Too bad 'the third time's [not] the charm'. Never mind the log-jam that is modern Japanese improvisation to 'outside context problems' of any degree. The debts of the Bubble have still not spun-out, because "the perverted golf-club" kept them out of play, but they cannot do that for ever. There's domestic demographics:
The fact that it's an unenviable place for workers to come, even if they were wanted, much less wanted as immigrants: permanent and full members of Japanese society, like many other countries offer to most immigrants.
Japan will change it's attitude, politically and socially, to immigration, and I would guess they will do it within a generation, by the look of those demographic kites. It's amazing how tolerant mouth-breathers can become once there's a fraction of the people paying into social welfare, a multiple of people drawing on it, and they want a share. Except, who'd come then? What's Japan going to have to offer immigrants in ten to twenty years, much less in the 2050 of the third chart? It already has a great deal less to offer than quite a few other places, not just in the 'First World', but also in some 'Emerging Nations': often the immigrants' home.
I shouldn't take pleasure in this, because it is petty, and I have family and friends here. For them I am concerned. But Japan? Japan's brought it on itself with sight of it from far off. Japan won't ever accept my children as fully Japanese. My white ass has had some privilege by it but also a great deal of aggravation.* Fuck Japan! I'll enjoy my Schadenfreude.
*I'll thank Japan for giving me some experience of crap visible minorities put up with in my own country. Enough to have put fair peers of mine in their place in front of the less fair. You taught me how bigotry feels. Good job Japan.
What the hell? You are a blogger in Japan and it's April and you are posting this instead of photos of sakura? Go hand your badge in!
ReplyDeleteEmerging nations have to beat the crap out of Japan, right? Emerging means growth and going places. In 20 years time, you'll probably have the remaining youth of Japan trying to move to the current emerging nations.
Hey, I got sakura into my suicide in Japan post...
Deletehttp://hanlonsrzr.blogspot.jp/2014/04/april-is-cruelest-month.html
Right-wingers don't need to reject the government study that says Japan needs '200,000 immigrants per year'. That many won't come anyway.
ReplyDeleteJDG.
As for changes like TPP prompted structural reform, I just saw that the US will allow Japan to keep tariffs on rice and wheat.
ReplyDeleteAdd that to Abe's coal and nuclear only energy policy (no investment in alternatives), along with toothless corporate oversight laws, and you can see that Abe is happy to watch all ships heading to the future set sail without Japan.
JDG
Let's take a re-cap...
ReplyDeleteAbe's energy policy goes back to the 1950's with coal and nuclear: no investment in new technologies of renewables. Missed opportunity to become a world leader in the field.
Abe's corporate governance legislation to increase transparency in the wake of the Olympus scandal: only requires boards to appoint one outside member- no punishments for companies that fail to do so. Missed opportunity to increase business confidence (and therefore investments) in Japan Inc.
Strike 3! Abe's apparent success in getting the US to concede to continued tariffs on imported rice and wheat, thereby protecting a domestic agriculture industry as terminal as the whaling industry. Missed opportunity to restructure farming, the weighted voting system, and improve spending power for consumers (Abe's 'virtuous cycle', remember that?).
Yes, when the back is against the wall, Japan will fight tooth and nail against any change, even if it would benefit them, their children, and their grandchildren.
Abandon ship!
JDG.
Of course, we may agree the sticking point is what term does 'Japan' define to whom? If you're from hereditary leadership in Japan, the status quo serves very well at present, and as the rest of the population falls further into servitude, quite well in the future. If you're not part of the 1% in Japan, you're just as able to vote against your class-interests as the same class does in America, and elsewhere.
DeleteIn fact, the Japanese are singularly sociopolitically ignorant. I'd argue they are more so than Americans, who are more so than Europeans: in Japan, you don't even need populism, nor do you need bread or circuses.
DeleteYou are, sadly, 100% correct.
DeleteJDG