Tag: Japan

Tracking the Population Crisis

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/07/tracking-the-population-crisis.html

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Excerpt:

South Korea only had 18,988 births in May, 2023 which is the lowest births since the agency started compiling the data in 1981. This was a drop of over 5% from May 2022. The number of deaths in the country moved up 0.2 percent over the period to 28,958, resulting in a natural decrease in population by 9,970. South Korea is losing about 120,000 people per year and the total birth is about 230,000 per year which is down from 705,000 from 1990 to 1994 and 669,000 from 1995 to 1999. However, after the 1997-98 Asian Economic Crisis, the number plummeted to an average of 500,000 in the early 2000s.

Korea’s fertility rate dropped to a new low of 0.78, the lowest among countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and possibly the world.

Korea would need to triple its annual births to 700,000 per year to maintain and stabilize its population.

Statistics Korea expected people aged 65 and above will take up 20 percent of the population in 2025, marking a sharp rise from 18.4 percent estimated for this year.

The Korean government sees the next five years as critical to increasing fertility and salvaging the country.

Korea’s government is considering easing the burden of gift taxes exclusively for newlywed couples, by raising the minimum amount of cash they can receive from parents without being taxed to either 100 million won ($76,000) or 150 million won.

Several municipalities have also introduced similar programs. Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, held two couple matchmaking events in July for unmarried men and women who either live or work in the region. As a result, 39 couples found a match.

….

Japan is the world’s first “hyper-aged” country, where at least 21 percent of the population is older than 65, with projections predicting 40 percent of the population will be over retirement age by 2050.

Author(s): Brian Wang

Publication Date: 26 July 2023

Publication Site: Next Big Future

Japan’s average life expectancy continued to fall in 2022

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/07/28/japan/science-health/japans-average-life-expectancy-continued-to-fall-in-2022/?utm_source=pianoDNU&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=72&tpcc=dnu&pnespid=.OSLjdNc5ajLp.m_r0X2sv8P_x4boCkkhVA4AlsotBCV3z1GVBtRNwqnyK4YG0tktTnV

Excerpt:

The average life expectancy fell for both Japanese men and women for the second consecutive year in 2022, a health ministry survey showed Friday.

The average life expectancy last declined for both sexes two years in a row in 2010 and 2011.

In 2022, the average life expectancy for men fell 0.42 years from 2021 to 81.05 years, and that for women dropped 0.49 years to 87.09 years. The drops were “largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” a ministry official said.

According to the ministry, the reported number of people who died after getting infected with the coronavirus rose to 47,635 in 2022 from 16,766 in 2021.

The pandemic is seen to have shortened the average life expectancy in 2022 by 0.12 years for men and 0.13 years for women, larger than 0.10 years and 0.07 years, respectively, in 2021.

….

In 2022, Japanese women had the highest average life expectancy in the world.

Japanese men ranked fourth, down by one place from the preceding year. Switzerland ranked first, followed by Sweden and Australia.

Of Japanese men born in 2022, 75.3% are expected to live until 75, 25.5% until 90 and 8.7% until 95. The proportion of Japanese women who are expected to live until 75, 90 and 95 stands at 87.9%, 49.8% and 25%, respectively.

Publication Date: 28 July 2023

Publication Site: The Japan Times

Japan PM says country on the brink over falling birth rate

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-64373950

Excerpt:

Japan’s prime minister says his country is on the brink of not being able to function as a society because of its falling birth rate.

Fumio Kishida said it was a case of “now or never.”

Japan – population 125 million – is estimated to have had fewer than 800,000 births last year. In the 1970s, that figure was more than two million.

Birth rates are slowing in many countries, including Japan’s neighbours.

But the issue is particularly acute in Japan as life expectancy has risen in recent decades, meaning there are a growing number of older people, and a declining numbers of workers to support them.

Japan now has the world’s second-highest proportion of people aged 65 and over – about 28% – after the tiny state of Monaco, according to World Bank data.

Author(s): George Wright

Publication Date: 23 Jan 2023

Publication Site: BBC

Japan Has Economic Choices, Two of Them are Poison

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://mishtalk.com/economics/japan-has-economic-choices-two-of-them-are-poison

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1. Japan can defend its interest rate line by printing more money but at expense of the yen 

2. Japan can defend the yen by hiking rates or by selling its reserves until reserves run out

Japan has a nasty choice 

I received this email reply to the above Tweet from Michael Pettis.

“Looks right. I’d add that by weakening the yen, Japan seems always to support their exporters at the expense of their consumers, which may be why domestic demand is always so weak and growth so sluggish.“

The smart thing for Japan would be to hike rates and let the Yen strengthen. 

Instead, if they stay on the same path, the yen might blow up.

All of Japan’s efforts to achieve growth by inflation and exports have backfired. One might think that after 40 years they would try something else.

The single worst choice for Japan would be to blow its currency reserves in an attempt to defend both the Yen and its interest rate peg.

Author(s): Mike Shedlock

Publication Date: 22 Jun 2022

Publication Site: Mish Talk

A Filmmaker Imagines a Japan Where the Elderly Volunteer to Die

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/17/world/asia/japan-plan75-hayakawa-chie.html?smid=url-share

Excerpt:

The premise for Chie Hayakawa’s film, “Plan 75,” is shocking: a government push to euthanize the elderly. In a rapidly aging society, some also wonder: Is the movie prescient?

TOKYO — The Japanese film director Chie Hayakawa was germinating the idea for a screenplay when she decided to test out her premise on elderly friends of her mother and other acquaintances. Her question: If the government sponsored a euthanasia program for people 75 and over, would you consent to it?

….

Close to one-third of the country’s population is 65 or older, and Japan has more centenarians per capita than any other nation. One out of five people over 65 in Japan live alone, and the country has the highest proportion of people suffering from dementia. With a rapidly declining population, the government faces potential pension shortfalls and questions about how the nation will care for its longest-living citizens.

….

Aging politicians dominate government, and the Japanese media emphasizes rosy stories about happily aging fashion gurus or retail accommodations for older customers. But for Ms. Hayakawa, it was not a stretch to imagine a world in which the oldest citizens would be cast aside in a bureaucratic process — a strain of thought she said could already be found in Japan.

Euthanasia is illegal in the country, but it occasionally arises in grisly criminal contexts. In 2016, a man killed 19 people in their sleep at a center for people with disabilities outside Tokyo, claiming that such people should be euthanized because they “have extreme difficulty living at home or being active in society.”

Author(s): Motoko Rich

Publication Date: 17 June 2022

Publication Site: NYT

Tokyo’s ‘oldest man’ had been dead for 30 years

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-10809128

Excerpt:

He was thought to be the oldest man in Tokyo – but when officials went to congratulate Sogen Kato on his 111th birthday, they uncovered mummified skeletal remains lying in his bed.

Mr Kato may have been dead for 30 years according to Japanese authorities.

They grew suspicious when they went to honour Mr Kato at his address in Adachi ward, but his granddaughter told them he “doesn’t want to see anybody”.

Police are now investigating the family on possible fraud charges.

…..

But the family had received 9.5 million yen ($109,000: £70,000) in widower’s pension payments via Mr Kato’s bank account since his wife died six years ago, and some of the money had recently been withdrawn.

Publication Date: 29 July 2010

Publication Site: BBC

Fermat’s Library – Japanese Banking Numerals

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/fermatslibrary_japanese-contains-a-separate-set-of-numerals-activity-6888483726783717376-O8n4

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Japanese contains a separate set of numerals used in legal and financial documents to curb fraud by preventing someone from adding strokes to previously written numbers (e.g. turning a 1 into a 2, or changing 3 to a 5).

Author(s): Fermat’s Library

Publication Date: 17 Jan 2022

Publication Site: LinkedIn

Japan’s older population hits record high

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/09/20/national/japans-older-population-hits-record-high/

Excerpt:

The estimated number of people aged 65 or older in Japan stood at a record high of 36.4 million as of Wednesday, an increase of 220,000 from a year before, the internal affairs ministry said Sunday.

The share of those aged adults in the nation’s total population rose to a record 29.1%, the highest among 201 countries and regions across the world.

Older men totaled 15.83 million, or 26% of the total male population. There were 20.57 million elderly women, or 32% of the female population.

The ministry released the data ahead of Respect for the Aged Day on Monday, a national holiday.

In Japan, the share of aged people has been rising since 1950. The figure is expected to rise to as high as 35.3% in 2040 when the so-called second baby-boomer generation, or people born in the early 1970s, reaches the age of 65 or older, according to the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research.

Publication Date: 20 Sept 2021

Publication Site: The Japan Times

Inequality, not gerontocracy — Who killed interest rates?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://doctorow.medium.com/inequality-not-gerontocracy-fbd7d012ba4a

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The received wisdom among economists is that the US’s historical low interests rates are driven by high savings by aging boomers who are getting ready for, or in, retirement.

The idea is boomers have salted away so much cash that banks don’t bid for their savings, so interest rates fall.

But at last week’s Jackson Hole conference, a trio of economists presented a very different explanation for low interest, one that better fits the facts.

…..

So we can’t really say that low interest rates are being caused by an aging population with high retirement savings, because while the US population is aging, it does not have high savings. Quite the contrary.

And, as Robert Armstrong points out in his analysis of the paper for the Financial Times, even in places like Japan, with large cohorts of retirees and near-retirees who do have adequate savings, rates are scraping bottom.

…..

So why are rates so low? Well, the paper says it is being caused by high levels of savings — just not aging boomers’ savings. Rather, it’s the savings of the ultra-wealthy, the 1%, who are sitting on mountains of unproductive capital, chasing returns.

Author(s): Cory Doctorow

Publication Date: 1 September 2021

Publication Site: Cory Doctorow at Medium.com

GPIF treads water as ESG picks up pace

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.pionline.com/pension-funds/gpif-treads-water-esg-picks-pace

Excerpt:

The world’s largest pension fund had charted a course for sustainable investing, but the Government Pension Investment Fund, Tokyo, is now treading water.

After taking the helm of the world’s biggest pension fund as CIO in 2015, Hiromichi Mizuno sought to turn GPIF into a fund that — as one Harvard Business Review article put it — tried to “change the world” through its approach to environmental, social and governance investing.

However, the $1.63 trillion fund — constrained by stricter legal restraints than its peers — has largely been quiet on impact investing since Mr. Mizuno was succeeded in April 2020 by Eiji Ueda. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the global push toward ESG themes and GPIF’s peers around the world have cut fossil-fuel investments and threatened to pull funds from firms that fail to meet ethical standards.

Author(s): Bloomberg

Publication Date: 12 April 2021

Publication Site: Pensions & Investments

Covid-19 Virus Studies Yield New Clues on Pandemic’s Origin

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-virus-studies-yield-new-clues-on-pandemics-origin-11614594600

Excerpt:

At least four recent studies have identified coronaviruses closely related to the pandemic strain in bats and pangolins in Southeast Asia and Japan, a sign that these pathogens are more widespread than previously known and that there was ample opportunity for the virus to evolve.

Another new study suggests that a change in a single amino acid in a key component of the virus enabled or at least helped the virus become infectious in humans. Amino acids are organic compounds that form proteins.

Public-health officials say it is critical to identify the origin of the pandemic to take steps to avert future outbreaks, though it may take years to do so. These latest pieces of research add to evidence that the virus, called SARS-CoV-2, likely originated in bats and then evolved naturally to infect humans, possibly through an intermediary animal.

Author(s): Betsy McKay

Publication Date: 1 March 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

Everybody Says Higher Interest Rates Are Coming … But When and By How Much?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ai-cio.com/in-focus/market-drilldown/everybody-says-higher-interest-rates-coming-much/

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Absent that nightmare scenario—and most prognosticators believe science can vanquish any of COVID-19’s shape-shifting—the conventional Wall Street wisdom is for better days ahead on both the health and the economics fronts. And since escalating rates are co-dependent on an improving economy, a sunny thesis appears pretty solid.

Historically speaking, low rates like today’s are an aberration. Thus, at some point, it’s reasonable to assume they will return to normal. Or at least to higher than now, to a degree. A new normal that’s hardly towering.

Author(s): Larry Light

Publication Date: 9 February 2021

Publication Site: ai-CIO