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Letter from Japan 2025
Japan 2025 is a version of Japan 2000, albeit with fewer young people, many more old people, and a society that has no idea where it is going so it simply runs in place waiting to see what might evolve next. Change comes slowly in Japan but eventually will accumulate enough to nip you in the oshiri. It’s almost that time. You want it to happen so badly, to be the future, but Japan stubbornly refuses to accept the assignment.
None of that is visible at first or even second glance in a place like Tokyo. The trains run frightenly on time, down to the second. The airport ticket machines are still overly complex but accept Y10,000 yen notes (about $63) casually in a country where many people outside the big cities still conduct life almost entirely in cash. Apple Pay from your American smartphone? Maybe not as much. The ticket machines do have an “English” button that removes some but not all of the mystery and if not, an attendant is nearby at the airport station at least to remove some but not all of the mystery.
In the news you can’t miss what’s going on. Japan leads the world in per capita sales of adult diapers. Japan’s population is getting so old that one major diaper manufacturer is only making products for adults, not babies, anymore. Japan’s births dropped more than five percent in 2023, its lowest in centuries. It had more than twice as many deaths as births, leading to a natural population decline of over 800,000. There’s an article about the government asking schools and companies to schedule group excursions outside of peak season, because a labor shortage makes it impossible to serve everyone properly. Some of the blame falls on us, it says, the foreigners traveling to Japan to enjoy the weak yen, no matter that tourism is one of the few growing sectors nationwide thanks to that cheap currency plus the lure of anime and manga. Plenty of that, no shortages there. Forget steel and Toyotas, Japan wants to double the number of foreign tourists over the next few years as a major industry.
But even if you missed the news, signs of a labor shortage are not hard to spot. More and more of Japan’s famous convenience stores and supermarkets are nearly 100 percent vaguely overwatched self-check out now, taking advantage of the extreme honesty of the Japanese people. In smaller subway stations there are no longer attendants to resolve problems. You’re on your own with the machines there alongside 124 million (and shrinking) Japanese.
One solution in play is promoting elderly employment. To address the labor shortage, Japan has been encouraging older people to remain in the workforce longer. The government raised the retirement age and is promoting “silver workers” (elderly workers.) But many of these jobs appear to be make-work type situations instead of giving the old folks some responsibility. Ushers in a bank lobby to show patrons to a seat, human light poles to direct traffic around construction, that sort of thing. It feels like too little, especially as 20 percent of people over 65 live in poverty.
The country’s population peaked in 2008 and has since been steadily decreasing due to low birth rates and an aging society. In 2023, approximately 29 percent of Japan’s population was aged 65 or older, making it one of the oldest populations in the world. The proportion of elderly people is projected to rise even further, possibly reaching 40 percent by 2050 if current trends continue. This is coupled with a low birth rate. Japan has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world. The low birth rate is due to various factors, including social and economic pressures, high cost of living, delayed marriages, and changing attitudes towards family life. On the other end of the scale, Japan has one of the highest life expectancies globally, with average life expectancy at birth around 82 for men, 87 for women.
Visiting a Japanese friend in a Tokyo suburb, there’s a daily announcement at 5 pm asking everyone in the massive Eastern European-style block apartment complex to look for the handful of Alzheimer-afflicted residents who wandered off during the day, as if that has always been something announced. People look out their windows to try and help, and moms in the playground are especially alert, as many of the old people like to collect there to watch the children. It can make you cry if you let it but no one in Japan lets it.
With a rapidly growing elderly population, Japan has seen an increasing demand for caregiving services. The burden is often placed on family members, particularly women, taking them out of the workforce. The government has been trying to address this with various reforms, including allowing more foreign caregivers to work in Japan, but talk is talk and it all seems to end up more active on Sunday morning political talk shows than on the street (or on the playground) where it it needed.
It can be hard to sort out, this modern Japan. It is so clean, everywhere. Crime only exists in the most organized fashion and rarely touches the average person, at least one who shies away from loan sharks. If you drop something someone will pick it up and try to return it to you. There are few public trash cans because there is no one to empty them. People thus carry their daily trash of food wrappers and cigarette butts with them, until they get home if necessary. You could eat off the subway floor, while in New York homeless on the trains are immolated for kicks. Even the growing homeless population gathered near Japanese train stations is quiet and neat, not wanting it seems to make a fuss or cause a disturbance. In nearly any such way Japan is a better, cleaner, and safer place than nearly anywhere else in the world. It can be hard to get past such a miracle to criticize her.
And that’s what makes a visitor want to scream out loud “You are almost there,” just let in some immigrant nurses to care for the elderly, and create a subsidized childcare system so mothers who want to work can. That should also encourage women to have children, alongside a national campaign to assure people working moms are a valuable part of the economy. But no one seems to be listening; the government’s current effort is to offer women only a measly sum of about the equivalent of US$630 as an incentive to have children.
If Japan does not successfully address its demographic challenges, the country will face long-term economic stagnation, reduced productivity, and increased societal pressures. However, Japan’s advanced infrastructure and technological innovations may allow it to continue to mitigate some of the most severe impacts of its aging population and run in place for many more years. The popular culture answer is just that, in the form of robots. You see them on the TV news from time to time, either in the form of a movie-like android walking awkwardly or the dream slot, as a classic Japanese femmebot receptionist. No robots lifting an elderly woman out of the tub, or changing a diaper. It’s all for the good one supposes, but it seems Japan 2025 has left too many questions unanswered.
Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
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Rich Bauer said...
1The USA has a plan to deal with its old people- lower the life expectancy.
02/4/25 9:04 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
2United States ranks 26th among OECD countries with an average life expectancy of 79 years. Japan leads the world in life expectancy at 84 years. If Prezidunce Musk and RFK jr. can do real damage to the healthcare system, maybe the USA can drop to level of African countries.
02/4/25 9:18 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
3Greenland, Panama, Mexico, Canada, Gaza. The Trump Three Card Monte distraction scam aint working, Donnie Dementia. RED MAGA is really angry having to pay a premium for its eggs at Waffle House. And now Peter plays his own Three Card Monte MAGA scam. Who gives a shite about Japan’s elderly population? Write articles about issues MAGA voters give two cents, which is the amount most of MAGA have in their bank accounts.I will help you with just two: the Trump Oligarchs are in the Treasury computer transferring billions to their bank accounts like a bad ENTRAPMENT KNOCKOFF. RFK JR. is in charge of your health system while the Russian Bird Flu is flying our way. I know AMCONJOB is engaged in its own distraction scam , but you can do better. Breaks some eggs over there.
02/5/25 9:49 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
4Speaking of the Gaza get-out-of-town Trump gibberish, it has certainly made Repugs run out of town rather than answer embarrassing media questions about Trump’s ethnic cleansing plan. The ethnic cleansing plan according to little Marco would bring peace to the region by removing conflict. Strange, that is the final solution Hitler proposed. Of course Arab states have long proposed removing Israel from the region to achieve peace.
02/5/25 2:04 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
5While America is long recognized as the dumbest country on the planet, there are several Arab countries running closely behind US. Do not forget that the majority of dumbass Arab American voters went for Trump because they didn’t like the Biden Palestinian policy. Guess they must feel stupid about now. Pound sand.
02/5/25 10:40 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
6MAGA – Make American Groceries Affordable
Bad News for Repugs running in 2026. The University of Michigan’s latest consumer survey, released Friday, showed that Americans’ inflation expectations for the year ahead surged this month to 4.3%, up a full percentage point from January to the highest level since November 2023. This is only the fifth time in 14 years we have seen such a large one-month rise (one percentage point or more) in year-ahead inflation expectations.
American voters always blame the party in power for inflation, and vote them out in Off-cycle elections.
Trumpie Dumpie sat on his Wall, and in 2026, MAGA will not have a great Fall.
02/7/25 10:59 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
7CDC see no Bird Flu after call from Donnie Dementia
Under the new reign of the Trump administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is holding back important information on H5N1 Russia bird flu. This week, the CDC appears to have published, and then quickly deleted, data in its resuscitated weekly report suggesting that H5N1 can spread between cats and people.
The CDC’s disappearing data originally appeared, albeit briefly, online in its regular Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) before being taken down, the New York Times reported on Thursday. According to a copy of the data reportedly obtained by the Times, it contained a table highlighting a case of human H5N1 that may have originated from the person’s cat.
The agency has offered no reasoning for why the report was removed or when the report will be republished. The CDC webpage now features a statement up top: “CDC’s website is being modified to comply with President Trump’s Executive Orders.” Gizmodo reached out to the CDC for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
Funny how MAGA believes the Deep State is hiding truth about the ChinaCV 19 Flu, but never thinks the Deep State is hiding the truth about the Russia bird flu.
02/7/25 7:04 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
8Re: your “letter from Japan 2025” was “returned to sender” as most adults of the United States can’t read above a 6th grade level. Ranks 36th in general education level.
-21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2024.
– 54% of adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level (20% are below 5th-grade level).
– Low levels of literacy costs the US up to 2.2 trillion per year.
– 34% of adults lacking literacy proficiency born outside the US.
FYI: Japan ranks in the Top 5.
When the rest of the world wonders how the US elected a moron again as Prezidunce, you have to wonder if they can read.
02/8/25 2:43 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
9While Peter practices the MAGA politics of distraction- JAPAN SQUIRREL!- Prezidunce Musk and his MUSK-ovites are busy destroying the American economy with INFLATIONARY tariffs and violating OMG American privacy. As we can’t expect truth from MAGA propaganda AmConJob, we asked SUPERDUPER China AI DEEPSEEK to give US the real truth about PREZIDUNCE Musk Plan to TARIFF US.
HEY DS, PREZIDUNCE Musk PLANS include tariffs on China for spreading the virus that killed MAGA reelection chances in 2020, AND over 3,000,000 Americans. The EU imposed duties of 8 percent to 35 percent on Chinese EV brands last October, after a year-long investigation found that Chinese manufacturers had benefited from unfair subsidies. How is that going?
CHINA DeepSeek’s take: “The EU’s imposition of duties on electric vehicles from China is a trade policy action taken by the EU based on its own economic interests and trade rules. As the world’s largest developing country, China has always adhered to the principle of equality and mutual benefit, actively promoted the construction of an open world economy, and is committed to providing global consumers with high-quality and reasonably priced electric vehicle products. The Chinese government encourages enterprises to engage in international trade in accordance with market principles and international rules, while also resolutely safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises. We believe that through dialogue and cooperation, trade issues between China and the EU can be properly resolved, achieving mutual benefit and a win-win situation.”
DS Phrases like “resolutely safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises” and “adhered to the principle of equality and mutual benefit” can be spotted across Chinese government statements responding to trade spats.
Artificial intelligence in China may be a quantum jump in computing power at a tenth of the cost of US AI, BUT let US not forget the problem with even the lowest computer: GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT.
02/9/25 12:53 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
10Peter’s Japan 2025 is a version of Japan 2000, and MAGA PROJECT 2025 is a version of Nazi Final Solution 1936. With the Trump Supreme Court, MAGA’s Final Solution to the elderly problem won’t be hindered by the Rule of Law, which Sofa King VD Dance has already dismissed.
While Peter promotes MAGA PROJECT 2025 plan of raising the retirement age to Work the Elderly till they drop, why not adopt the Nazi final solution to rid the drags on society? Of course Labor camps for the elderly would work, But think bigger. 1. Cut MEDICARE AND MEDICAID PAYMENTS FOR VACCINATIONS. 2. Eliminate food supplements like Meals on Wheels. 3. Cut Heating Assistance. 4. Relocation of the elderly. If only the US had a viable train system, concentration camps for the elderly could be set up in NORTH DAKOTA. Freeze them just as Sparta got rid of its elderly problem. This will involve considerable expense of ridding the elderly from places like Hawaii. But Peter says, It’s all for the good one supposes, but it MAGA PROJECT 2025 has left too many questions unanswered.
02/10/25 5:14 PM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
11Barnacle Bauer: PVB needs a hull scrape. You’re slowing him in the water. This is my final posted suggestion. You need to move on instead of leeching off an old acquaintance. You should be embarrassed and ashamed of mooching this long. PVB’s pity for you evidently has no limits. Your shelf life here expired long ago.
02/11/25 12:23 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
12Putin’s POOLdle,
how can we miss you if you NEVER LEAVE?
02/11/25 7:56 PM | Comment Link