bexchurnside
Kouhai
- 5 Dec 2006
- 65
- 0
- 16
I would love to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but everytime I look at the situation all I can see is Japan with a very gloomy future.
****://***.mof.go.jp/english/budget/pamphlet/cjfc2006.pdf
At the moment, nearly 50% of japans fiscal budget is for servicing the debt and paying for social security related expenses. Both of these are on the increase.
By 2017 we will all be paying 18.30% of our salary to a pension. A pension that we will probably never receive. That is an increase of 4% over what we pay now. So who cares right? We don't pay high taxes in Japan. Nope, we don't but likely we will see a 5% increase in the consumption tax over the same 10 year period. You can also expect to pay higher health care costs due to our aging population.
And at some point, people are going to quit buying bonds. How do they then fund the debt? If you get no interest on your bonds, why buy them? But Japan can't raise interest rates because they can't afford to pay the interest on their debt.
Now toss in a weakening yen.
And dont forget Japans aging population and its declining birth rate.
Another beautiful thing is the Arbaito job. Companies are eager to switch people over to these positions. They even want to switch my job to this type of positions. And then pay you 1000 yen an hour, no benefits to work 40 hours a week. Just wonderful, you make 160000yen a month, pay nearly half to your landlord, over 25% to taxes, pension and health care you are left with a measly 40000yen to survive on for the month. Yah, that is enough to cover your train fair and lunches and that is about it. Why would people ever want to work at these jobs? Guess it is fine if you live at home.
And yet many people look at the economy and think - well, economies booming, things are doing fine. But reality is that Japan's government has spent far more money that it can ever think to repay. A debt that is 160% of GDP. And they are tacking on 30 trillion yen every year. The problem is staring them right in the face and they don't have the slightest clue how to tackle it. Look at the proposed solutions. These solutions come across as the reason Japan has such a large debt in the first place.
Japan will continue to throw money at make work projects until finally the international community gives up on them and invests their money elsewhere. At the moment, Japan is only doing well because of China. China's growth is not sustainable and will be coming to a halt. Japan will suffer even more then.
There is a solution to every problem, but for whatever reason, the government can't or doesn't want to fix it.
Kilt.
Japan's population is overcrowded. I think if the old people are not contributing anything financially, just send them off to brazil where the yen will go far. Japanese are the only people in the world that cost on average to hire as a non "white country" than the average white person.
They should be funneled to Latin America or something.