Lostplanet22 said:
The voted for politicians who clearly stated that they are happy that they are not white. Taro Aso is one of those. It is crazy to know how many are unemployed in Europe and USA etc and how Japan can easy attract those people to come to work in Japan and so many would love to learn Japanese aswell and its cultures....but Japanese politicans don't want it and would consider it shamefull. |
The Japanese want to preserve their nation, their culture and the stability of their society. I think that's a wonderful thing.
Now to this myth of an aging population's effect on a country's economy. We hear it about Japan all the time, we hear it in the Swedish debate about Sweden all the time and I bet you hear it in your country all the time. In all Western European countries we are fed with this myth that we need immigration to save our pensions.
Japan has economical problems but it has nothing to do with an aging population. It's got to do with the Japanese mentality - to save instead of borrow and consume, and with government policy - to rely on ever increasing stimulus packages in economic downturn even if it creates large government debt.
Also, your facts are wrong. According to Wikipedia it's more like 24% of the population that is 65 or older, not 30%. And projections say it will reach almost 40% by 2050. But on the other hand you will have less school children who eat resources.
Now somebody might say that that's still a big problem because we won't have a big enough work force to support the elderly. So how should a country do?
Immigration is only a temporary solution since you will have to proportionally increase the amount of immigration year after year because immigrants age too - it's true, do the math. And in doing so you will not only create a lot of problems that come with multiculturalism, you will eventually replace your native population with foreigners. You yourself living in Belgistan should know.
For a nation to replace itself without immigration every woman needs to have on average 2.1 kids. But that's unrealistic because people in modern society simply don't want that many kids for several reasons. In Europe women get 1.5 children per woman and in Japan 1.3-1.4 children (in USA 2.0). The consequences from that are that in the long run the middle aged population (30-60 years) is going to be 50% larger than the young (0-30) and the old population (60 and older) will be another 50% larger.
Do you think it's impossible to design a society that is able to handle those proportions? It is not.
There are benefits from an aging society and shrinking population. The big capital will tell you otherwise because they want cheap labor, and lazy governments will tell you otherwise because they rely on ever increasing GDP and inflation to solve all problems, but in reality, for ordinary people, a shrinking population has benefits.
* you will free up land, natural resources and real-estate
* you will reduce pressure on big cities and the crazy housing price spiral there
* you will reduce pressure on nature
* you will get less traffic jams and other big city problems
* young people will become attractive on the labour market again
* you will get rid of mass unemployment
* the average worker will become valuable and salaries increase
* people will be allowed to feel dignity again
And if you solve this problem of the aging population pyramid, in the long run it self regulates because the old people will die off.
Every country will have to solve that problem sometime in the future because immigration is just an artificial and temporary solution. Japan is just determined to solve the problem first.
