If Japan has a strong economy and is actually one of the most technologically advanced countries ever...

Japan is actually actively trying to keep the value of their currency low. And they aren't succeeding. They literally have all printing presses working full-time to print as much money as possible but the Yen keeps getting higher.

This in turn results in deflation which means less economic activity and that's bad for everyone.

They've been in this cycle since the 90s. It's because they don't invest into genuine new businesses which usually leads to some healthy inflation.

If these conservative fucks here in Japan just started to learn to spend their money faster on more consumer products they could actually create more inflation thus stimulate the economy and job creation.

But yeah Japan is fucked. I'm only here because their wages for Engineers are about 50-60% higher than in the US.

>If Japan has a strong economy and is actually one of the most technologically advanced countries ever, why is it's currency value not on par with like Euro, US Dollars?
It's public infrastructure is amazing. The culture breeds efficiency. The economy, however, has been stagnant for two decades. It's not the technoligcal center of the world anymore and hasn't been since the early 2000s

How is their market cap similar?

Kill yourself

Veeky Forums is a image board for >Discussion< please actually commit to discussing something if you post here.

Posts some actual arguments.

Muh exports

Do you also find a growing number of people around you are essentially living a subsistence lifestyle? They don't seem to have the salary to spend too frivolously nowadays. It doesn't even seem like they spend on luxury goods that often and I swear it's mostly the Chinese buying up the bloody stores.

their economy isn't growing because they have demographic rollover. studying japan closely will give clues as to what the US and world will face in the coming decades.

inflation doesn't create jobs. jobs create inflation.

they also have karoshi culture. when the old guard dies off, perhaps japan will reinvent itself. the BOJ is taking a play book from the various central banks. it's not working. stock markets are at all time highs and bonds at all time lows. something is going to snap.

There is a lack of investment into new innovating companies. Thus no new job creation thus no inflation. I don't think this has anything to do with the aging population. Considering how a lot of people that are "hired" and "working" basically serve as stage puppets that run around the office for 14 hours a day looking busy but don't actually do anything. Yes this is a real fucking thing and it's absurd.

Which is also another weak point. People don't fucking quit their jobs. There is this feeling of job security and your boss playing matchmaker hooking up 2 employees. Almost like the company is a clan or cult of some sort.

Even the younger people I work with with whom I have conversations from time to time don't think there is something wrong with this system and still think even with all it's flaws it's better than the "American business" of letting your employees go in hard times and you always having to watch your back over getting fired.

You are absolutely right about the BOJ propping up stocks with their forced QE that doesn't actually add any economic activity.

I don't spend a lot of time with other Japanese people except professionally and my Japanese girlfriend. But she shops and goes out dining all the time.

>It's the peoples fault the economy is failing because they're not spending money on frivolous shit they don't want.
Have you ever thought just maybe the economic system is broken.

>I don't think this has anything to do with the aging population.
disagree with this greatly. we will find out in 10 or so years as boomers get out of the US workforce. it's very clear that spending habits change as you age, and you spend less in your senior years. an obvious problem with economies depending on internal consumption for growth.

even if you count external consumption growth via exports, the entire wold is about to rollover by 2030. what then. we shall see.

japanese put huge emphasis on continuity and uniformity. reflected in their work culture. but the rise of freeters, hikkis, and unemployed shows that cultural mores are changing. it is inevitable downsizing will occur in shrinking economy, or reduced wages, or both.

Or they're ready for this widespread automation that is supposedly just on the horizon

automation means less employed.

less employed means less money to go around.

which would imply a deflationary environment.

it won't matter how many goods/services robots churn out if no one can afford whatever it is. only the robo related industries will grow. in which case, you are transferring prosperity in one sector to another. with a net result being indeterminable at this point in time.

unless we go the route of UBI.

This is really funny considering I am an Electrical and Electronics Engineer that actually works on electronics meant to automate some tasks in the workforce.

Things like cash registers. Electronic Ordering booths and the like.

Again in this respect Japan is pants on head retarded. If you've ever been to Japan you know that when you go to a ramen shop you actually have to pick your food from a digital system and then give that ticket to the reception/cook.

Well one product that was ordered was a digital "receiver" for those tickets that would then make a list on a screen for the cooks to see what was ordered. Which is absolutely insane and archaic as fuck.

Another thing was when cash registers are automated in Japan they still tend to retain the actual cashiers. which are just saying "irashai" when you go into the store and nothing else.

Japan doesn't know how to adapt to automation of already established jobs. They are only adapt at automating things that were never done by humans before.

Yeah. Welfare works a little differently in Japan. Usually you just get hired by a company and given a placeholder function like looking busy in the office for 14 hours a day without actually producing anything. That is the Japanese version of welfare.

In a total automation scenario I could completely believe it if Japan would still have all those useless jobs for the entire population all faking to be working even though everything is done by machines.

BOJ is decades ahead of anyone in QE

A yen is basically a penny

NEM is Japanese.

you are a fucking retard

automation means massive deflation which means your purchasing power increases exponentially

you might not work as hard, but your hours will be worth way more

it's basically how you don't have to work 20 hr days on the farm to feed yourself anymore

anyone scared of robots is or more automation is a clown

if you want to be scared of something be scared of the central banks not allowing deflation to appropriately ripple through the economy due to the debt burdens

that's just UBI. it's not too different from my office job right now. i actually do work. but maybe just half of my 8 hour day.

japan is just the future of industrialized societies. even if you think other countries will have a better adaptive response to automation, the populace will need to be placated and controlled somehow.

idle hands are dangerous hands. better to keep people "employed".

>massive deflation which means your purchasing power increases exponentially

YOU ARE THE FUCKING RETARD. LOOK MA, I CAN SWEAR TOO.

debt stays at a constant amount. 1 dollar owed now is 1 dollar owed in the future. in a deflationary environment, you earn less nominally but are indebted to the exact previous amount. this becomes a massive burden on every budgets from household, governmental and business.

that's by CBs are pursuing an agenda of inflation. that's the only way debt is serviceable. CB speeches and white papers explain their line of thinking very clearly.

If robots handle all the labor such that the only input to produce something is X capital and 0 labor, a persons income will be amount to how much capital they own and rent out.

Think of it like 10 people owning 10 robots who do all the work. You own whatever your robot produces, and can trade it with other people who's robots are producing other shit, so one guy's robot produces food for 10 people, one produces clothes for 10 people, etc. but you still have to trade, and if two people are producing clothes, the guys who makes the better threads gets all the business. We basically already reached that point. It's just a matter of robots becoming cheaper than the cheapest minimum wage wagecuck, and getting a societal mechanism in place so the capital ownership efficiently flows from one generation to the next.

The biggest problem is capital accumulation where the guy who's bots are making the most valuable thing ends up accumulating more capital in a positive feedback loop that feeds the oligarchy.