https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-63830490
"In Japan, houses are like cars.
As soon as you move in, your new home is worth less than what you paid for it
and after you've finished paying off your mortgage in 40 years, it is worth
almost nothing.
It bewildered me when I first moved here as a correspondent for the BBC - 10
years on, as I prepared to leave, it was still the same.
This is the world's third-largest economy. It's a peaceful, prosperous country
with the longest life expectancy in the world, the lowest murder rate, little
political conflict, a powerful passport, and the sublime Shinkansen, the
world's best high-speed rail network.
America and Europe once feared the Japanese economic juggernaut much the same
way they fear China's growing economic might today. But the Japan the world
expected never arrived. In the late 1980s, Japanese people were richer than
Americans. Now they earn less than Britons.
For decades Japan has been struggling with a sluggish economy, held back by a
deep resistance to change and a stubborn attachment to the past. Now, its
population is both ageing and shrinking.
Japan is stuck."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
