>>>Yep, like Steyn is always saying, it’s all demographics.
http://www.indexmundi.com/japan/demographics_profile.html
Population growth rate -0.077% (2011 est.)<<<
Sure. As for economic stagnation there are actually numerous factors, some of them are contributing to demograthics in two ways.
Japan has a good reason to die-off.
Japan’s effective growth since WWII was all based on industrial production exports so it’s fate was sealed as early as earlier 70s as US got laid with Red China for some strategic Cold War reasons. Right now they are barely competing on a base of higher value added products but it won’t last long for the Chinese to catch up.
For that reason Japan has to retire Godzilla from it’s folklore position to replace it with Henry Kissinger. As for China they have to build a huge statues of that same person along with Lenin and Mao. They can carry his portraits on May Day parades as well.
It is pretty ironic US was affected about as much in that direction. It is not that broken simply because US economy is more diverse.
“Japan has a good reason to die-off.
Japan’s effective growth since WWII was all based on industrial production exports so it’s fate was sealed as early as earlier 70s as US got laid with Red China for some strategic Cold War reasons.”
This is, interestingly enough, very similar to the US in the 50s-60s. We had 25 glorious years of prosperity by virtue of having destroyed all our manufacturing competition in the war. And once Europe and Japan rebuilt, it was game over for America as the manufacturing leader of the world.
It is also true that Japan has little apparent desire for US troops to ever depart and for them to be militarily self-sufficient because (as someone else said) they don’t have enough young people to man an army anymore. This is not like in WWII times when Japan was a youthful country where only 3% of the population was over 65 and they had tons of 18 yo bodies to throw around.