Posted on 12/18/2012 6:35:11 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
TOKYO
THE first grade class at the elementary school in Nanmoku, about 85 miles from Tokyo, has just a single student this year. The local school system that five decades ago taught 1,250 elementary school children is now educating just 37. Many of the town’s elegant wooden homes are abandoned. Where generations of cedar loggers, sweet potato farmers and factory workers once made their lives, monkeys now reside. The only sounds at night are the cries of deer and the wail of an occasional ambulance.
Nanmoku’s plight is Japan’s fate. Faced with an aging society, a depopulating countryside and economic stagnation, the country has struggled for decades to address its challenges. As Japan goes to the polls on Dec. 16 for parliamentary elections that will most likely mean the seventh prime minister in six years, voters need to demand that politicians address the most important issue of all: the country’s low birthrate.
Sadly, this issue is hardly being discussed on the campaign trail. Instead, parties are promising to lavish more money on special interests like construction companies, the main beneficiaries of public works spending.
Nowhere is the rapid aging of Japan more visible than in rural towns like Nanmoku, where 56 percent of local residents are over 65. Over the next 25 years, the proportion of Japan’s population that is elderly will rise from almost one in four to one in three. Sales of adult diapers will soon surpass those of baby diapers.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
No, they won’t survive. It’s as simple as that. It doesn’t take that long either. They’ve already ensured that 60 million Japanese people will no longer be there.
And there we go - now your goodies policy is working against it’s intended purpose, in paying the same money to childless married couples and adopted children. ;)
That didn’t take long, did it? Eventually, this will go to unmarried women (since it’s not fair that only married people get it).
Best to cut spending that rewards behavior that we do not want to see.
and NO, you won't be given their nationality as easily as the "West" dealt out theirs.
A lot of the problem is that Japan is crowded and the price of real estate is high for the average home buyer. As the population shrinks this will reverse.
As far as a worker shortage, that isn't the problem. The problem is the ratio of workers to people being supported by the workers. If you kill off the old people, you no longer have to pay their pensions and health care.
It doesn't matter so much, as long as Japanese children are being born (children adopted from overseas would not count).
You might want to check demand curves if you don’t think a shrinking population is a bad thing. If there’s no demand, then many, many people, are going to go out of business. That’s not also addressing the fact that their national debt is still the same. Japan is going to collapse.
There will be fewer consumers, but there will also be fewer workers to produce things with. The Japanese will survive. Japanese socialism will probably die, but the Japanese will survive.
You’re just not getting it. People are not a negative. Fewer people = no jobs.
I understand what you're saying. I just disagree with your premise.
What matters more is the ratio of producers to dependents (defined as people who do not produce, but depend on being supported by those who do).
The dirty little secret is that most people with kids already pay next nothing in federal taxes (unless they’re in the 5%)...so giving a credit won’t amount to much, relative to the cost of raising kids.
Like it or not, it’s going to take activist government to deal with this issue - something that Japan can still do, even if we cannot.
“I know the policy is well meaning, but I don’t think it would work well. We’d be better off cutting off policies that reward shacking up than we would be trying to help married women.”
Obviously stay married in a conventional marriage. But none of my ideas will see the light of day. The liberals hate them because it means more (high-quality) kids, the conservatives hate them because it means more big-government.
So we watch our society, and country, wither on the vine, until it is too weak to defend itself (30 to 50 years hence). It sucks, but that WILL BE the inevitable outcome (to borrow some words from the old Star Trek).
People don’t like your ideas because they suck.
Let’s flip this around. What if you were to give money to husbands for every child they had.
Everyone produces. What is important is directing the production in a profitable fashion.
Less demand = fewer businesses. Fewer businesses = less economy of scale.
What will happen is that things will get more expensive to produce (per unit cost), and productivity will go down - once you have everyone under 40 or so afflicted by this.
“People don’t like your ideas because they suck.”
...and your solution is...
I didn’t think you had jack, so go back to playing with yourself.
“She seemed to seethe at me, for some reason.”
-
Maybe she saw in you something similar to what you said you see in pretty non-immigrant girls.
.
“Maybe she saw in you something similar to what you said you see in pretty non-immigrant girls.”
You meant that they are nightmares for wives?
for this: Click here!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.