Be fruitful, be solvent
Brought to you by your Payday Loan source. Japan is headed for extinction. It isn’t because of economic crisis, war or natural disaster, Godzilla included. Moreover, it isn’t due to overcrowding. In fact, it’s quite the opposite of overcrowding. Couples in Japan are coupling at an alarmingly low rate; children are being born at the rate of only 1.34 per family, which experts agree is far too low to maintain the country’s current population. Aside from there being fewer people, this will have a drastic economic effect that your payday loan source fears could in turn hurt the interconnected world economy.
David Turner of The Financial Times recently reported in his article “Japan’s Mating Culture Extends Baby Drought” at http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=3686:
For rich countries, a low birth rate means lower economic growth, which transforms politics by provoking “shifts in the political weights of countries in the international arena”. There are domestic implications, too. Increasing numbers of people may have “no, or few, immediate family ties”, a greater strain on public services.
Japan has work to do
Twelve-hour workdays six or seven days per week will strangle the best in anyone. Perhaps fewer people need things like payday advance loans when they work that much, but Japan’s credit crisis may indicate otherwise. Zombies of the workplace do not make for an inspired society. As human beings, we must court the creative fire, the vital spark, if we are to survive. From the board room to the bedroom, if we do not have the chance to connect with ourselves and those we love, performance will suffer.
And it is suffering. With such a low birthrate, something must be done. Perhaps Canon and Keidanren have the right idea. They’re letting workers go early twice per week, with the mandate to “go forth and multiply.” Ideally, this will address the birth rate problem and allow companies to cut back on overtime during the world economic crisis. Yet the high cost of living and rebellion against the culture’s traditional view of the role of women in society are also major factors.
Babies for budgets – NOW
Your payday loan> source understands the concepts behind global overcrowding, but Japan is working its people to death. Pride in work should never replace pride in bringing life to the world. With new generations to power the economy, global credit will improve. Payday loans may be around for many consumers when extra money is needed, but the root problem for Japan must be solved between the sheets.
This seems odd, as a lot of ecological experts have stated that the Earth is getting rapidly overpopulated. However, if it is for the benefit of the people of Japan, then there’s nothing wrong with it at all.
I have written about this subject generically in many places where this mystical, non-existant problem is being blown out of proportion.
The only ones who actually suffer from a labor shortage are the ones who pay for the services of laborers.
Those of you in Japan should read about 15th century European history, and what happened after the Black Death in Europe.
The main flaw in the reasoning is the bad math of linear relationships between labor and income.
Fewer laborors actaully increases the cost per unit based on the good old law of supply and demand.
In England during the most brutal and barbaric period in the last thousand years, the labor shortage caused by the Black Death actaully contributed much to the end of the fuedal system.
There is an inverse multiple relationship that was noticed with the labor shortage after the Black Plague in England and the cost of labor (or, income to peasants.)
The population dropped by 33.33% but the wages of laborers actually increased from 100% to as high as 300% dispite the king’s attempt to legislate wage controls to prevent wage spikes caused by the labor shortage.
If there is a labor shortage in Japan, that causes the price of labor to rise, i.e. wages.
Also, why not do what South Korea is doing, and even join South Korea in research into radical healthy life extension, so as people get older, they can still be productive, healthy, and not a burden on the social system.
BTW, Japan has 145 million people living on an island the size of California (I believe slightly smaller with less usable real estate), a state that has only 30 million people, and is strained by the burden on the resources of the state.
The world population doesn’t need to grow anymore, as a matter of fact, the rapid growth has contributed to great poverty in many parts of the world.
Makes sense, if the supply of labor grows rapidly while capital formation follows slowly, then that is the result.
Japan should invest in more technology to multiply the mental and physical output of labor, so the economy can pay higher wages for an existing stable (or slightly declining) population while the existing infrastructure actually becomes more adaquate for the population.
Also,if lifespans can be extended in the future, then we wont need as high a birth rate for any society or culture to continue to exist.
Image if at least half of all Japanese people between 50 and 65 today could be alive 500 years from now if we accelerate research in biotech and nano technology based medicine, MRI resolution so we could transer the information that is inside a human brain into a mainframe computer and then upload to another physical medium of existance.
Let’s start to think beyond the primative breeder and dyer paradigm and live for the future!