Hacker News Reader

Comment by somenameforme | Hacker News Reader

Most aren't aware of the situation Japan is in today because of the world we all grew up in, where Japan was at one point nearly the largest economy in the world. Japan has been in between a recession and stagnation for 30 years. Their GDP was higher 31 years ago than it is today. [1] Their GDP/capita is $33,950 with most wages well below that. They hit a record high for average wages in 2022 of ¥311,800 - about $2,100. [2]

Next - they're dying off. They hit their inflection point in 2009 and they've been shrinking since [3]. They've lost more than 5million people since 2009. And the "fun" thing about fertility collapse is that the decline will never stop. Their population will keep shrinking down at the 'equilibrium rate' (decided by fertility rate) until they start having babies, or go extinct. The exact same will happen to every other country with sub-replacement fertility rates.

This, IMO, is an effort to try to attract a certain type of immigrant largely for the purposes of revenue generation.

---

[1] - https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?location...

[2] - https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h01631/

[2] - https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/japan-populat...

View on HN

There's a lot of gloom and doom around Japan, but I think there are a few counter-points.

1) Yes, the economy is stagnant. But it's interesting to think about it from the point of view that Japan disproves the idea that a growth economy is the only way. Here is a country that increases worker efficiency and has a really high standard of living, but doesn't do it in a hyper growth kind of way.

2) Yes, Japan is super, super xenophobic compared to other countries. This is contrasted with it being one of the top tourist destinations on earth. I think things like digital nomad visa could be a small step on the way to closing this dichotomy. It's clear that one of the easy levers Japan could pull to alleviate their economic issues would be to allow more immigration, and I think the world's facination with Japan and Japanese culture is such that they could pull it off.

But not ever place needs to turn into cosmopolitan London. In the same way that Japan showed it’s possible to have a high standard of living without obsessing over growth, I trust that the Japanese can find a path forward that doesn’t default to “just bring in millions of immigrants”.

Why are we treating a known working and humanitarian strategy as some evil "growth" thing? I feel like we're dragging that term out of the hyper-capitalistic sense it's meant to evoke.

People ought to be able to move where they're most happy / productive. One consequence of that may be that a place turns "into cosmopolitan London". But that's hardly a horror.

I think the argument against can be boiled down to this hypothetical analogy:

A few friends and I like your home better than ours. It's much nicer and safer than where we currently live, so we move into a few open bedrooms.

Now that we outnumber you and your family, we vote to change things in the common areas more to our liking. Some changes are small and happen over time, others more jarring and immediate. You like some of these changes in some cases, but sometimes quite the opposite.

Is it a foregone conclusion that this situation is for the greater good? If so, should your family be pressured or forced to accept?

Who has the power to make that determination?

After all, you were only there first so what gives you the right to prevent others from moving in?

---

Personally, I can see the argument for both sides.

I feel like the analogy isn't a service to the problem.

It's got all sorts of baggage and expectations pertaining to homeownership that don't carry over into migration. I feel it'd just be better to address the problem space directly and ask what specific problems you observe/predict with immigration.

The problem I'm inferring from your comment here would also seem to apply to families moving from Chicago to Boston. And what's funny is that people actually do complain about this (our mayor is from Chicago), but it's for nonsensical reasons in my experience.

>I feel it'd just be better to address the problem space directly

Fair enough. Not everyone enjoys naked cosmopolitanism. I don't live in New York City for a reason (I did at one point), and I don't live in the downtown of the city I live closest to (also did at one point, where I watched it change into something else). There are aspects of a nation that go beyond mere economic data, and longing for those things to remain stable and constant is a normal feeling and belief. When people talk about immigration as a mechanism to "solve" some problem, those other aspects get glossed over, usually pejoratively by calling everyone who doesn't agree with mass immigration a "racist" or a "bigot". Talking about Japan is an evocative example because it's so culturally distant from the west in ways that are obvious and stark. Thinking it wise that it changes to echo the mishmash that the west is becoming, in order to make some numbers in a spreadsheet go up, is in my estimation the more extreme position to stake out than simply observing that perhaps not all uniqueness was created equal. There's also the housing problem, where, for some reason, people pretend that this is the one instance in which the laws of supply and demand do not apply and large numbers of immigrants don't have an impact on the cost of housing.

>The problem I'm inferring from your comment here would also seem to apply to families moving from Chicago to Boston.

People complain about this because where you are from is a signal about having skin in the game. It's why politicians advertise their family ties to the place they are running to represent. I don't live in Boston, and am not that familiar with Mayor Wu. Maybe she'll run the city into the ground, maybe she won't. But if she does, she can always just go back to Chicago.

I'd also add here that it's really not even just about the greater good. There's something obviously unique and valuable about different places remaining different, rather than creating some sort of global homogeneity. Austin coined 'Keep Austin Weird' which Portland, and a handful of other such cities, then mimicked.

Of course it failed - the attractiveness of Austin, in part because of its distinct character, left it facing widespread 'migration' of a sort that the city was unaccustomed to dealing with, and it increasingly just looks like any other city. Identical to how if Japan starts opening the flood gates there will be all these people moving there because 'wow, Japan's so weird and unique' and soon enough e.g. Tokyo will look like any other city.

It could well be "better", by some metric or another, for Austin, Tokyo, and everywhere else to be basically the same, excepting some window dressing. But it sure creates a much more bland and less interesting world.

The reason people want to go to nice places is because of the people currently there who created them—-not the people wanting to come.

>People ought to be able to move where they're most happy / productive.

By what measure?

One could argue that when viewed in perspective of a shrinking population, Japan's economy is doing just fine. Just because it doesn't work for hedge fund vampires doesn't mean it's not effective at sustaining a good standard of living for people there.

Their population has been shrinking for far less time than it's been stagnant.

If I had to guess, the causal arrow points the other way.

The xenophobic point hits home, as I've lived there for almost 5 years, and wasn't able to attain a single long/strong friendship with any japanese national. I am glad I had other foreigners there to mingle with, or I'd just be very, very alone.

Japan for tourism? Can't recommend further. Amazing country to visit, clean, safe, good food. They will be educated towards you in big cities like Tokyo etc.

Japan for living (specially if you're from an economy which they perceive as lower/poorer)? Avoid at all costs, you'll be treated as subculture forever.

yeah re point 1) All I've ever heard my whole life is how Japan is an economic basketcase and a disaster, and yet after visiting there well, the quality of infrastructure and vibrancy of the cities is high that it makes Canada look like a third world country tbh. And yet Canada is the one that is always out performing Japan in the economic charts, with our numbers going in the proper up and to the right direction. Obviously there's more to quality of life than merely lines on the economic graph...

To your point #1: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/23/business/kohei-saito-degr...

What blows my mind is that Japan's GDP per capita (PPP) as reported by World Bank is now lower than 4 formerly comparatively "poor" former Easter Block countries: Czechia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Estonia. And just one place above Poland.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?most_...

WTF happened in Japan? All the above countries have their own demographic collapse as well BTW.

What happened? Simple: Eastern Europe has been experiencing constant GDP growth for the past 3 decades, while Japan stagnated.

Also, regarding sibling comment about relevance of PPP metrics: I challenge you to come to Czechia or Poland - the quality of life can really surprise you. Those are, for example, the two countries with the lowest unemployment rates in EU. We have nice apartments and houses (with photovoltaic panels and heat pumps, mind you), drive nice cars, have good healthcare and free higher education.

Unless I get a $1M+ per year offer from a FAANG in Silicon Valley I feel like no country in the world can offer me a significantly better standard of living.

The typical explanation given is poor economic policy - good times led banks to start lending excessively, excessive lending drove speculation, speculation drove bubbles, those bubbles burst, everything collapsed, and they just never managed to get back up again. But that last part is what most interests me.

Most of the Soviet Bloc type nations you named had reasonable fertility rates under the USSR, only collapsed once the USSR collapsed in 1991, and are inching back up again. Japan, by contrast, never had a particularly great fertility rate post-war. Then it just collapsed in the 1970s and simply kept going down. [1]

Fertility rates just determine so much. With a good fertility rate companies grow naturally because their market size is constantly naturally increasing. And vice versa for poor fertility rates. It also determines the overall age distribution of a population, such as how in Japan now 10% of the population is over 80. When an ever larger chunk of your population is leaving the labor force with not enough people to replace them, and then an even smaller taxpayer base to provide the social benefits necessary to sustain these people in their elder years - everything just becomes completely unsustainable.

And, again, none of this will ever get better such as, for instance, when the older people start passing en masse. This is because fertility rate determines the ratio of distributions within a population. You can see this quite clearly in this [2] population pyramid. The only solution is for them to suddenly start dramatically increasing their fertility rate.

[1] - https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?location...

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Japan#/media/F...

Maybe what we should question is the relevance and importance of such metrics.

I strongly dislike arguments like this. Because you can apply them to basically any metric and I find that they are generally used to cheaply discredit a potentially interesting fact about the world without actually providing an argument that the metric in question is not a useful one to consider.

In all other contexts would you also say gdp per capita is a metric not worth considering? If not then I humbly question the value of your statement.

(edited)

I'm not trying to discredit GDP; I don't think it is a useless metric. Lawmakers around the world—some that are paid handsomely—care about it and obviously quite a bit can be inferred from it, but in this case we would be better served utilising a multi-dimensional lens, so to say, in these tangential topics. I'm just against hearing about it as the most important economic metric of a country. It's very often used as a single data point to come to all kinds of conclusions. There are some top-comments in this thread where people are almost forecasting Japan's doom, which is of course a ridiculous view. That's the general direction my comment was aimed at.

At the risk of being out of my depth: You only need a few seconds to look at the per-capita list before finding yourself asking "wait, why is THAT country so high up?". Again, useful info can be inferred, but it doesn't put the country above others in other important lists, which is what people usually imply and use it for, on topics not strictly related to economy statistics.

Thanks for clarifying, that's definitely a more well thought through perspective than I gave you credit for before.

I guess I would avoid updating my beliefs too strongly when a measurement I generally find quite useful (in this case gdp per capita) does not perfectly map onto a more nuanced view of the world! As you say, it's only a single data point.

Czechia did not have demographic collapse, and actually got fair bit of immigration from other Slavic countries, mainly Slovakia & Ukraine (pre-war, post we got even more obviously).

Yeah I also find it weird because

"To be eligible for the new status, applicants must have an annual income equivalent to 10 million yen ($68,000) or more"

which means the newly created Digital Nomad class needs to have 2x the average GDP/capita in income?

So they only want high earning workers from developed countries, basically the kind of immigrants every other country wants but doesn't dare say it out loud. What's wrong with that? Their country, their rules.

> basically the kind of immigrants every other country wants but doesn't dare say it out loud

Many nations have high standards for immigration relating to income, wealth and professional qualifications. There is absolutely nothing hush hush about it, not even remotely.

>There is absolutely nothing hush hush about it, not even remotely.

You definitely don't live in the progressive parts of Europe. You're not allowed to say here you only want certain kinds of well off immigrant at the expense of other less well off migrants, otherwise you might be called a N*zi.

There's lots of types of immigration and you seem to be focused on only one. Also, I bet you'd find it's very easy to talk openly about immigration if you don't start with a chip on your shoulder and dropping words like "nazi", which you know is inflammatory.

Thank you for proving my point. No mater what you say or how you say it, someone will always call you out on it for being the wrong way to say it.

Sorry, but I have to agree with him as a German. The discussion climate about such topics is really rough here due to the country’s history.

You're a German person who is defending a person who chose to include the word "nazi" as the start of the conversation? That just makes people assume you find that kind of rhetoric acceptable and if that is true, then it is no wonder you can't have a decent conversation on the topic.

I don’t know, everyone but you seems to be able to have a civil discussion.

All I can say as a white Polish immigrant in Germany is that I was hit by the “Nazi club” as it’s called here a hundred times in my lifetime. No matter how mild your statement might be the Nazi insinuation comes fast. My superpower is that I can actually defend myself by saying that my ancestors were killed by Nazis, while native Germans can’t, but such a defense shouldn’t be necessary to begin with.

> You're not allowed to say here you only want certain kinds of well off immigrant

Not out loud, anyway. The Dutch have an immigration system that very much benefits well off immigrants (see the 30% rule vs agricultural immigration schemes), but yeah Wilders is considered ultra-right wing for wanting to kick out all the lower class immigrants (saying that they are all "Moroccans" doesn't help matters). Unfortunately despite him saying the quiet part out loud he got 25% of the Dutch voters to agree with him in November.

Not sure about this comment - I think you need to put up examples here. I think your comment is historically true but not up to date with current policies.

Canada, Portugal, Colombia, the US... we'd probably have an easier time making a list of nations that don't have a "pay to play" immigration scheme.

Here's a half-decent list: https://www.globalcitizensolutions.com/citizenship-by-invest...

Canada has a large swatch of categories for immigration and does not have high standards across the board.

I have no strong opinions immigration which is a hot topic currently but I do want to clarify that your assertion is incorrect.

My assertion, that most countries have criteria for immigration that involve income tests, asset tests, or skill requirements is absolutely true.

Other paths to immigration exist as well.

Your assertion is that those countries require their immigrants to go through those tests and pass and your it implies tacitly that this is for almost all immigrants who come through. However at most 50% go through that route (in Canada).

Japan seems conservative compared to New Zealand, which limits immigration for those with a range of disabilities - including autism spectrum disorder:

https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-zealand-visas/preparing-...

> Severe developmental disorders or severe cognitive impairments where significant support is required, including but not exclusive to: physical disability, intellectual disability, autistic spectrum disorders, brain injury.

I think that's a deliberate misinterpretation. It obviously means 'low functioning' autism rather than someone who's awkward in adulthood but otherwise leads a normal life.

That's a lot of countries which restrict migration from people with disabilities due to increased pressure on the welfare state. Reminds me of a famous case where a German family moved to Austria with their disabled child and the Austrian authorities were allowed to not register the child.

Unless you qualify for asylum, then all bets are off and these rules are waived.

The article says "Japan hopes its new visa status will attract [..] YouTubers earning advertising fees from overseas companies." and this is about digital nomads. To me, that seems weird because most digital nomads (and most YouTube personalities) aren't going to make that $68k limit.

I can't say for sure whether it is "most" or not, but I do not know a single individual that is a Digital Nomad that makes sub $100,000 a year that is employed by another company.

As for a digital nomad, if you're business is secure enough that you're comfortable traveling full time or as a standard aspect of your life, you're likely making more than $68,000 Pre-Tax.

I don't think this is an incredibly high dollar amount, seeing as several major cities in the US have a minimum wage of nearly $41,000 a year.

Nothing innately "wrong" but I can see it fueling resentment among working class Japanese towards these foreign, exclusively-wealthy digital nomads.

It's usually the other waY around. The resentment generally builds if the low wage jobs are taken, leaving the least affluent workers without any prospects.

And this particular visa is aimed at people that are employed overseas, so they're not even gonna take any high paying jobs from the population

I think it at least depends on other factors as well.

For example the German city of Düsseldorf is very welcome to Japanese business, and it resulted in a lot of infrastructure like Japanese schools, kindergardens, cultural institutions , Japanese chamber of commerce, restaurants, doctors with Japanese translators, a temple, as well as a huge yearly Japanese festival.

In the 90s almost all of the Japanese living in Düsseldorf were managers, i.e. paid well.

There is no crime, they cause no trouble, they usually just don’t speak German because they live after a 1-4 year business stint. They are very liked among the local citizens.

Meanwhile when Turks try to build a mosque chaos ensues. But the Turkish population is not a bunch of rich nomads.

resentment? why? won’t the nomads spend money in the local community on goods and services? You make it seem like they would be taking local jobs away, or taking housing away from the locals that earn 2x less. i’m struggling to see your perspective?

or is this just a concern about “crab mentality”?

Portugal has this very issue. A previous HN thread from a few weeks ago went into more detail about it.

The tl;dr is if you drop 5000 people earning 2x the average salary into a neighborhood, the prices of everything goes way up. Rent, food, entertainment, locals get priced out very quickly.

naive question - is the situation in portugal different from japan? i was unaware of the issue so i did some brief reading.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65485908

seems like a tourism issue? that and extremely low wages compared to cost of living. If the government functioned for the people, i imagine it would be trivial to place severe limits on short term tourism rentals, but they have chosen not to do so.

What's wrong with only wanting high earners to come to your country? Japan knows that high earners are definitely going to spend more and probably cause less trouble than lower earners.

How is that weird? They are trying to pull in people to spend more money in the Japanese economy.

> go extinct

Wouldn't this be more of a Ship of Theseus scenario than outright extinction?

Only if they allow immigration.

I just don't have the imaginative capabilities of seeing the entire archipelago depopulated but I suppose it's possible.

If current rates continue, which is a big assumption, then Japan will have 106M people by 2050 and 75M by 2100, which was roughly the population before WW2. Japan is already one of the most densely populated areas in the world, so further population growth may not be the greatest idea. They already have good standards of living, great infrastructure, high societal trust, low crime, a competent government, etc. Europe's strategy of importing millions of low skill foreigners who are mostly dependent on welfare and have destabilized their societies is also probably not a great idea either.

These population projections also ignore the many factors that may change. As the population declines, more opportunities may open for young people, leading to increased family formation. The culture may evolve in response the lopsided demographic pyramid, causing increases in the fertility rate. People are already predicting AGI in the next couple decades, which will render most people unnecessary anyway. These classical analyses around demographics will probably become increasingly obsolete.

> 106M people by 2050 and 75M by 2100

of those, most will be old. Population before WW2 was a much healthier mix of old, working age and children.

Who will cater to all the old? Who will pay for the social safety net programs?

This isn't quite accurate. The population projection graphs you see [1] are based on UN numbers which have the Japanese fertility rate skyrocketing [2] relative to past trends, presumably based on the assumption of some sort of successful social policy. That's why the collapse starts to smooth out in the graph, which is not what you see from a constant rate. Fertility rates, at a constant level, are brutally exponential systems which do not 'slow down'.

As for predictions, I remember about 10 years ago making fun of somebody who wanted to get a class C (commercial trucking) license. It seemed like the most idiotic idea imaginable at the time. Self driving vehicles had already been proven viable and surely it was imminent that nobody would be driving themselves around, let alone truckers where companies would love to ditch those relatively hefty labor fees. Relevant link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmoid_function

---

[1] - https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/population-g...

[2] - https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/fertility-ra...

> Fertility rates, at a constant level, are brutally exponential systems which do not 'slow down'.

If fertility rates are correlated to your ancestor's fertility rates, then a decline can "slow down" just because the remaining people of fertile age will be disproportionately from families with higher fertility rates.

Yeah, actual extinction seems impossible, if for no other reason that at some point above "0" the population will no longer be able to sustain a functioning government, and a non-functioning government isn't going to be able to regulate immigration.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com