I always thought that Japan had stopped growing since 1995 based on it’s GDP figures.
But there are many observations that I’ve noticed recently that made me question this understanding.
Their GDP PPP has been growing very consistently. Even with a shrinking workforce they’ve managed to keep their economy growing in PPP and avoiding a decline in nominal terms. A lot of their flat growth stems from the fact that yen has lost about half of it’s value in the last 12 years alone and this brings down the nominal value of Japanese economy.
Also as the yen falls, their exports become more competitive and the country becomes more attractive as a hardware and software tech hub.
ar243 on
…did you mean to add a second graph with Japan’s PPP data?
phdoofus on
It’s not beautiful if you leave out half of your data
Hattix on
This was entirely intentional. The QE Japan created in the 1990s was all handed to banks, who used it to bolsted closed funds, largely insurance liabilities, so was a massive redistribution of wealth upwards.
The funds, being too big to fail, then failed anyway when the QE ended. So the Japanese government had basically created a whole bunch of money, clawed it back once the bonds matured, but the money itself hadn’t done anything other than prop up some failing funds.
Shūshoku Hyōgaki, “employment ice age” resulted. The QE funds went to people who buy government bonds, not to people who live and work. This made “indicators of the economy” look better, but the actual economic activity was not addressed. Young people entering the workforce could no longer attain a stable and well paying job, but they did get unstable, temporary, seasonal jobs, so the youth unemployment rate didn’t rise by much.
This then caused a huge depressive impact on “rank and file” citizen income as well as a large rise in costs of living, resulting in the hikikomori becoming mainstream, and 75% of males between 20 and 40 being sōshoku-kei danshi.
With an economic system based on a rising population, immigration being as close to impossible as matters, and young people priced out of starting a family, Japan is in a full blown demographic meltdown. Without a major shift in its trickle-down economics (which are working as a powerful pump-up redistribution), Japan probably cannot be saved.
This causes a depressive effect on GDP nominalised by PPP.
Bewaretheicespiders on
Japan is the great example showing that stopping the population growth ponzi scheme is not only possible, but actually beneficial. Full employment, housing getting more affordable, suicide rates are crashing, homelessness almost solved.
6 Comments
Data Source: Macrotrends
[https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/gdp-gross-domestic-product](https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/gdp-gross-domestic-product)
Tools: Canva
I always thought that Japan had stopped growing since 1995 based on it’s GDP figures.
But there are many observations that I’ve noticed recently that made me question this understanding.
Their GDP PPP has been growing very consistently. Even with a shrinking workforce they’ve managed to keep their economy growing in PPP and avoiding a decline in nominal terms. A lot of their flat growth stems from the fact that yen has lost about half of it’s value in the last 12 years alone and this brings down the nominal value of Japanese economy.
Also as the yen falls, their exports become more competitive and the country becomes more attractive as a hardware and software tech hub.
…did you mean to add a second graph with Japan’s PPP data?
It’s not beautiful if you leave out half of your data
This was entirely intentional. The QE Japan created in the 1990s was all handed to banks, who used it to bolsted closed funds, largely insurance liabilities, so was a massive redistribution of wealth upwards.
The funds, being too big to fail, then failed anyway when the QE ended. So the Japanese government had basically created a whole bunch of money, clawed it back once the bonds matured, but the money itself hadn’t done anything other than prop up some failing funds.
Shūshoku Hyōgaki, “employment ice age” resulted. The QE funds went to people who buy government bonds, not to people who live and work. This made “indicators of the economy” look better, but the actual economic activity was not addressed. Young people entering the workforce could no longer attain a stable and well paying job, but they did get unstable, temporary, seasonal jobs, so the youth unemployment rate didn’t rise by much.
This then caused a huge depressive impact on “rank and file” citizen income as well as a large rise in costs of living, resulting in the hikikomori becoming mainstream, and 75% of males between 20 and 40 being sōshoku-kei danshi.
With an economic system based on a rising population, immigration being as close to impossible as matters, and young people priced out of starting a family, Japan is in a full blown demographic meltdown. Without a major shift in its trickle-down economics (which are working as a powerful pump-up redistribution), Japan probably cannot be saved.
This causes a depressive effect on GDP nominalised by PPP.
Japan is the great example showing that stopping the population growth ponzi scheme is not only possible, but actually beneficial. Full employment, housing getting more affordable, suicide rates are crashing, homelessness almost solved.