

Re:Big problems ahead

[sjames]

That's great for China but does nothing for Japan, the U.S. or Europe.

Re:Big problems ahead

[AthanasiusKircher]

If you read my post, you will see that I disagree about countries that print their own currency. It's tantamount to a default if you spool up the presses and pay it off with worthless hyperinflated currency.

It won't be "worthless" or "hyperinflated" if the debt is paid off in that currency.

Hyperinflation is generally a phenomenon which occurs as part of a feedback loop -- country A owes money in country B's currency, for example. Country A runs the presses to pay the debt in currency B this month. To do so, it increases the monetary base of currency A; it then exchanges money for currency B. Those people who buy currency A to give out the B in exchange then spread the currency A money back into the economy, where inflation begins.

Since prices are inflated and the monetary base in use has enlarged, the exchange rate between A and B changes, so A now has less worth in B's denomination. Next month or quarter or whatever, when A has to come up with money in currency B, it now has to print the presses even more, because the exchange rate is no longer as favorable. That results in more money flowing into the economy, more inflation, etc. Each payment thus requires more printing of the presses than the previous month, and the currency is devalued.

Repeat cycle over a period of months or years, and country B never pays off debt, and its currency is completely wrecked by hyperinflation.

Now -- if a country has sovereign debt denominated in its own currency, then the government is the only source of the currency. Thus, the government already effectively "created" that money by issuing the bond in the first place. Some other person or country or whatever holds that debt has already said that it will accept payment in currency "created" by that government.

So, if country A now just decides tomorrow to run the presses and pay off ALL the debt, it can do so. Country A is guaranteed to be able to pay off ALL of its debt simply by an act authorizing payment of X dollars or yen or whatever. There is no possibility of the inflationary spiral above where it could require many multiples of X dollars or yen or whatever simply to pay off the debt, because the denomination already is ONLY X and X ONLY. The value of the debt is set.

It is possible that some inflation will ensue after the debt is paid, depending on exactly how this is done, and what the people who get paid this "money" do with it. (I put "money" in quotation marks, because all of these transactions mostly happen virtually on computers between major banks and such, with no real currency transactions happening in actual physical money.) But, in reality, foreign owners of debt in currency A will probably act in ways to actively discourage inflation in currency A as long as they hold some debt in that currency... otherwise, the value of their investment will decrease. So, anyone who holds this debt has an interest in keeping currency A afloat and avoiding hyperinflation -- rather than if the debt is denominated in currency B, in which case all that matters is getting the value into currency B.

But the point is that there is no need for the inflationary spiral to occur, because the money never has to go through the exchange process (and thereby doesn't necessarily change hands beyond the original holders of the debt).

Now -- how investors in that country's government could react going forward could have serious economic consequences, depending on how it is handled. But the money originally flowing to those who own the debt will be paid in currency with its current full value, not "worthless hyperinflated currency." If you don't understand that currency actually originates through government production, and thus production of government debt effectively "creates" money already, I'd suggest you go back and read a macroeconomics textbook.

One can argue about how crazy governments have to be to cause banks and investors and so forth t

Re:Big problems ahead

[scamper_22]

Just a little caveat as it is a big caveat.

It is not the young people the young people that support the old people.

It is young people with 'good' jobs that support the old people.

If we look throughout the world right now, young people aren't exactly basking in good high paying jobs that would be net payers into a tax system.

So yes, an aging Japanese population is a problem.
It might actually be a worse problem to have a large population of elderly people AND a large amount of unemployed or underemployed young people.

I'm Canadian and I just thought I'd point this out as I'm sure it is the same in most countries. The 'economists' have been saying for years we need to have more kids to provide a tax base for our aging baby boomers. Yet, we can't even find good jobs for our current youth.

Seems to me, many of the youth will not be net payers into the tax system. They might get government work, funded by tax dollars or whatever.

Re:Big problems ahead

[NapalmV]

[...] they may not be so happy to hear that their savings bonds and Social Security Trust Fund (cf. the SDR bonds that constitute almost the entire the Trust Fund) are risky investments that are subject to being debased and paid out with worthless scrip.

I think they already know. They're just trying to beat inflation without taking extra risks. Government savings bonds are about as safe as the money they're denominated in, while their interest rate helps with reducing the effect of inflation.

Re:Big problems ahead

[Kjella]

Robots still suck horribly bad at providing personal service and that's what care for the elderly and healthcare tends to be. They already have problems when they're just dealing with squishy inputs through a standardized process to produce a fixed output which is why we still have people making burgers and fries much less trying to help an elderly dress, shower or go the bathroom with any degree of success, humanity and dignity. With a rapidly increasing elderly:workforce ratio the level of personal service will have to go down and robotics isn't even close to ready to pick up the kinds of work nurses do today. Everybody's been dreaming of service robots since R2-D2 and C3PO but the Roomba is the closest thing we have to a common household product.

True, in certain ways we've gone beyond our wildest dreams with computers. In other ways technology like flying cars has actually come far shorter than expected and I think this is one of them. I don't see any "I, Robot" style assistants in my lifetime, nor cyborg style enhancement, nor the singularity, nor substantial advances in nanotechnology or gene therapy to stop aging. I could be wrong, but even though we've in many ways come so far I also see in how many ways we've come so short. At this point it seems plausible I'll grow old and die like those that are old now, and you can already start counting the heads that'll be in the workforce still as today's children will be at the end of their careers when I'm old. They'll be few, we'll be many so each patient will have to take up much less of their time. That does not sound good for me.

Re:Big problems ahead

[NapalmV]

You force the old to pay for their retirements by making them buy private pensions. You force them to sell their houses to pay for aged care, and soak them through taxes.

This looks like a modern form of the ancient art of lapidation practiced against the older, weaker or ill members of the tribe. Look in a mirror, do you see the neanderthal there?

Re:Big problems ahead

[stoploss]

Government savings bonds are about as safe as the money they're denominated in, while their interest rate helps with reducing the effect of inflation.

Weellll, it gets amusing when TIPS get sold at a negative interest rate. Yes, the story is nuanced (there is a floor in that original principal will be returned if the yield would result in an overall loss), but it's still shocking to see US sovereign debt instrument with a negative interest rate.

BTW, the 5-year fixed rate yield on TIPS is still negative.

This is primarily the result of the market's flight to perceived stability after the 2008 crash. Supply & demand.

Re:Big problems ahead

[ShanghaiBill]

Robots still suck horribly bad at providing personal service and that's what care for the elderly and healthcare tends to be.

Steady progress is being made in this field. Society isn't going to suddenly become gray tomorrow. It is going to happen over decades. Also, robots don't have to specifically be good at elder care. If they are good at mowing lawns, picking tomatoes, or unloading trucks, that still frees up human labor for other tasks, such as elder care.

Re:Big problems ahead

[hey!]

The young will be piggy banks for so long before getting tired of it.

Depends.

Let's imagine for a moment a world where 50% of what a young person makes goes to support the non-working elderly. Sounds horrible, right? But lets imagine in that world in which those young people are 4x as productive as they are now. Would they have a legitimate beef supporting an older generation that bequeathed them a world whose technology, infrastructure and educational institutions allow them to take home twice as much pay as they did?

This is not just sci-fi conjecture; in many ways this resembles the situation we have today. If the current work force had 19th C technology, education, and infrastructure, then we'd only be able to support a fraction of the retirees who don't want to work. The modern working class enjoys a lifestyle that is considerably more comfortable than they did a hundred years ago, while supporting many, many more non-working retirees.

If you want to live a long and comfortable retirement, you'd better be committed to progress. But I question whether progress is a common American value anymore. With respect to education, I hear a lot of people who voice what amounts to this argument: if it was good enough for *me* then kids today ought to make due with it. After all *I* didn't understand algebra or chemistry when I got out of school and *I* did alright.

The problem with that argument is that todays's students are going to be the workers keeping your investments productive in your retirement years. They'll be the doctors taking care of you; the civic leaders making the laws and keeping the peace when you leave your home. It's not rational to want to limit the educational opportunities of the next generation to what worked for you; enlightened self-interest would support producing a next generation that's better educated than the world has yet seen.

Re:Big problems ahead

[khallow]

They can't squeeze money from someone who chooses to just not work. The system only works, if someone is producing enough to cover the costs. Else, it's benefits cuts no matter how much flailing is done.

Re:Big problems ahead

[khallow]

And if society's rules say you go to the glue factory, then we just have to shoulder that burden and turn ourselves into glue. Sometimes you can't live in a society, if you play by its rules.

Re:Big problems ahead

[AmiMoJo]

The low birth rate is a complex subject but boils down to economics. Children are expensive. Women want careers and are forced to choose between having one and having children, because taking maternity leave or not doing overtime still holds them back. Men now have better entertainment options, as odd as that sounds, with the internet and various clubs, so prefer to have lots of money to spend on themselves instead of a wife and family.

The way to solve it is to make make having children a lot cheaper. Tax credits, free or very low cost child care etc. Of course you can't pay for it just by raising taxes, since that will simply offset what you give away anyway. It is going to mean taxes for the rich and for corporations have to go up, but really there is no other option.

Re:Big problems ahead

[AmiMoJo]

Your analysis of the situation in Europe is flawed. The UK is doing badly, but other countries in the EU are well beyond pre-crisis levels now. Particularly France and Germany, and of course Germany not only bailed out its own banks but also a few other countries. Bail-outs worked well in some places, but were not a universal fix or suitable for everyone. Iceland probably made the right call. The UK did too, but then screwed it up by making everyone except the banks pay for it afterwards.

Re:Big problems ahead

[Intrepid imaginaut]

The low birth rate is a complex subject but boils down to economics. Children are expensive.

The herbivore lifestyle, from what I've learned of it (I'm renting a room out to a Japanese language student), is more than just about not having children. Men are eschewing long term relationships entirely, not to mention simply not taking part in the pressurised Japanese society of yesteryear. They don't have high paying jobs but are rather staying afloat and going cycling in the countryside.

Men now have better entertainment options, as odd as that sounds, with the internet and various clubs, so prefer to have lots of money to spend on themselves instead of a wife and family

I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that men are spending all their money on entertainment, if anything whiling away the hours is far cheaper these days than ever before. Plus I mean you have to ask what's going on when computer games are more attractive than the local womenfolk. Remember this is the country that invented the boyfriend shaped pillow.

The way to solve it is to make make having children a lot cheaper.

Again, money isn't really the issue here as far as I can tell. It's a profound rejection of the demand to be the best, to be a wallet, to be a dumb cog in the machine without being recognised and appreciated for it, and if the numbers returned by surveys are to be believed the Japanese economy is going to be in really serious trouble without them.

Re:Big problems ahead

[ultranova]

They can't squeeze money from someone who chooses to just not work.

That comes dangerously close to suggesting some kind of revolution of the proletariat, comrade.

Re:Big problems ahead

[ShanghaiBill]

The U.S. used to have a thriving middle class ...

The US has as much of a middle class as it ever has. Over the last 30 years, economic growth has disproportionately benefited the wealthy, but all but the very bottom have still progressed to some extent. Many economists believe even the very poor have progressed, since the way we measure CPI overstates inflation by about 1% per year. So we are all actually about 30% better off than the CPI would indicate.

 

Re:Big problems ahead

[sjames]

What wonderland do you live in? There are people who really really want the CPI to look rosier than reality. That's why it leans on things that are dropping in price but are totally unnecessary like large LCD TVs but it underweights food, clothing, and shelter as well as medical care.

Re:Big problems ahead

[dryeo]

The problem is that the cost of living is increasing way faster then inflation. The cost of living being those things that you have to have such as food, housing and fuel.

Re:Big problems ahead

[dryeo]

Let's imagine for a moment a world where 50% of what a young person makes goes to support the non-working elderly. Sounds horrible, right? But lets imagine in that world in which those young people are 4x as productive as they are now. Would they have a legitimate beef supporting an older generation that bequeathed them a world whose technology, infrastructure and educational institutions allow them to take home twice as much pay as they did?

You're assuming that the increased productivity will result in higher real pay. This has not been the reality for quite a while now, productivity keeps increasing and real wages keep dropping for most.

Re:Big problems ahead

[stoploss]

I read your post and I completely disagree with this point.

I returned the favor by reading your post, and I disagree with your retorts. I do acknowledge that my statement that the "surprise modification != default" was based on ISDA comments from late 2011 where they said that the 50% haircut was "voluntary" and would not trigger applicable CDS. Checking just now it seems they reversed themselves in early 2012 and acknowledged it was indeed a default.

However, no doubt you would not consider it to be equivalent to a default if the government passed a law that imposed a 100% tax on all bond interest payments and returns of bond principal. I presume this because according to you, they are legitimately upholding their end of the bargain if they deliberately inflate their currency to practically nothing in order to pay off the debt. In this "tax confiscation" scenario, they are paying back the bond and immediately withholding & confiscating all payments/principal in order to deprive the bondholders of any value.

However, they still made the payments as promised so no harm done, right? The government never promised not to change the law to confiscate all bond interest and principal via taxation after payment was made... the investors knew what they were getting into when they took the deal, right?

Similarly, it's farcical to allege that a government deliberately devaluing its currency in order to eliminate its debt in one fell swoop is not equivalent in effect to a default for the bondholders.

You will note that I am not debating the denotation of "default", but rather linking courses of action that result in the same effect for bondholders as "tantamount to default" (i.e. in the ethical sense).

Re:Big problems ahead

[Muad'Dave]

Sounds like "Atlas Shrugged." Why work when your efforts are stolen from you? Use their redistribution scheme against them.

Re:Big problems ahead

[Muad'Dave]

That's funny, the message I get from "Atlas Shrugged" is that greedy, handout-happy, micromanaging, do-gooder, fix-societies-ills, we know better than you governments that lavish money and influence on those that share their ideology and punish those that actually produce the wealth they redistribute are bad all the way around.

Re:As Margaret Sanger Slee always wanted

[CRCulver]

You want everyone reading this to have to download a Flash player (or HTML5 video that consumes just as much data) just to watch your crank video? Take your embedding and stick it up your ass.

Thank goodness Dice hasn't fucked up Slashdot enough yet that your embedding would have worked.

Re:Good For Them

[garyebickford]

I think the parent was arguing that it is so dense (at least apparently - all we know here is what we see on the media) that it might as well be. I just looked. The density of Houston is about 1350 per square mile, Japan is about 750 per square mile, more than 1/2 of an actual US city (albeit one with a lot of territory). So the parent isn't completely off base.

natural balance

[duckintheface]

The first question that anyone interested in economics, enviornment... anything really.... should ask is, "What is the optimal populaiton for the country or the planet?" To accomplish anything of value, you at least have to know if the optimal population is higher or lower than the current population.

If our goal is the best life for human beings, the optimal number is clearly less than "standing room only" for population density. Based on resource depletion, current pollution, and the massive extinction event we are currently experiencing for other species, I would think the optimum is considerably less than the current population.

The US standard of living has, on average, not improved since the 1970s and has decreased in the last 5 years. Economic growth is not the goal. Per captta economic growth is the relevant value.

Eventually we have to come into a natural balance so that each child born is replacing a person who has died. The longer we wait to start moving to that balance, the more painful the process will be.

Re:natural balance

[Compaqt]

>Eventually we have to come into a natural balance so that each child born is replacing a person who has died.

What are you talking about? Western countries are already there (a fertility rate of 2.1 or less). The only reason the US doesn't have less than that rate is because of immigration.

cars stop crashing when they're totaled

[raymorris]

And after you total a car, it won't crash anymore.
If nothing unexpected happens, social security might be solvent in 2060, if it still existed. There's just that pesky fault that it can't exist in its current form part the 2030s. We know how many people are in their 40s today, so we know how many people will be in their 60s twenty years from now. From that, it is simple arithmetic to see that we don't have the money to pay those people as promised.

"Attacking social security"? Are you high? When you're about to crash into a wall, is steering around it "attacking" the car? We can see the wall. It's 20 years ahead of us. We WILL crash into the wall if we don't change course. To NOT ccorrect course is to choose to destroy social security, to drive full speed into the wall.

Re:cars stop crashing when they're totaled

[WhiteZook]

What change of course do you suggest to fix the problem ?

Re:cars stop crashing when they're totaled

[fustakrakich]

From that, it is simple arithmetic to see that we don't have the money to pay those people as promised.

No, the money is/was there, but now it is being offshored into out of reach bank accounts, just like Detroit(and other) pension funds. Your "math" is bogus. The government has an obligation to put that money back and zero out those shady accounts. Then Social Security will remain solvent for a very long time.

Re:cars stop crashing when they're totaled

[khallow]

Cut benefits. For example, 25% cut in Social Security benefits makes the program a lot more stable over that 20 year period and beyond. A much greater 50-75% cut in Medicare would be about right to put benefits in line with payments into the system.

Re:cars stop crashing when they're totaled

[khallow]

No, the money is/was there

It takes only a modest level of reasoning to see that you're just plain wrong. What happened in 1980 with Social Security revenue? A significant portion went into paying out to existing beneficiaries. The rest went into purchasing US bonds. That money in turn went into the general fund and vanished as the money got spent that year. So what we have at that point is a bunch of imaginary bonds and a distorted US economy that probably grows slower as a result than if Social Security didn't exist in the first place. It just lost us future wealth.

So sure, you can say "the money" is somewhere, but it's no longer Social Security's money.

Re:cars stop crashing when they're totaled

[fustakrakich]

You're playing a shell game. The government controls its currency, and with a flip of the same switch that took that money out, they can put it back. But right now they are just handing it over to Wall Street. The money is being stolen from right under our nose, with the thieves lying right to your face. Don't repeat their lies.

Re:cars stop crashing when they're totaled

[khallow]

You're playing a shell game.

Of course, I am. That is the essence of Social Security.

The government controls its currency, and with a flip of the same switch that took that money out, they can put it back.

This results in a benefits cut via inflation.

But right now they are just handing it over to Wall Street.

They have been, for about 80 years, giving away that money to a lot of people. There's no obligation on those other parties's parts to return money.

The money is being stolen from right under our nose

Ever since the beginning of Social Security and it's been rather obvious as you say. Some responsibility for that should stick with the nose, not just the people who will be left holding the bag in a few decades.

Re:cars stop crashing when they're totaled

[fustakrakich]

Eh, I guess you're not interested.

Re:cars stop crashing when they're totaled

[khallow]

Sure, I'm not interested in just agreeing for terrible reasons. But that doesn't mean I'm not interested. Continuing to carry on the conversation when I don't have to, indicates interest.

Re:cars stop crashing when they're totaled

[khallow]

The way I see it, if we can tell working people that they can live on increasingly smaller paychecks and cutting of benefits, the retired can also live on increasingly smaller pensions and cutting of benefits. Street goes both ways, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, etc.

Exactly. It wasn't today's 10 year old who listened to the fabrications of the many politicians who had something to do over the past 80 years with Social Security's current and future problems. It was the people who are pulling Social Security benefits right now.

Re:cars stop crashing when they're totaled

[khallow]

My point is that nobody will be spared from the ill affects

This is often a side effect of large scale bad ideas. I suppose my point is that the instigators and supporters of these bad ideas should receive a share of the pain they cause.

Re:Good For Them

[careysub]

I think the parent was arguing that it is so dense (at least apparently - all we know here is what we see on the media) that it might as well be. I just looked. The density of Houston is about 1350 per square mile, Japan is about 750 per square mile, more than 1/2 of an actual US city (albeit one with a lot of territory). So the parent isn't completely off base.

Source? According to Wikipedia Houston has a density of 3500 per square mile, almost three times the figure you assert. By the same source Japan has a population density of 860 per square mile, so a 4-1 ratio. This is lower than Taiwan, South Korea, Belgium, the Netherlands, India, Israel, and the (Associated Free State) of Puerto Rico, which - while well populated - are rarely referred to as being "cities".

Half the population of Japan lives in just 4 metropolitan areas, which are quite dense. So the average density outside of these four areas is only half that of the entire nation. One could argue that these 4 areas are Japan, but that is a different discussion.

I for one welcome

[iamacat]

Our new mother overlords!

You real what you sow

[iONiUM]

I've been to Japan many times, and this problem could have been partially mitigated with immigration. But the Japanese are racist at best, xenophobic at worst. So, this is what they get. I mean you can't even get citizenship if you marry a Japanese, what the fuck is that.

Re:You real what you sow

[DNS-and-BIND]

Has anyone considered that (1) Japan is already overpopulated, and (2) mass immigration would destroy the Japanese culture, or at least alter it beyond all recognition.

You appear to be judging Japan by American standards. America does not set the standards for the world, nor are other countries bound in any way to follow American laws. In fact, they can do whatever they damn well please. Stop insisting that other cultures follow your idea of "normal".

Re:You real what you sow

[iONiUM]

I'm not American. Who's judging now?

Re:You real what you sow

[nojayuk]

Plenty of countries don't offer automatic citizenship to people who marry one of their citizens. The US doesn't, for example. They don't offer green cards or right of residence automatically either. Friends of mine who got married in the UK tried to move to the US where the wife was a natural-born citizen but her British husband was refused leave to stay. They lived in the UK for several years and finally after many appeals her husband managed to get a green card and they moved to the US. As far as I know he still hasn't got citizenship, I don't know if he's applied for it.

I know a few non-Japanese who are long-stay residents of Tokyo and environs. One is married to a Japanese woman and another has been engaged to a Japanese woman in the past but as far as I know neither wants citizenship.

Re:You real what you sow

[AmiMoJo]

This is a common misconception. FWIW you can't get citizenship of many countries, including the UK, just by marrying. In fact you can't even get a spouse visa for the UK just by marrying, you have to pass English languages tests and lots of other bullshit. I know, I have been trying to get my fiancée in for years.

The Japanese culture is rather unique. The language is tricky, especially writing. The only other people who have a bit of a head start with the written language are the Chinese, and Japan isn't exactly on the best terms with them. For everyone else it's a huge barrier, but also rather essential to do many jobs. How can a nurse who doesn't read/write Japanese pass the nursing exam, or read the label on medication, or the doctor's hand-written notes?

More over it takes time to assimilate. At first you feel like an outsider, but having lived in Japan for a while I'd say I'm not pretty well integrated. It's hard to explain but now I think and act that way I find foreigners stick out like a sore thumb as well. They often talk too loudly, or just position themselves awkwardly or ask un-subtle questions. Once you settle in though somehow Japanese people can just tell (and now so can I), and treat you without prejudice.

Something that most people don't realise...

[Anonymous Coward]

... is that Japan has a pension scheme for the elderly. Basically, there is an incentive for pension fraud, as the way the system works there, it's hard to tell if someone's deceased for sure due to proper privacy laws; it's really only public when people report it to the responsible department. Families who cares for the elderly or otherwise can collect the payment instead, which doesn't help the situation either.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2010/0810/In-graying-Japan-scandal-over-missing-100-year-olds

So if you ever read another article about Japan having some kind of elderly-aged crisis, dismiss it, they don't live any longer or have as many elderly as you think you/they do.

Two, One, or None

[Scot Seese]

- Children. Title solves global population problems. Two children to replace two parents, with the odd accident or illness to either parents or children statistically causing slow population shrink.

Japanese families tend to be fairly careful with money, and as a result - as used to be the case with many WW2 generation elderly Americans - are sitting on piles of assets. What will occur is simply the balloon "inflate / deflate" effect. You work your entire life to amass savings and assets, you become elderly and require medical care or living assistance, and the balloon begins to deflate.

So, good news, unemployed Japanese youth - Head off to city college and pick up that 2 year nursing assistant certification or complete a 4 year degree in anything medically relevant, and their deflating balloon will inflate yours.

(Joke) you can just fast forward about 100 years, when the entire Western world will just be a giant medical service economy with only 3 types of entities: Elderly, people providing medical or living assistance to elderly, and semi sentient robots doing everything else.

As the Dalai Lama once said, paraphrased, "People in their youth spend their health pursuing money only to become elderly and spend their money pursuing health."

Re:Two, One, or None

[AmiMoJo]

The global population problem is largely solved. Did you know that the fertility rate in Bangladesh is 2.5 now? Education is in place and it works.

Of course the population is still rising. Those children born in the 60s when the fertility rate was 7.5 all had a few kids in the 70s and 80s and so forth, and are all living longer than their parents. The number of children in the world is levelling off at about 2bn though, although as a percentage that is actually down about 10 points compared to the 60s.

The world will level off at about 11bn people. Sounds like a lot, but more of that growth will be in Africa now. Africa has massive farming potential to feed them all, it just needs to be built up. 11bn is sustainable with current and near future technologies. Of course it could still go horribly wrong if Africa decides to trash its environment or screws up its agriculture, but that seems increasingly unlikely now.

11bn is a big scary number, but not unsustainable or a massive threat to our lives in developed nations.

Re:Two, One, or None

[Scot Seese]

Sadly, we have cultures scattered around the world that still bring the middle ages mindset of "large families / large national population = a different kind of wealth and power" to the world table.

We've all probably seen those projections that predict within the next 50 years several middle eastern and african countries will experience such explosive population growth that they will leapfrog 1st world countries like Russia, which is currently 2-3x larger than most of the example countries, but is experiencing slow negative population growth.

The problem is, we haven't seen much agricultural, industrial, structural or political stability or foreign policy good will within many of the countries slated to "grow explosively", so good news, everyone! War, famine, destruction, genocide, mans' inhumanity to man - it'll just keep right on trucking as we add more and more and more players to a finite-sized playing field.

Re:Good For Them

[garyebickford]

Ah, I stand corrected. I did a quick google+wikipedia as well, but mistakenly read housing units as population. There are 1350 housing units per sq. mi. in Houston. (I picked Houston because when I lived there it had the lowest density of any US city.) As you pointed out, the population density is closer to 3500.

In any case, my point was that this was the original parent's perception, as it is for most people in the US.

I'll also note that the density in Bangladesh is about 1150. In most (all?) developed countries most of the people live in 'urbanized areas' - the percentages vary radically according to how that is defined. E.g. 1/2 of US residence live in the top 48 'urbanized areas', and 80% in all of them (which includes towns down to 2500 population.) -http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/03/us-urban-population-what-does-urban-really-mean/1589/

I think perceptions like this are largely based on what we see in the media. For my part, I was surprised when I moved from Oregon to Massachusetts to discover that the whole state wasn't basically a suburb of Boston. I presently live six+ miles from the nearest supermarket. That's about as far as you can get in central MA, of course, but considering that MA is about the same size as Harney County in Oregon which has a total population of 7,000 - about the same as the town in MA that I live in - I expected to be living "downtown". I moved from central Oregon, which is a bit denser than Harney - Harney is about one per sq. mi., Deschutes is about 52. and in the part where I lived probably 5-15.

Interesting surprise! I just learned that the population density in the state of MA is about 840. It's about the same as Japan! But in my part it's only 220 and I'm in the most rural part of the town.

Forgot Their Viagra

[JimSadler]

So elderly Japanese folks are intelligent enough not to make babies. And here my 90 year old grandma was eager to get knocked up again.

Re:As Margaret Sanger Slee always wanted

[fustakrakich]

Philip Morris commercial...

Re:One change implemented two ways

[I'm New Around Here]

So basically, tax the rich to the highest level they can bleed, and put all elderly on welfare.

Do you really not understand why neither side wants to implement that?

probably a few small changes to nip it in the bud

[raymorris]

There are of course many options. The main thing is, the longer we wait, the more extreme measures will be required. To continue the car analogy, we can either let off the gas pedal now, or slam on the brakes ten years from now. I think it's best to make small changes now.

Slightly raising the retirement age, gradually, can apparently solve the problem without a major disruption for anyone. Under current law, I would start receiving social security in 25 years, if it weren't for the fact that under current law the system will be broke at that time - there will be no money to pay my benefits with. I would much rather wait two extra years and be able to plan on actually receiving what is promised. Currently, I can't plan on anything, because I know that what is currently promised isn't actually possible. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me right now, but I was surprised at how small of an age adjustment fixes the problem. Something like:
Anyone due to get SS within the next five years will get them as planned.
Anyone 5-10 years away from retirement waits an extra six months, so if you were planning in 7 years, it'll instead be 7 1/2 years.
Anyone more than 10 years out starts receiving payments one year later than the current law.

IIt's unfortunate that the inflation index is such a political football. The index currently being used isn't accurate, and the person who CREATED that index says it shouldn't be used for this purpose. Chained CPI MAY be a more accurate indicator, or we could move beyond 1940s methodology and use the technological resources we now have available to come up with a new, better measure of inflation.

blood from a turnip

[raymorris]

> The government has an obligation to put that money back

Unfortunately, they (we) already spent it. You know those trillion dollar deficits? Alarge portion of those extra trillions that have been spent were social security money. Even in the best case, when tax revenues were higher than expected in Clinton's first two years, he STILL "borrowed" money from social security. That's the Clinton "balanced" budget - he borrowed as much as he spent. We've since spent it - on roads, on defense , and on solar electric scams . It's gone, so now we have a problem we have to fix.

Re:blood from a turnip

[fustakrakich]

That is the story the people that stole the money are telling. And it is totally, completely incredible. The money was hoarded and is stashed away in offshore banks and into the derivatives market. None of it went to any infrastructure. Those accounts can be zeroed out and the money returned to where it came from.

And stay away from the partisan kool-aid :-)

Re:blood from a turnip

[meta-monkey]

"We" spent it? I was too young to vote when that money was spent. Those who spent it were elected primarily by the Boomers. The Boomers spent all their social security money on bombers and tax cuts and benefits, and now they sit there with their hands out expecting their kids and grandkids to pay for all their benefits and entitlements.

It's like putting $200 in the bank, writing a check for $200, then borrowing $200 against the $200 in the bank, spending all that, then going back to the bank and demanding your $200 because you put $200 in. The Boomers spent their money twice over. Sorry, there's none left. Please bag my groceries, thanks.

Re:One change implemented two ways

[AK Marc]

Why do the elderly object?

that's a new one. source?

[raymorris]

> Some people expect the car will coast to a stop just before it. They may be wrong

That's a new one. I've seen estimates of 2032 and 2035, but noone thinks it could survive past 2035 or 2036. When you say "some people", are you talking aboutanyone who even knows what the current population of the US is? The math really isn't all that tricky. Estimates just vary slightly because we don't know _exactly_ how advances in medicine will affect life expectancies over the next 20 years or what the unemployment rate will average over 20 years.

Good for them! Finally a country moving forward!

[bussdriver]

Japan needs to figure this problem out without increasing the population so the whole planet can benefit from their example! Our economics are built around continual growth as if there are no limits to anything.

Global warming is caused by overpopulation.

Two children DO NOT simply replace two parents! Significant overlap means huge resource and economic impacts. FOUR live in total for around 50 years (a long time) and grandchildren makes that 6 people for a short period, falling back down to 4 again when the parents finally die. An exact 2.0 children means you'll always have 4 people. Any fraction above 2.0 results in exponential growth. Japan may be 1st to solve the problem, but quickly they will be overwhelmed with the explosion everywhere else.

Umm, accepting only similar folks != no prejudice

[Phil Urich]

More over it takes time to assimilate. At first you feel like an outsider, but having lived in Japan for a while I'd say I'm not pretty well integrated. It's hard to explain but now I think and act that way I find foreigners stick out like a sore thumb as well. They often talk too loudly, or just position themselves awkwardly or ask un-subtle questions. Once you settle in though somehow Japanese people can just tell (and now so can I), and treat you without prejudice.

But . . . isn't that the entire problem, that they're prejudiced against anyone who doesn't talk and act exactly "correctly"? I think pretty much by definition people aren't prejudiced against people who are like themselves. Once you adopt every social convention and mannerism they no longer act so xenophobic towards you? That's not something to boast about, and you aren't really convincing anyone that the Japanese are tolerant of differences if it takes skillful, concerted effort in concealing and obliterating those differences before they're tolerant of you.

Personally I find the idea of everyone having to adopt specific thoughts and actions lest they be judged to be horrifying (and the same reason I often feel quite uncomfortable in small towns in North America). And one of the things I will definitely judge a culture for is its intolerance of differences (see, again, small town North America).

Soylent Green

[Rande]

More than just a solution for overpopulation.

Re:It's obvious

[epyT-R]

Actually, no, that's not what I said at all. You might try rereading, and if you still don't get it, perhaps a reading comprehension course at your local community college would help.

It must be all those animes they're watching

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

And video games, idols (pop stars) and other distractions!

Okay, I'm being half serious. There are other reasons for the fall in birth rates. But if the kids get bombarded with entertainment when they're not being forced through cram schools, etc, romantic relationships take a back seat. You're too busy studying, working or shutting yourself off in your room playing some online RPG or worse a visual novel where you get your choice of cute 2D girls.

Re:Umm, accepting only similar folks != no prejudi

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference between 1% immigrants and 2% immigrants is much bigger than the difference between 44% and 45%.

Japanese people are plenty tolerant of differences. They're tolerant of the differences they're used to. Just like you. You just aren't used to living in a world where 99% of everyone you meet is linguistically, culturally, and ethnically the same as you. And ever will meet, unless you should intentionally go abroad.

Let me tell you a personal anecdote. I had a very good friend in university, an exchange student from Japan. We shared many things over the year we studied together. We had many meals together, he showed me movies from his childhood on VHS. We went on long walks and proofread each other's classwork. Suffice it to say he knew perfectly well that I was motivated to absorb everything about his country that I could. I went on to live in Japan for several years. One time, I met him in the city where he lived, and we had dinner out to celebrate. By this time, I was more or less completely acculturated, fluent in Japanese, as much as I ever would be. At some point during the meal, he left me speechless by remarking how surprised he was that I was able to use chopsticks. Was he being ironic? I doubt it, it wasn't his personality.

He was a well educated man from a top private university in Tokyo, and we had a long personal history together. I knew his mind was sound and he knew, or ought to have known, that chopsticks were like extensions of my fingers. It would be as ridiculous as if a white American invited a black man for dinner and remarked how well he could use a knife and fork, except he knew him for years. It took me a long time to fully accept, and I mean really wrap my head around the idea, that people are the product of the circumstances they develop in and live in. Maybe you'll be able to see that too.

I Agree

[eWarz]

My wife and I had our first child around the time we turned 30. Many of our friends hadn't had children yet. We had our second 8 months ago (I'm 32) and I find it shocking that people are still waiting. Quite a few people I know are going for their masters and above in college...they aren't even considering children prior to being 35-40. Scary stuff.

Re:One change implemented two ways

[AK Marc]

Sounds like you like Fair Tax. At least guessing from the 25% number, as that's the fairtax Utopian number.

I've Lived in Japan for 20+ Years . . .

[fullback]

I couldn't even begin to comment on all of the misinformation and wrong assumptions posted.

Suffice it to say that the Japan has existed as an entity for well over 1,200 years and the stories about the future "last Japanese person alive" probably started with the first written records of Japan.

Japan has survived events that ended other civilizations, so they will find a way to survive and thrive with less people.

half of it spent in the last six years

[raymorris]

> The Boomers spent all their social security money on bombers and tax cuts and benefits, and now they sit there with their hands out expecting

There's some truth to that. How old are you, though? The last six years have been a spending spree equal to the everything that came before combined. The baby boomers were irresponsible. Their kids have been beyond irresponsible.

Re:As Margaret Sanger Slee always wanted

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Yeah, I found that interestingly ironic as well. Especially at the end when Margaret promises to take up smoking the sponsor's brand. And the definition of a "modern" cabin cruiser as natural.

Re:As Margaret Sanger Slee always wanted

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I was more thinking about where she claimed "no more babies" to be a good idea. Also see next video where she directly discusses Japan with Mike Wallace (if you can stand all the Philips Morris smoking adverts, anyway).

Re:As Margaret Sanger Slee always wanted

[Marxist Hacker 42]

It is Youtube after all.....It's just an iframe.

Re:As Margaret Sanger Slee always wanted

[Marxist Hacker 42]

More that it is better to just abort the deniers.

Re:As Margaret Sanger Slee always wanted

[CRCulver]

That's precisely the problem. You risk making people load content from a site other than the one they have chosen to read, and whoever controls YouTube can determine which IPs are currently visiting Slashdot.

Re:As Margaret Sanger Slee always wanted

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Yes, that's the way embedded websites work. Youtube is controlled by google too, are you afraid to use google?

Re:As Margaret Sanger Slee always wanted

[fustakrakich]

I couldn't finish the clip, but it just goes to show you can't trust what people say when they'll say anything for the right price.

- Count de Monet.. Where did Sanger's come from?

Re:As Margaret Sanger Slee always wanted

[fustakrakich]

*cough* - //a.fsdn.com/

Re:As Margaret Sanger Slee always wanted

[aurizon]

Japanese women, from what I read, simply do not want the aggravation of childbearing, now it is fully within their control. In time the last Japanese female will grow too old to bear a child and the race will pass into extinction as the elders pass on.
Will all women, once freed of mandatory pregnancy follow the same path?

Could Japan grow children in an animal uterus, or an artificial one? Would any chemicals from the mother cross the placental barrier and affect the child if the uterine animal was a pig or sheep, or cow? Is mammalian chemistry sufficiently plastic to tolerate these cross species internal fostering? We know that chemicals from the foetus trigger child birth in humans - will the same signal work with foster animals? Are there brain development chemicals in the mothers blood that are essential to normal human brain development?
An animal would be a lot less costly than a fully artificial uterus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
more here http://bit.ly/1mOsaw7

Re:As Margaret Sanger Slee always wanted

[CRCulver]

I use Duck Duck Go.

I hope they accounted for age fraud issues..

[Destoo]

There was an article a few years ago about how the oldest man of Japan had been deceased for a few years. Family was still collecting pension checks and never bothered to report the death.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...
And when they went to see the second oldest person, she also passed away a couple of years before.

Re:As Margaret Sanger Slee always wanted

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I find that attitude rather paranoid. Besides, I screwed my anonymity long ago. I find it far more useful just to treat the internet like any other public space, with no reasonable expectation of privacy.

Re:As Margaret Sanger Slee always wanted

[stoatwblr]

Japanmese women I know seem to want to have kids, but not have them in Japan.

FWIW Japan is merely the first country where the pensions bomb is exploding. At least they're prepared for it. Most western countries aren't and the first wave of baby boomers are retiring.

As a direct result of this mismanagement I fully expect that even low-wage earners will be hit with 40% tax rates within 20 years - and the only reason it won't be higher is that retirement age will rise to at least 70.

EU Xenophobes campaigning against migrants (mostly young) are painting themselves into a corner. They won't realise this until it's too late.

Re:One change implemented two ways

[AK Marc]

When I first started paying taxes and living on my own, I paid 54% of my gross income in taxes, fees, surcharges, etc. I'm including fees that pretend to be taxes but which are imposed by the phone company (universal service fee, etc).

When I crossed the top 10% wage-earner threshold, I did the "includ everything" exercise. I paid less than 10% in federal income tax, and less than 20% in total taxes.

The tax rates in the US are confusing, inconsistent, and unfair. I think that the rates aren't bad. They should just eliminate *all* deductions, and tax all income as earned is now. That'd be much more fair and efficient. It's too confusing to have all the different types of taxes spread and hidden around.

Re:probably a few small changes to nip it in the b

[david_thornley]

The full retirement age for Social Security has been moving up slightly already. My wife will get full benefits starting at age 67. Would a slight increase in retirement age matter that much?

Yes. Stopped increasing in 2005

[raymorris]

In 1983, H.R. 1900 VERY gradually increased the the age from 65 years old in 1983 to 67 years old in 2005.
That's an increase of just one month per year, and it made a big difference.

How much of a difference does it make? A proposal that gradually increases the full retirement age to 69 and then indexes it for life expectancy increases would reduce the deficit by about 44 percent. (Social Security Administration 2012b).

I'm sure almost everyone agrees that we'd rather not have to make any changes, but unfortunately that's not mathematically possible.
Doing nothing now would mean being utterly screwed in 20 years.

Re:One change implemented two ways

[AK Marc]

I like the simplicity of Fair Tax, but I would rather tax wealth than income (that's more "fair") and taxing spending, not earning is regressive. It rewards saving with tax breaks, and we want to get away from social manipulation via tax code, as we do with housing and children. Guaranteed income of poverty*2 and a 40% flat income tax (on everything but guaranteed income) would fund the government better than we are now (not a goal, but a requirement), and be infinitely simpler/more fair 40% isn't far off the current top rate, so it'd be no change to super rich that aren't using lots of loopholes. Oh, and estate taxes and gifts over $1000 would be taxed as income.

And I'd tax corporations out of existance. Tax them at 1% of gross (not profit). Individuals are taxed at 40% of gross today, so 1% gross for corporations can't be that bad, right? Separating taxes from profit will eliminate the profit shuffling. There are a million ways to fix our problems that are too radical for people to consider We are hard wired to trust the evil we know. Change is feared. The unknown is bad.