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Japan Seeks More Efficiency As Population Drops
Wall Street Journal ^ | December 12, 2006 | Sebastian Moffett

Posted on 12/12/2006 1:15:43 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks

TOKYO -- The decline in Japan's population could undermine the country's economic recovery unless workers perform more productively, and the new economy minister is taking aim at inefficient industries and workers.

Hiroko Ota, who took office in September, faces an economy that is back on track after more than a decade in a slump. Japan's big structural problems have mostly been fixed: The banks have cleaned up their bad loans, and prices have stopped falling. Japan's economy grew at an average of more than 2% a year from 2003 through 2005, and it is expected to grow another 2% or so a year in 2006 and 2007.

But long-term challenges remain. Japan's huge national debt amounts to 175% of gross domestic product, compared with 64% in the U.S. Cutting the debt gets harder with a falling population because Japan has fewer tax-paying workers. If production per worker increases more slowly than the number of workers falls, overall economic production will fall.

"Japan has escaped from its downturn," the 52-year-old Ms. Ota said in an interview. "We need to improve productivity more than the population declines."

Japan, like mature economies in Europe, is engaged in a major rethinking of its economy -- including how to pare down welfare states along with the job and market protections introduced during the years after World War II. These changes now are seen as barriers to growth.

Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi started the process, cutting public spending, deregulating industry and reducing the number of public employees. His successor, Shinzo Abe, has pledged to continue small-government policies while creating a platform for growth.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; Japan; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: demographics; deregulation; economy; growth; hirokoota; japan; population; populationdecline
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1 posted on 12/12/2006 1:15:45 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks; Jet Jaguar; TigerLikesRooster; All

WOW


2 posted on 12/12/2006 1:18:08 PM PST by SevenofNine ("Step aside Jefe"=Det Lennie Briscoe)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Depopulation is gonna play havoc with Europe and Japan.


3 posted on 12/12/2006 1:21:50 PM PST by colorado tanker
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Unless the Japanese start having children, they are toast. No amount of "productivity increase" is going to support them when the entire country is 60+ years old. When you have each worker being taxed enough to support two or three retirees, you are going to have some serious intergenerational problems, even in Japan.
4 posted on 12/12/2006 1:23:03 PM PST by zeugma (I reject your reality and substitute my own in its place. (http://www.zprc.org/))
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Japan, like mature economies in Europe, is engaged in a major rethinking of its economy -- including how to pare down welfare states along with the job and market protections introduced during the years after World War II. These changes now are seen as barriers to growth.

They are on the right track. I wonder how long it will take the rest of the world to realize the same?

5 posted on 12/12/2006 1:25:12 PM PST by mpreston
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

When Japan had 90 million fifty years ago they were so jammed in they could not move and were afraid of even more population. Now they have 120 million and are worried they are depopulating.

This sounds like the Ice Age -- Global Warming crowd. Which is it today?


6 posted on 12/12/2006 1:26:23 PM PST by RightWhale (RTRA DLQS GSCW)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
But long-term challenges remain. Japan's huge national debt amounts to 175% of gross domestic product, compared with 64% in the U.S.

Wow. That's an unbelievable number.
7 posted on 12/12/2006 1:28:16 PM PST by Antoninus ("Dealing with the pampered and effeminate Americans will be easy." --Osama bin Laden)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

It looks like Japan's enthusiasm for robots hasn't been a mistake.


8 posted on 12/12/2006 1:32:07 PM PST by x
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

They should import some illegal aliens to do the work the Japanese won't do...</sarcasm off


9 posted on 12/12/2006 1:32:30 PM PST by PreviouslyA-Lurker (...where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 2 Corinthians 3:16-18)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Why don't they have more kids????

You know, encourage the fertile women folk to put some love in the oven.


10 posted on 12/12/2006 1:38:52 PM PST by Pondman88
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Japan's attitude to foreign workers is the opposite of the USA, and substantially different compared even to some pretty conservative regions of Asia.

A lot of the breathless, "We're now importing many, many foreigners...!"-type articles in Japan are manufactured with a foreign readership in mind.

It used to be the case in the era of the high yen that you could see on every major Tokyo sidewalk corner pockets of Iranian illegals, that were tolerated for a time. In Harajuku, Ueno, and Shinjuku, there were THOUSANDS of them.

They got rid of ALL of 'em.

11 posted on 12/12/2006 1:39:11 PM PST by gaijin
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To: gaijin

Where'd they go ?


12 posted on 12/12/2006 1:43:49 PM PST by Eric in the Ozarks (BTUs are my Beat.)
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To: mpreston

Sounds good but there has never been a Japanese Welfare State. So who knows what this is supposed to mean.


13 posted on 12/12/2006 1:46:11 PM PST by justshutupandtakeit (If you believe ANYTHING in the Treason Media you are a fool.)
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To: zeugma
When you have each worker being taxed enough to support two or three retirees...

Do they retire? That's a serious question as I do not know if they tend to retire or go on to different jobs.

14 posted on 12/12/2006 1:50:00 PM PST by decimon
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To: Pondman88

The sexual revolution wasn't only about bed hopping. It was also about attitudes about traditional sex roles for men and women. Japan has moved right along with more women with careers, delaying or putting off marriage, delaying or putting off having kids. Add it all up and it results in population declining.

Whether that's good or bad is a moral/value judgement, and if we're good politically correct drones, we won't question whether declining populations in developed countries are good or bad.


15 posted on 12/12/2006 1:50:44 PM PST by Dilbert San Diego
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To: gaijin
They got rid of ALL of 'em.
I hope they sent them here where they belong.
16 posted on 12/12/2006 1:51:21 PM PST by Asclepius (protectionists would outsource our dignity and prosperity in return for illusory job security)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

They should convert to Islam and produce large, muslim broods (sarc).


17 posted on 12/12/2006 1:55:13 PM PST by Salvey (ancest)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Just import muslims like Europe is doing...
18 posted on 12/12/2006 2:04:37 PM PST by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: justshutupandtakeit
Sounds good but there has never been a Japanese Welfare State. So who knows what this is supposed to mean.

Most likely is referring to what Japan calls a "sanctuary" economy, also called a convoy economy, in which over 60% of workers have birth to death job security and benefits.

19 posted on 12/12/2006 2:42:22 PM PST by mpreston
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Japan's huge national debt amounts to 175% of gross domestic product, compared with 64% in the U.S.

Can anyone tell me how this debt came about? Does Japan typically run an annual deficit with their national budget? Or is this referring to something else - for instance, does this include total entitlements and obligations of the whole economy?

20 posted on 12/12/2006 2:50:54 PM PST by NMR Guy
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