Inequality In Japan

[Mike Oxlong]

[Catoneinutica]

[SIZE="5"]Japan Tries to Face Up to Growing Poverty Problem[/SIZE]

More at NYT

My God - $17,000 a year on which to live and raise a kid (= 160,000 yen/yr = 105,000 yen/mo!). And having to work in a bento factory must make the newspaper delivery job seem like time at the spa]Out[/I] has a great description of the job.

http://www.amazon.com/Out-Novel-Natsuo-Kirino/dp/1400078377/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271983513&sr=8-1

The poverty statistic can't have been that big a secret; I'd heard about it a few years ago, as doubtless many other FGs did as well. Certainly the evidence is right before your eyes that salaries in this country are in a race to the bottom - how else can Japan compete with China? (Forget about competing against, say, Germany, which appeared to be a possibility back in the day; even S. Korea now seems to be leaving Japan in the dust.)

-catone
-the would-be uyoku over at Japan Probe like Danny "800-yen-for-a-web-developer" Choo will probably be all over the NYT story as just another example of "Japan bashing"

[james]

Yup, also i'm ready to bet that remote countryside people without indoor plumbing living happily and eating from their garden get included.

indoor plumbing? now this is something i'll have to look into.

[Mulboyne]

A new 2011 calculation or relative poverty (people living on less than half the median disposable income) has come up with a figure of 16%, which is 0.3 percentage points higher than the 2006 data. Since median income is higher in Japan than many other countries, that doesn't mean 16% are living in poverty but rather that inequality has seen a slight rise.

[Typhoon]

A big change from several years ago when a colleague in Osaka volunteered the information that there were no homeless in Japan.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

A big change from several years ago when a colleague in Osaka volunteered the information that there were no homeless in Japan.

I think you must have misheard him. I'm sure he must have been saying "there are no 'ho-less in Japan," meaning of course that anybody who wants to buy sex in this cuntry can do so freely."

Japan reminds me more and more every day of a Potemkin village...It's sort of like all those facades put up by the North Koreans, who are the successors to the Japanese colonial government, after all.

[matsuki]

I think you must have misheard him. I'm sure he must have been saying "there are no 'ho-less in Japan," meaning of course that anybody who wants to buy sex in this cuntry can do so freely."

LOL, I once had a j-bird tell me she thought whores are good because they ensure everyone can get laid and help prevent rape.

Japan reminds me more and more every day of a Potemkin village...It's sort of like all those facades put up by the North Koreans, who are the successors to the Japanese colonial government, after all.

Fake images in Japan? No......

[Samurai_Jerk]

LOL, I once had a j-bird tell me she thought whores are good because they ensure everyone can get laid and help prevent rape.

That's such a stupid fucking argument. Rape doesn't happen because people can't get laid.

[matsuki]

That's such a stupid fucking argument. Rape doesn't happen because people can't get laid.

Remember, this was coming from a J-girl's mouth. Somewhere in female reasoning, that makes sense to her.

[Greji]

Remember, this was coming from a J-girl's mouth. Somewhere in female reasoning, that makes sense to her.

I've heard a couple hold that same opinion. As
SJ says it wouldn't satisfy a serial rapists. Slipping ole pete in and firing off a shot, isn't necessarily what a serial rapist is searching for!

[matsuki]

wouldn't satisfy a serial rapists

...or those crazy cannibal rapists Japan seems to create.

[Catoneinutica]

A new 2011 calculation or relative poverty (people living on less than half the median disposable income) has come up with a figure of 16%, which is 0.3 percentage points higher than the 2006 data. Since median income is higher in Japan than many other countries, that doesn't mean 16% are living in poverty but rather that inequality has seen a slight rise.

"Median income is higher in Japan than in my other countries." This has a bit of a "Japan-Probe"-ish sound to it: despite all the bad news you've heard about Japan, median incomes there are still higher than those of a lot of other countries! Yay!

Half of the median income of 2.4 million yen is...about 100,000 yen/mo. That could be absolutely dire or survivable depending on your rent, I guess. A poverty rate of 16% puts Japan on par with the US, which, as everyone knows, is Inequality Central." And here economists used to admire Japan's low Gini coeffecient. It's just another third would schtinck-hole now.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

It's just another third would schtinck-hole now.

Yeah, maybe, but when we Japanese ooze toxic levels of radiation, we still do it better than anybody else in the world regardless of how much money we make (or don't make, as the case may seem...)

[Catoneinutica]

Yeah, maybe, but when we Japanese ooze toxic levels of radiation, we still do it better than anybody else in the world regardless of how much money we make (or don't make, as the case may seem...)

And don't forget Japan's ongoing contributions to the International Organization of Penicillin-Resistant Party Poopers! The latest:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/07/12/137797153/super-resistant-gonorrhea-strain-found-in-japan?ps=sh_sthdl

It was found in a huer's throat!

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

It was found in a huer's throat!

Wonder what she's been brushing her teeth with?

[Mike Oxlong]

[Greji]

Wonder what she's been brushing her teeth with?

Probably my johnson. Sounds like one of those leaping crud virus I've been incubating...

[matsuki]

[gaijinpunch]

But Japan seems to be doing just the opposite.

This could be the key phrase in just about every article on Japan's future.