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  mareo2 at 01:41 PM JST - 25th November

  For some reason, these depopulation talk rememberme when some president said that let the forests burn to ground is just fine because is natural. Or like when some people say that they dont give medicine to their sick kid, because if live or die is the will of God. With the logic that depopulation is good, then war is super good, because we make more space for the survivors. When there is few food for everyone, whe share and find a solution, we dont say that can be better if there are less humans and give ideas about killing weak members is the best for our survival, thinking that is just natural that the strong live and the weak die. That is wrong, because we are humans and that is immoral. Lets supouse that you dont like war, do you support a one child per couple policy like in China for all the nations?

  Sorry, but I think that these idea have not further thinking beyond just provide an excuse against inmigration.

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  mareo2 at 01:48 PM JST - 25th November

  BTW, I forgot to ad that I am still waithing an answer to the pension problem. One that dont imply retire to a poor country with my savings.

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  nigelboy at 01:59 PM JST - 25th November

  BTW, I forgot to ad that I am still waithing an answer to the pension problem. One that dont imply retire to a poor country with my savings.

  The problem with your "solution" is that it's rather short sighted. Temporary infusion of immigrants will no doubt increase the tax revenue but again, these same people will also get older and the burden again passed on to the next generation without addressing the core of the argument which is making Japan a economically feasible country to raise children. Also, I also want to add that the social cost of integrating newly immigrants should also be considered like education and social services which may negate all the so-called positive revenue gained from these immigrants.

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  mareo2 at 04:30 PM JST - 25th November

  A very inteligent argument nigelboy. I fully agree with some of your points. Yes, the root of the problem is the cost of education. But in my humble opinion...

  1 - The cost of integrate the immigrants is maybe less of the cost of the current guest workers system sending part of their salaries abroad in place of keep all the money in J if they immigrate. Lets remember that the money these people send abroad surpass what 1th world nations expend in economic help for poor countries.

  2 - If the new citizens dont have enough kids, we bring more workers. Like it or not, most DDD jobs allways are going to be filled with immigrants that barely speak the language.

  3 - Even if LDP stop being so apatic and fix the cost of the education problem today, there is a gap of 18 years between the fix and get that millions of japanese workers ready to fill the factories. We still need that the people that work hard and pay taxes be more than the number of retired japanese. If these is a short fix or not depend of if we can change the cost of education or not.

  Conclusion: I dont say that is a miracle that fix everything, Im not that idealist, is an imperfect solution, just like democracy. If someone have a better idea we can discuse it. Until then these is the best that we have. But I dont think that do nothing is the best choice, in special with a gov that lost 50 million records of the pension system.

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  jaybeeb at 08:44 PM JST - 26th November

  JeffLee, immigration can be a controlled process, as it is in Canada. The government decides who gets in. They either have money or desired skills. think about that for a minute.

  I agree depopulation is good. But a carefully controlled decline should be the goal and the only way top accomplish that is to have a controlled immigration system

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  illsayit at 09:00 AM JST - 27th November

  Ok so for the regulation on population, how about providing condoms, or the pill or abortions from taxpayers money?

  But what is this foreigners saying to decline, when Ive noticed Americas population curve slanting up recently, so what is this? More of, use the other countries peoples for manual labor attitude, while y'all, sit back and cruise and have plenty of sex?

  You can not control population and not have reciprocations. You are talking about the fundamnetal roots of what a human is and how humans relate, if you dont want to exist, dont have sex. And how are you going to regulate that? There is plenty of people who would like children and cant. There is plenty of people who also choose not to have children. I think it could be made easier for women to have children, but I dont think they will have to do that, I think a increase of births will come along. I think immigrants are wanting more immigrants, so they have more political voice. I also think there is plenty of support for women workers. There is too, plenty of support for women having children actually.

  All them "Gals" growing up, I thank! They are good at some things!

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  YuriOtani at 01:18 PM JST - 27th November

  I do not see a declining population as a bad thing for Japan. A lower population Japan would import less fuels and food. Our new robot tech will make up for a lack of unskilled and skilled workers. I Japan as it has become and not turn over our future to a group of foreign people.

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  mareo2 at 02:04 PM JST - 27th November

  Hmm... I think that some of us still dont get the picture. These is about taxes for the pension. Less babies means less workers, less workers means less taxpayers. Less taxpayers means that we have to raise the taxes for a shrinking taxpayers group, and lower the services to a growing retired group. These is a snowball, it keep growing over time, because advance in science make people live longer and raise a family is very expensive for the education costs like nigelboy pointed before. Robots are expensive and very especialized machines. If you visit a factory they are delivery carts or stationary arms with very precise and repetitive movements. Only big companies can afford automation. Is cheaper move the factory to China and more important, robots dont pay taxes for the pension system. If the gob tax the robots it only make more atractive move the jobs abroad. We can replace immigrants with robots and be happy of a japanese pure blood only country if you like it, but how we are going to get the money for the pension system? We are going to waith, until the work and taxes are so heavy, that the young people say that is a good idea that old people just die, when they can no longer work, because is a burden to the nation?

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  GJDailleult at 02:21 PM JST - 27th November

  mareo2-you are fighting a good fight but it is a losing battle. The issue has nothing to do with population growth, depopulation, population density, or all the other stuff that people have written posts about here. The problem is the age distribution within the population. And like you said, most people still don't get that picture.

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  illsayit at 02:42 PM JST - 27th November

  population distribution, or money distribution? I still think that the rise in in population density that is "needed" you will start to see a change in your graph line soon. No thanks to yous sitting on your butts here though

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  taniwha at 08:04 PM JST - 27th November

  Under the present system of nation states it is unlikely that Japan will ever find a solution to the conundrum that is needing an ever growing tax paying and therefore employed population, and not wanting to upset the epic myth that is nihonjinron. Nihonjinron for Japan supplies reason to need to protect Japanese from foreignness.

  In essence though, the real obstacle remains nationalism and what it defends, and that basically, is right of a governed population to grab as many resources as it possibly can before any other governed population from outside the boundaries of the nation can do the same. And of course to find enemies amongst neighbouring nations who compete for the same resources, convincing the local population that the threat from outside is real and reason to protect itself by pulling closer together for 'the common good'.

  So Japan will like it did in its past and like other nation states have been doing and others are about to do, will turn ultimately to military aggression. Dismantle nation states and there will be no more wars between nations. Not necessarily peace around the world but definitely no large scale conflicts like those we have witnessed and the even larger ones we soon will be witnessing.

  Japan will not collapse into the sea if it opens its borders. Rather it will survive and prosper. The alternative is rather grim.

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  gonemad at 02:55 AM JST - 28th November

  The issues are too complex for a short comment, but let me throw in some thoughts:

  Japan has quite a low employment rate for women and a lot them have comparably high education. Increasing the working rate among women can probably easily compensate any effects of a population decrease.

  Sucking highly-skilled workers out of poor countries leaves the burden of education to the poor countries while hampering their economic development at the same time. Both, industrialized as well as poor countries, would be better off in the long term if people with good education would remain in the poor countries to bring forward economic development there. Industrialized countries would benefit indirectly through larger markets for their products. Note that Japan is by far not the only industrialized country with a low birth rate.

  Statistically, birth rate is inversely proportional to prosperity. Throwing money at the "problem" by reducing costs, taxes or whatever for the parents or giving subsidies won't work.

  Immigrants, if integrated into society, increase cultural diversity as well as international communication channels. The former fosters creative solutions while the latter opens opportunities for economic exchange. Looking back in history, almost all progressive nations have been those with strong immigration or intermingled people with different cultural background. On the other hand, if society does not succeed in integrating the immigrants, the of losses through internal conflicts will prevail. Opening the doors for immigrants should be beneficial for Japan, but there must be a concept in place how to integrate those immigrants.

  Although I'm not overly pessimistic about the number of people the earth can bear, sooner or later the plastering of system-inherent economic problems by population growth won't work any more and many if not most countries will have to tackle with decreasing populations. Japan could take a profit as a frontrunner in developing smart strategies.

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  Simon_Foston at 08:09 AM JST - 28th November

  Personally I don't see the need for more immigrant workers to solve the shrinking workforce problem while Japan has so many people doing dead-end, useless jobs. In a typical branch office of a regional bank, for instance, there are typically dozens of people bustling about around the desks behind the counter, whereas in other countries those banks would have merged about fifty years ago and they'd be employing far fewer staff. There are countless shop assistants standing around all day in tiny shops that are all the same as each other - they all sell the same overpriced crap and none of them are making any money. If all these people and others like them were actually doing something worthwhile and not wasting their own time there wouldn't be such a big problem. Having said that, there should always be opportunities for immigrants who can and want to work in Japan.

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  ESJ8341 at 05:13 PM JST - 28th November

  Imagine if there was a Wallmart near the local train station. One of the big mother ships that sell and do everything. Oh, boy.

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  Simon_Foston at 10:30 PM JST - 28th November

  Imagine if there was a Wallmart near the local train station. One of the big mother ships that sell and do everything. Oh, boy.

  Ah, but there won't be. The various small retail business associations (or whatever those losers call themselves) will be able to pull enough strings with their politician and bureaucrat pals to make sure that such a thing never happens.

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