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Actually, Japanese taxes are considerably lighter than American taxes on the middle class. I worked there for 13 years and made the equivalent of $80K. In addition to child exemptions of $3800, there were generous tax credits of $50 per month per preschool child from various local governments (available to legal foreign workers as well as the locals). My total tax bite was never more than 10%.

Japan's economic decline accelerated with the takeover of the U.S. government by Clinton's minions. Up until that time, many Japanese women preferred to be housewifes or kyoiku mama who would work part-time and generally trade lower income for themselves for higher income for the household. This ended when Japan was encouraged to copy U.S. style gender-equality laws wiping out such protections for female workers as extended overtime (past 8 p.m.). By increasing the influx of women into once male-dominated jobs, companies begin abandoning lieftime employment guarantees and replacing older male workers with lower paid women, for whom lower pay could be justified based on experience.

This trend further accelerated when Soros engineered the collapse of the Thai Baht, Malaysian Ringgit and Indonesian Rupiah in 1998, leading Japanese multinationals to follow the U.S. (Clinton administrion) lead in outsourcing more jobs from South Asia to China. There was acually talk at that time of using the Japanese yen as the base for an Asian currency to rival the dollar or Euro. However, once Bush was elected in 2000, the United States once again decided to make Japan, not China, the center of its policy in America and such talk has been largely abandoned.

"Actually, Japanese taxes are considerably lighter than American taxes on the middle class. I worked there for 13 years and made the equivalent of $80K. In addition to child exemptions of $3800, there were generous tax credits of $50 per month per preschool child from various local governments (available to legal foreign workers as well as the locals). My total tax bite was never more than 10%."

Don't forget the 5% national sales tax which is imposed on ALL goods and SERVICES including rents , hospital bills , medicine , food ...Ever ride on the expressways ? Talk about outrageous ! Costs over $200 one way to drive from Fukuoka to Tokyo , only 650 miles !!! Loads of " hidden " taxes as well . And in Japan you don't get the services one would get from the government ( national and local ) in the USA . Sure could use a few snow plows around here in winter and some salt on the roads !

The Japanese spend much less per capita on education / schools than the USA . I teach JHS/HS in Kumamoto . We just got hooked up to the internet last year ! No heat in the hallways . No shower rooms for sports teams . Kids have to clean/maintain the school - no custodians . Kids have to serve their own lunches ( food is delivered - no kitchen staff ) . No school buses . I could go on . The government is very stingy with the dough they rake in from the sheeple .

Japan's economic decline accelerated with the takeover of the U.S. government by Clinton's minions. Up until that time, many Japanese women preferred to be housewifes or kyoiku mama who would work part-time and generally trade lower income for themselves for higher income for the household. This ended when Japan was encouraged to copy U.S. style gender-equality laws wiping out such protections for female workers as extended overtime (past 8 p.m.). By increasing the influx of women into once male-dominated jobs, companies begin abandoning lieftime employment guarantees and replacing older male workers with lower paid women, for whom lower pay could be justified based on experience.

Most excellent point. Ironically, we're supposed to be all jealous and emulative of the "Japanese educational miracle," when in actuality rampant feminism will *destroy* the Japanese educational advantage.

First is the practice of mother being *totally* devoted to her child while the child is an infant and toddler. Our children were in a Saturday-morning Japanese language school and it was a pleasure to watch the Japanese mothers with their toddlers. Their attentiveness was incredible. They always looked at the kids, knew where they were every second, disciplined them without raising a hand or voice, and yet the kids were incredibly well-behaved. They talked to their children constantly.

My own Japanese instructor told us that it's *routine* for Japanese mothers to teach their very young children (3-4 years old) to read the katakana/hiragana scripts, because they're entirely phonetic and have no weird spelling rules. By the time the child goes to school at age 6 he's highly fluent - but then of course has to start learning the kanji.

Then you mention the "school-going mamas." I had heard they would literally sit next to a child all day and help them in the classroom if the child was struggling. They also enroll the children in juku (after-school tutoring) and nag them endlessly about school work.

Sending women off to low-paying jobs is *not* "cost-effective" when you consider all the time and effort Japanese women *have* been investing in their children.