Taro Aso
Posted on 01/23/2013 3:46:12 PM PST by NYer
TOKYO, January 23, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The recently-elected government of Japan has made itself heard on the life issues. Finance minister Taro Aso, said on Monday that elderly and financially dependent Japanese have a duty to die quickly to take pressure off the government-funded social service system.
“Heaven forbid if you are forced to live on when you want to die,” Aso said. He described elderly people in need of care as “tube people” and complained that it costs “several tens of millions of yen” a month to care for a patient in the final stages of life.
Aso, who is 72, said he would refuse extensive government-funded care: “I would wake up feeling increasingly bad knowing that [treatment] was all being paid for by the government,” he told a meeting of the national council on social security reforms.
“The problem won't be solved unless you let them hurry up and die,” he said.
The comments highlight a growing hostility towards the elderly and vulnerable in Japan where an aging population has put unprecedented pressure on government-funded services. One quarter of the 128 million population is aged over 60 in Japan, which has had a birth rate well below replacement for some years.
The government is doing little to address a pending crisis in Japanese culture that has embraced western doctrines of population control. The median age for men in Japan is 44.1 years and for women is 46.9 years, well past the age of childbearing. The statistics for 2012 show an overall fertility rate of 1.39 children born per woman, a level described by some statisticians as the lowest-low, the “death spiral,” from which it is nearly impossible for a society to recover.
Taso has since partially apologized for his remarks, saying they may have been "inappropriate." He said he “wasn’t commenting on how terminal medical care should be,” but rather was expressing his "personal opinion."
Ping!
I have a way to pronounce Aso’s name.
Aso’s view about the elderly is not very different from our government’s but it is not openly broadcasted yet. Give it some time.
The ideal time for a taxpayer to die is the day that he starts receiving social security.
Remember when the highest respect was paid to the elderly?
“Remember when the highest respect was paid to the elderly?”
Yea, that was back when they lived at home with their kids and their kids took care of them.
Now they use the powers of the government to not only STEAL my money, but to steal the future earnings of my kids (through Social Security and the debt). And they’re doing the same in Japan and the rest of the West.
I think if they want respect again from younger people, they can start by not taking their earnings.
Indeed I do. This respect for the elderly was especially prevalent in the East, in Japan and China. Respect, it seems, has now turned into inconvenience. God help us!
Our Greatest Generation did their best to assist Japan reduce its now elderly.
Mr Aso is only hastening the day when the island will be left empty for someone else to move in
Wow! Your parents must be so proud.
...and decrease the surplus population."
Now where have I heard that line before?
I wonder if this guy is going to get a visitation tonight.
-PJ
“Wow! Your parents must be so proud.”
Yep, we take care of our own in my family. Unfortunately, though, my kids will likely have to take care of you...and they know it, and don’t like it.
Richard Lamm , governor of Colorado, had the same idea 30 years ago.
“I think if they want respect again from younger people, they can start by not taking their earnings.”
An increasingly popular sentiment around the globe; the survivors of abortion are now fighting for the right to euthanize their parents. A friend who is a financial planner describes a situation where his elderly client (who is a long-time friend) delegated power of attorney to him, and now he is fighting the grown children who want to remove the client from life support. Very creepy...
Yep, we take care of our own in my family. Unfortunately, though, my kids will likely have to take care of you...and they know it, and don’t like it.
____________________
teaching them to live by their own creation may help lessen that burden.
“An increasingly popular sentiment around the globe; the survivors of abortion are now fighting for the right to euthanize their parents. A friend who is a financial planner describes a situation where his elderly client (who is a long-time friend) delegated power of attorney to him, and now he is fighting the grown children who want to remove the client from life support. Very creepy...”
Agree...creepy. Not what I’ve wanted, but creepy - when money transcends life. In my case, I still believe that government has a duty to older people that can’t fend for themselves, but government is also helping to pay for Winnebegos for retired fire fighters that already get $100k to begin with. If Social Security were sitting out there with a pot of money, like a well-funded pension, then I’d shut up...but it’s not.
So, as I’ve mentioned at times during the past few years, you make Social Security and Medicare into traditional welfare programs, which means they would be needs-based - only the truly poor could collect. On top of that, if an older person has kids, which have decent income, you go after that first...the state only kicks in as a last resort, to keep them off of the street.
People don’t like it, because it rewards those that didn’t save for retirement...but you can phase in the government goodies, so the savers do better than the ones totally on government money (much as our income tax does now, for them, anyway...just a lot steeper).
I understand both sides - but the money simply isn’t there, not even from my grandchildren, to sustain this system as we’re set up.
“Yep, we take care of our own in my family. Unfortunately, though, my kids will likely have to take care of you...and they know it, and don’t like it.”
NO!!! They should be thanking me EVERY DAY for being here to soak up the fruits of their labor. Just kidding - obviously you’re raising well-informed children - nice job.
As to myself, like most FReepers, I have some savings, and some retirement plans, so I should be ok. But if not, I have NO PROBLEM sponging off of my own kids, and they have no problem (so far) helping me to the extent necessary (or that they can). Neither they or myself can see why we should enlist the government to point a gun at a stranger, to get money for me, if we have that money already within our family.
I had a cop complain to me that NJ was reducing Social Security payments to retired cops, firemen, etc.; I thought he was lying about that because it is a federal program and I don’t understand how a (prior) NJ governor could do that. I don’t doubt that any government program will be adjusted due to “need”; that is how they will keep the programs solvent. For cash flow purposes I stopped contributing to my 401K (the money is still there, but I don’t add to it). I saw no point in having debt while paying into a program that I believe in the long run will be used to reduce my SS payments.
Good points. I think the SS the cop was referring to might be a state pension fund that’s being raided.
The problem that states and cities have is that it’s a lot harder to steal from future taxpayers, and it’s impossible to print money. They can do the stealing to some extent, but not much. It’s just criminal that the same was never required at the federal level.
As to 401k’s, I cashed out an IRA, took the tax hit and all (and it was pretty beefy). I’m like you now. The only POT OF GOLD left for the government to seize are retirement accounts (IRAs, 401k’s, pensions). There is REAL MONEY in most of those accounts (other than public-sector pensions), and soon, very soon, the government will have to take that money to keep the Bond Vultures (i.e., the ones that won’t lend to Greece anymore, for example), at bay.
So we are stuck...the government will take our money and then give us some kind of annuity in its place. Obviously the annuity might be worth, maybe, half of the present-value cash amount - so not playing the game has A LOT of merit.
“The problem that states and cities have is that it’s a lot harder to steal from future taxpayers, and it’s impossible to print money.”
Here in NJ the state and municipalities are trying to do that with borrowing, but all that does is scare away investors and hardworking taxpayers. At this point moving to CA is simply buying a share of a huge IOU; NJ and NY are the same on a smaller scale.
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.