Economy depelopment problem

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I found a news article saying that Japanese seriously takes foreign people's reactions and they can't hold their patriotic feelings without foreigners' words; this is why Japan is declining and declining.

Article
https://president-jp.translate.goog/arti...r_pto=wapp

[Delphinoid_]

By what metric is Japan declining? Japan is a culture powerhouse, and in that sense it's only growing. I believe it also still leads the entire Asia-Pacific region in the realm of science and mathematics as well. I even have some anecdotal evidence of this: around maybe 15-20% of the papers I read in the area of pure mathematics (純粋な数学) are from Japanese schools, which are of course globally very well-respected.

That being said, I don't like the importance that this news article you mentioned is placing on patriotism. My personal belief is that patriotism is something we're probably better off without, for the most part; after all, there's a very fine line between it and nationalism, and this line often gets pretty blurry.

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Updated the op

[Simon]

Pretty plain to see that Japan has an economy development issue (especially because you misspelt it in the thread name lol)

This graph only shows up to 2020 but according to other information sources, in 2023 Japan has fallen to 4th in GDP and their total is around $4.2trn

[Delphinoid_]

In response to the edit, I wouldn't really look to sensational / clickbait news articles for economic advice...

Anyway, so the really big advantage of economic growth is essentially in reducing poverty, which is relatively common in Japan (15% of the population in 2018, according to the OECD). Despite being the 4th largest in the world, it's true that Japan's economy is relatively stagnant, and this lack of growth probably plays a role in the country's relatively high poverty rates. That being said, it's worth mentioning that the United States has traditionally had a significantly higher rate of poverty (I think around 18% in 2018) despite their economic growth (and despite their patriotism, lol), so it's not the only factor. It's sort of hard to see where Japan stands today though, since the latest data is from all the way back in 2018, before the pandemic.

In any case, I'm not really very well-versed in economics, but I would say that the article's fixation on patriotism is not really a relevant or helpful attitude. That being said, I think it has a simpler message that probably shouldn't be ignored: "Japan is praised universally around the world, but shouldn't become complacent". I think this is probably a good message - Japan shouldn't let the endless praise it receives from other countries blind it to the numerous issues it faces, domestic or otherwise. But I don't know if this is something that actually happens in practice.

[Simon]

In response to the edit, I wouldn't really look to sensational / clickbait news articles for economic advice...

Anyway, so the really big advantage of economic growth is essentially in reducing poverty, which is relatively common in Japan (15% of the population in 2018, according to the OECD). Despite being the 4th largest in the world, it's true that Japan's economy is relatively stagnant, and this lack of growth probably plays a role in the country's relatively high poverty rates. That being said, it's worth mentioning that the United States has traditionally had a significantly higher rate of poverty (I think around 18% in 2018) despite their economic growth (and despite their patriotism, lol), so it's not the only factor. It's sort of hard to see where Japan stands today though, since the latest data is from all the way back in 2018, before the pandemic.

In any case, I'm not really very well-versed in economics, but I would say that the article's fixation on patriotism is not really a relevant or helpful attitude. That being said, I think it has a simpler message that probably shouldn't be ignored: "Japan is praised universally around the world, but shouldn't become complacent". I think this is probably a good message - Japan shouldn't let the endless praise it receives from other countries blind it to the numerous issues it faces, domestic or otherwise. But I don't know if this is something that actually happens in practice.

Not sure where you got those poverty numbers, I googled them and found that in 2021 Japan had a poverty rate of 15.4% and in 2022 the USA had 11.5%

[Delphinoid_]

Not sure where you got those poverty numbers, I googled them and found that in 2021 Japan had a poverty rate of 15.4% and in 2022 the USA had 11.5%

I mentioned where the data came from in my other post.

You shouldn't necessarily trust the first text that Google returns: if you look at the website it's scraping the figures for Japan from for instance, it's a super sketchy paywalled website that doesn't cite any sources (except vaguely implying they're from the OECD, which none of the numbers they present actually appear to be from). I believe the poverty rate of 11.5% in the US also uses a different metric for measuring poverty rather than the "standard" one used by the OECD (an income below 50% of the median); in any case I couldn't find any source for it.

You should double-check in case I'm being stupid, but the OECD documents a figure of 15.7% for Japan and 18.1% for the US in 2018, and has no figures for Japan past this period. Naively speaking this seems to be the most fair way of comparing the poverty rates, since domestic studies might use incompatible definitions of poverty or might be from different time periods.

I actually did make a mistake in my other post, since I thought the figure of 15.4% for Japan was what the OECD listed for 2018, but actually it seems to be 15.7% (so closer to 16%, not 15%). My bad!!

In any case, I guess I've sort of introduced an arguably irrelevant tangent. When I mentioned that the main advantage of economic growth was in reducing poverty, this seems to primarily be true of developing countries, and in retrospect the link between economic growth and poverty isn't so clear for developed countries (since the US has higher economic growth and higher poverty rates than Japan, if the OECD data is to be trusted). In this case, if one only cares about economic growth for the sake of it, there may still be value in emulating stereotypical American attitudes to improve it (although this seems incredibly naive). I'm also not really sure why this kind of growth would necessarily be so important; I think a stable economy seems like a very fine thing to have.

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I read the replies; I wonder why I made this thread.

[Camer the Dragon]

I read the replies; I wonder why I made this thread.

Well, better to discuss stuff if you're wondering than to just go "hm ye must be the case"

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Well, better to discuss stuff if you're wondering than to just go "hm ye must be the case"

Do you really think that one invidisual person can do something with this? I, as a member of social, still have been obeying my mother in mental disease for 24 years; I have discussed this on some other Discord servers and someone said me I had been brainwashed, someone said me I was really helpless, and so on;

I am paid 1106.24 USD (as today's rate) every month (tax included). I am realizing I am not allowed to change my career until big issue happens

[Simon]

Do you really think that one invidisual person can do something with this? I, as a member of social, still have been obeying my mother in mental disease for 24 years; I have discussed this on some other Discord servers and someone said me I had been brainwashed, someone said me I was really helpless, and so on;

I am paid 1106.24 USD (as today's rate) every month (tax included). I am realizing I am not allowed to change my career until big issue happens

1100 USD a month is not a livable wage....

yapping...

Damn 7 edits for the one post haha, you doing ok?

[Delphinoid_]

Do you really think that one invidisual person can do something with this? I, as a member of social, still have been obeying my mother in mental disease for 24 years; I have discussed this on some other Discord servers and someone said me I had been brainwashed, someone said me I was really helpless, and so on;

I am paid 1106.24 USD (as today's rate) every month (tax included). I am realizing I am not allowed to change my career until big issue happens

It depends on what you want to do... you should try not to let your family control your life, but obviously it's easier said than done, especially given that there are probably a lot of other factors involved that you can't talk about on a forum. I can only really repeat what I said on the other thread I guess, but try to do your best.

Damn 7 edits for the one post haha, you doing ok?

No