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Comment by friedturkey | Hacker News Reader

Japan says its economy has been in deflation since the 90s.[1] Everybody is working. Sure, the numbers aren't going up and there aren't constant booms of new companies being valued at 100 billion and exploding (which draws ire from economists and billionaire investors), but quality of life has been consistently high for normal people. Homelessness is barely present and people who want a job can find one quickly.

If the books say it's wrong, maybe it's time they get updated.

[1] https://www5.cao.go.jp/zenbun/wp-e/wp-je03/03-00102.html

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> Homelessness is barely present

Can be vulgar to point this out, but the homelessness in America is a policy choice. If America had the same economy as Japan, we would still have lots of homelessness, because that is how we choose to organize our society.

This sounds facile, but then again consider how we choose to organize our healthcare system.

Japan isn't a very good example because their economy has absolutely tanked because of their horrible monetary policy. Japan was in a liquidity trap caused by their low inflation for literally decades which caused their economy to grow barely 1% annually. The reason their unemployment rate is low is because they've been stuck in this rut for literally 30 years, so people have adjusted. That doesn't mean it isn't causing immense harm though. Real wages are literally lower than they were in the early 90s. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2013/03/09/w...

Real wages for Americans also haven't grown in decades: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us...

What's the harm?

Your chart shows that real wages are up 10% over the last 2 decades. Japan's are down. This doesn't even account for benefits, which have grown at an incredible rate due to health insurance costs. And that's not inflation, health care has gotten better, maybe unnecessarily so.

The total benefits chart they provide is more accurate than just looking at cash compensation.

Non-monetary compensation, like health insurance, still costs the business a lot of money.

Would you be in favor of getting rid of mandatory health insurance and passing that money to employees instead?

“Tanked” according to economists.

If the news weren’t telling us the economy tanked, nobody would be worried. Houses are affordable, jobs are everywhere, people aren’t going into lifelong debt because of medical issues.

In countries with inflation, the wealth divide is massive and growing. Wages might be up sometimes. But house prices and health insurance far outstrip any gains there. I guess milk is a little cheaper though. Maybe that tips the scales.

The article you cited is from 2002. Japan has been mildly inflationary on average since the late 2000s. Unemployment spiked significantly during the deflationary period and has been dropping since.[1] You can see a similar pattern in the US deflationary periods during the 1800s. Every instance of deflation coincides with recessions or depressions and large scale job loss.

[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/unemployment...

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