The Japan Thread

[GuitarWind21]

The hard times have been coming for 30 years. Are things harder than during their bubble years? Of course. But by all metrics, the Japanese are doing just fine and in many ways are doing far better than most other western countries.

- Single income families are the norm.
- Food is cheap and healthy.
- Sports and fitness are celebrated at all ages.
- Crime is non existent.
- Investment in infrastructure is constant.
- Immigration is heavily checked and monitored.
- Society puts Japan as its top priority.
- Absolutely zero tolerance for LGBT agendas in the school system.
- Cultural pressure to be married and with children before 25 (extra heavy pressure on women).

Does this sound like the west prior to the 2000s? Exactly. It's what it feels like in Japan.

It is certainly not without issues, but the issues at hand are pretty manageable when the above metrics are the norm.

Good stuff, now it just needs to put the emphasis on the shame whenever you get a B on your report card, you need to pull out a Glock 9 and shoot yourself on the backburner lol

 

[Wutang]

 

[NSOE]

Japan's economic decline has been slow but steady over the last several decades. Its GDP per capita in the late 1980s was the highest in the world behind only Switzerland, but today they are at #39 behind the Czech Republic, S. Korea and just ahead of Portugal and Greece.

This is why boots on the ground matter, not statistics and graphs on paper, the Czech Republic is no Japan, although the place is closest to the western standard of living, along with Poland, out of all the Slavic countries, but even the Polish people who work in the UK will joke that a stagnation or a recession, or even a depression in England is better than economic growth in Poland.

 

[Cooper]

^I get the same type of responses from younger Japanese expats in Canada and the US.

Japan used to be the most expensive destination a few decades ago, and Japanese tourists filled 5-star hotels in western capitals by the busload. Today Japan is a lower cost destination flooded by European tourists and the average Japanese salaryman can no longer afford to travel to NYC or Paris, their salaries having been stagnant for decades.

 

[Laner]

^I get the same type of responses from younger Japanese expats in Canada and the US.

Japan used to be the most expensive destination a few decades ago, and Japanese tourists filled 5-star hotels in western capitals by the busload. Today Japan is a lower cost destination flooded by European tourists and the average Japanese salaryman can no longer afford to travel to NYC or Paris, their salaries having been stagnant for decades.

I know Japanese expats here in Vancouver that have vacation homes in Japan. When they grew up during the bubble years, they had vacation homes in Hawaii.

Times certainly change.