Japan's burgeoning class: Working poor

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stanoue at 01:38 PM JST - 2nd November

I enjoyed this article and many of the comments (not all). Especially Jean Colmar's - some persuasive arguments for socialism (note: DIFFERENT to communism)
nisegaijin at 04:36 PM JST - 2nd November

I spent 6 mothns without proper job, just doing crap IT projects. Almost saw my life flushed down the toilet as I finally got a job 1 month before my visa expiration so don't you dare telling me about morals. Did I blame society or government for it? Hell no!

WMD, if poor start riots and unrests like they did in Russia in 1917, I will arm myself and fight these bastards till I die.

I stand my ground: 99% of all poor are poor because of fault of their own and should not be burden of others. For 1% who really need it, charity should do the trick. I would contribute if I was not taxed to oblivion by this government.
RogueFive at 04:55 PM JST - 2nd November

Almost saw my life flushed down the toilet as I finally got a job 1 month before my visa expiration

Well well. Looks like someone sobered up enough to compete with the other pigeons.
Athletes at 08:18 PM JST - 2nd November

I want to agree with you nisegaijin. Some childern were killed by their own parents. Because they were born being poor. It was totally their fault. Their parents are innocent. At least you have dutiful and caring parents who raise you. When you were baby, you were depending on charity at that time. When you are old & frail, you may need the charity again. It is a life cycle.

As you said, 99% of poor are poor because of fault of their own. Some eldery lost their life time saving in the stock market crunch. It was their fault & we better let them starve. We do not need to look after the sick or disable people. Let them beg on the roads.

If you get a car accident & amputated, you can not expect the tax payer hand outs. You can go back to where u come from. Do not burden the society. Something in life are beyond our control. If you do not wish to help disadvataged that is fine. However you can not blame someone for their misfortune. Congratulation for your incredible achievement! You are someone special. I wish I am smart like you.
nisegaijin at 08:53 PM JST - 2nd November

I want to agree with you nisegaijin. Some childern were killed by their own parents. Because they were born being poor. It was totally their fault. Their parents are innocent. At least you have dutiful and caring parents who raise you. When you were baby, you were depending on charity at that time. When you are old & frail, you may need the charity again. It is a life cycle.

Well, we have social programs everywhere and are they helping? What are you saying? that we need even further distribution of wealth? What do you think will happen? My point is that 99% of people getting handouts are the lazy ones, those who choose to sit on their bottoms and do nothing. 1% are the ones who need those handouts are suffering because of them, not because they aren't taking enough from the rich.

Some eldery lost their life time saving in the stock market crunch. It was their fault & we better let them starve.

This was their choice to invest. I don't agree with golden parachutes either, and I think assets of the bust companies should be distrubuted along the clients, not executives.

We do not need to look after the sick or disable people. Let them beg on the roads. If you get a car accident & amputated, you can not expect the tax payer hand outs. You can go back to where u come from. Do not burden the society. Something in life are beyond our control.

It should be the matter of choice. Those who want to look after them can voluteer and donate. Government run social programs are not aimed at people who really need it. In addition, I must add, that for some reason you insit that these less fortunate people have zero responsibility and we should cash out because of their own fault. There are things called insurance companies that give you huge compensation if something happens to you. They cost peanuts but yet everyone chooses not to buy their policies. I am enrolled into 2 of them for vehicle and life, and i would gladly substitute crap government health insurance with a private one if i was allowed to do that, but government chooses to invade my freedom and tell me how to live by offering a very poor product.

If you do not wish to help disadvataged that is fine. However you can not blame someone for their misfortune. Congratulation for your incredible achievement! You are someone special. I wish I am smart like you.

I would love to help, but government is already taking that much so the amount i can donate is very limited. After all I am doing the responsible thing and saving money before starting family. For some reason many of the poor do not do this. No I am not special and your insulting ironic remarcs are less than impressive. In anycase I am just a believer in freedom of choice and free market capitalism where people are aware of their responsibilities. What is so difficult about this?
jeancolmar at 09:19 PM JST - 2nd November

The most interesting thing about this thread is the number of personal tales of poverty and unemployment. A recent posting by nisegaijin caught my eye. This is a poster who was thrown into the social snake pit of unemployment and managed to slither out. It should surprise no one that a person like this might have little compassion for his former fellow suffers. They were his enemies while he was trying to escape. Poverty and unemployment creates more monsters than saints. The "Wretched of the Earth" stuff is nice for slogans and inspiring songs, but it is most likely not the down and outs who will bring change but that fairly stable but dissatisfied part of the working class.

But if the day that the truly down and out people organize and shake the foundations of this rotten society ever comes it will be a day of miracles. That will mean that they have somehow transcended the snake pit and embraced a higher conscience. It could happen in Japan for all we know.

Thank you for the kind words, WMD and stanoue. Must add that I am only a professional journalist in my dreams. In my waking life I'm an ordinary joe just trying to make sense of things.
Athletes at 10:18 PM JST - 2nd November

nisegajin

I am sorry to hear that my comments insulted you. Actually I just praised your super wisdom & success. The rich will be rich. The poor will be poor. However the rich needs poor and poor needs rich too. Free market & free capitalism was a fairy tale which was history now. Wall street whiz kids got rich with other people hard earned cash. When the time was good, they prasied themselves for their management. When the time is bad, they just seeked the handouts from corrupted officials. Sub prime morgage crisis created the default loans which many never recover. US banks lost the investors confidence.

Lenders did not concern about the high risks of reckless lending. The result was a liquidation of banks. Banks do not trust each other anymore and easy credit become history. CEOs got huge pay out regardless of their betrayal of trusts to investors. Regardless of poor return & poor performance. They screwed other people savings for their interest.

After the Asia fiancial crisis, many asian countries made the prudential regulation for monitoring the public finance. Compare with states, their financial system is heathier & well regulated. Some insurance companies in states got broke and they can no longer pay the compensation for policy holders.

For that cases, policy holders will seek the help from tax payers too. Nothing in the life is guranteed. Market like a wild beast. Sometimes, it can be very wild. Controlling the beast is necessary. Druing the Asia financial crisis, Malaysia capped their currency with US dollars. They restricted the time limit of investment term. Indonesia & Thai requested IMF loan & followed free market & free capitalism rules. The former recovered shortly. The latter got social unrest, povety & high unemployments. For that case, poors & social unrest were created by bad directions, policies & advices.

Later on IMF admitted, their policies were very harsh & making market out of control. No system in this world is perfect. Socialism did not work. Free capitalism and free market did not work either! Civic society was not uncommon in Asia history. We care the sick, disabled & frail eldely. No one or no system can change our traditon. It is our way of life. If u live in that society, you have to adapt it. We can not adapt your wisdom.
555Book at 11:21 PM JST - 2nd November

Capitalism is definitely an ironic thing, when China partially embraced capitalism she was able to lift a huge portion of its population from abject poverty in a very short time span. But as evident in many developed countries, when capitalism was left to function fully on its own it will almost always create an increasing divide between the haves and the have not. It is quite obvious that such a widening divide is not sustainable in the longer term.

As mentioned in the article, the root cause of the rising working poor in Japan was the bursting of the economic buble some 20 years ago. In its effort to rescue to floundering economy back then, the government took on massive debt to pump prime the economy. Unfortunately the intented return from this big investment did not materialise. Since the economy did not perform well, the government wasn't able to collect enough tax revenues to pay off its debt, and that is why the tax rate in Japan has to remain high. That of course mean that the general public could not enjoy a higher spending power.

The other reason for the diminishing household income is the low interest paid to savings. The government really couldn't raise interest rates too much because that will cause the value of those government bonds (issued to finance the pump priming) to drop and cause some kind of systemic disaster in the financial market.

Then there are also issues related to the long delays in cleaning up bank balance sheets, overly conservative capital and credit markets, aging population, growing risk avoidance in business and a general pessimism among the people. As I understand, all these in some ways contributed to the growing poverty in Japan.
555Book at 11:32 PM JST - 2nd November

No system in this world is perfect. Socialism did not work. Free capitalism and free market did not work either!

Athletes, I fully agree with your above opinion. Some times, the problem really isn't so much with the systems, it is the people directing and operating the systems who are creating all these problems.
RakishGadfly at 01:14 AM JST - 3rd November

555Book;

> China partially embraced capitalism she was able to lift a huge portion of its population from abject poverty in a very short time span. But as evident in many developed countries, when capitalism was left to function fully on its own it will almost always create an increasing divide

Please - China is hardly the example of a country where capitalism is unbridled. The gap between haves and have-nots there is way worse than in any "capitalist" Western country.
RakishGadfly at 01:21 AM JST - 3rd November

This article, like may others in the news, shows that Japan is a country and society very much in transition, and a decline is only one possible outcome. The bubble bursting was only one trigger for this and the one that gets the most press, but the end of the Cold War was just as big and has had a significant and ongoing impact. Given the way the global economy is tanking, Japan's economy will also worsen but less so (in relative) terms than other countries, including its neighbours.
space_monkey at 01:10 PM JST - 5th November

I don't work in Japan. I started my own company, made a fully automated internet business and pick up a check every month. AND I DON'T SPEAK JAPANESE. If I can do it here anyone can. Young Japanese and the Japanese Government should focus on developing the entrepreneurial spirit that once made Japan so great. I went to a venture capital seminar that said VC is 3 times underfunded in Japan. That means if I want 100 yen I get 30. In contrast America is 3 times over funded. If I want to start a business and ask for a dollar I can get 3. The biggest problem is that Japan has endorsed a strict hierarchal slavitude system for thousands of years, whether it be their own citizens or foreign nationals. The governments recent labor laws have simply reverted the country to the way it has always been throughout time. The elite completely exploit the weak. Japanese are the best in the world at creating systems and processes to deliver excellent service. If they spoke English and new how to negotiate well with other nationalities in Particular lead, with their systems they could create some of the best global service businesses on earth. Look at Toyota's service model. They win on the efficiency of their after sales service. Hands down. Japan needs to develop young global entrepreneurs. It is so easy to do. Do it now.
romulus3 at 03:27 PM JST - 7th November

Bored with that life, Murasawa came to Tokyo two years ago in hope of landing a well-paying job.

how did he imagine that just having experience working in a vege shop would land him a good job in Tokyo? Go home buddy. Inherit the vege shop and settle for your lot in life.
clayton88 at 03:26 PM JST - 9th November

there is working poor in every country and these people deserve help more, not giving the rich more tax breaks
nisegaijin at 04:21 PM JST - 10th November

clayton88, haven't you thought that if rich didn't get more tax breaks, most of working poor wouldn't be able to work at all?