patrick.net

Who is Mark and Stephanie?
...and why is she making so much more?

Get rid of Stephanie, and equilibrium will be restored. Down with Stephanie!

Bellingham Bill says

The important take-away from this is the different distribution in Japan -- lower top 10%, higher bottom 10% -- compared to the US.

This results in people protecting convenience stores when in distress, not ransacking them.

They're civilized we are not. The question is why?

Japan is close to bankruptcy and may soon be at war with China.
Not to mention density, radioactivity in Tokyo, and work habits being quite insane.
This doesn't sound like a fun place to live in.

Heraclitusstudent says

Japan is close to bankruptcy and may soon be at war with China.

Not to mention density, radioactivity in Tokyo, and work habits being quite insane.

This doesn't sound like a fun place to live in.

And expensive as hell.

by your criteria wouldn't N Korea be preferable?

Mind the radiation and an even less transparent gubberment that the USA's.

Heraclitusstudent says

Japan is close to bankruptcy

To which creditors?

Heraclitusstudent says

Chile

Interestingly, Chile is the 'tallest midget' among countries in debt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_international_investment_position

standing at just 5% of its GDP owed to the world. Austria and Israel are essentially at a neutral position, and the ROK is +5%.

Japan is trailing Taiwan and Norway by this measure.

Strategist says

And expensive as hell.

It's not that bad. Meals in restaurants are good value for starters. You can also stay in decent hotels in Tokyo for less than many major cities. $250 for the Cerulean in Shibuya during the summer. That's considerably cheaper than anything comparable in London, NYC...

http://seekingalpha.com/article/3084596-the-physics-of-japanese-economics

several interesting data dumps. I think most of the writing is searching for straws at the end (Aerostats???) but overall the piece lines up with my thinking.

I would add that I don't think old people are as expensive hit on an economy as people think. If they have savings, they can simply pay their own way.

Unfortunately while the Japanese of course have savings, since so much of it is in JGBs most of these "savings" are just deferred tax increases (or Kuroda running the inkjet more), which aren't savings really at all.

At any rate what Japan is gaining in old people they have mostly lost in young people, making the dependency ratio less dire than it appears.

The future that Japan is barreling towards is that everyone of working age can find a wealth-creating job in the economy. I don't see what's so wrong with that.

(old people require more service-sector labor for their health needs, but this doesn't impact the nation's balance of trade at all)

What kills an economy is not being able to pay its own way in the world [unless you're the US and can just issue your fiat currency to other people to spend as they will]. As mentioned in the link, Japan is sitting on the top of the world by this measure, in absolute terms.

As of Feb 2015, Japan has overtaken China as the US's #1 creditor:

http://www.treasury.gov/ticdata/Publish/mfh.txt

(actually lots of Chinese money in UST is in other nations' accounts now, but anyway...)

$1.2T is ~$10,000 in internal savings per-capita, or since age 65+ is now 1/4 of the population, $40,000 per elderly person.

Nice little rainy-day fund, but alas nothing like the Norwegians' ~$930B SWF, which is pushing $200,000 per capita, and grew $10,000 per capita last quarter.

All the Norwegians oughtta just retire now, let the world do its work for it. Kinda like the Saudis, LOL.

indigenous says

by your criteria wouldn't N Korea be preferable?

no, by the chart it looks like up to the 75% percentile ($73,000/yr+) Japan is across-the-board wealthier than the US.

This correlates well with my experience living in Tokyo. I biked all over that city and never found a slum. In LA you have to be careful to not end up in either the ghetto or the barrio, as the nice areas are more like islands in a sea of relative poverty.

The recent movie Elysium, with the glittering space station up in the sky where all the rich people live, was so inspired by how the hills above the city have all the nice mansions, and the poor people can't get up there without a rocket.

Some stray bullet from a south central LA gangbanger killed somebody in Westwood in 1988, and black people weren't allowed in that zip code for a year or two.

My grandmother was Norwegian. Maybe I can claim citizenship, like the partial Indians do, and tell them where to send the check.