Irixmark Wrote:Interesting tidbit from the FT yesterday: ¥1000 invested in the Topix in 1985 would be worth exactly the same today, including inflation/deflation and dividends.

Wow, thats....not surprising for some reason.

I wonder if the fact that not many people have their fingers (in some form or fashion be it online brokering or mutual) in the stock market. Its been my perception that Japanese are fairly skeptical of the stock market to the point that the idea of trading on it seems foreign to them. I base this on the fact that I see little in the way of advertising for online brokering and/or services for it. It was only recently that Rakuten sent me something in the mail about their new stock exchange services. Most people if they were investing were buying JGBs because they were viewed as the most secure/trusted invest.

Flip it around and look at the US and even before the dotcom bubble, mid-middle class/upper middle class and up generally had some finger in the market. They had a professional broker which managed portfolios.

I don't know if theres a correlation between the two but its something interesting I have noticed over the past few years.

But I probably the real reason 1000yen in the Topix in 85 would still be the same today is because the asset bubble popped not but like 3-5 years later from then. They never really recovered (hence lost decade). Then 2008 happened and it basically fell back again.

It'll be interesting to see where Japan slides int'lly on the GDP ranking here in the next decade. The Euro's collapsing and that is going to be messy. Assuming that doesn't suck the entire globe in; China's asset bubble is popping/has popped and thats likely to put a huge dent in their progression and maybe even pull them back down someways. Its hard to say much with China though since their govt. BSs stats left and right.

here's an interesting counter article:

Edumacated fools

nadiatims Wrote:here's an interesting counter article:

Edumacated fools

An interesting blog article. Albeit the main focus was simply "Go to America?! Hah! Why would you want to go there? Look at this.."

I won't argue that American education is supreme at the undergrad level, because I think in general its mediocre. Although apparently graduate level is revered as something of its own based on the number of students coming to the US. Although I do find it amusing to argue strength of potential educations in the US vs Japan when most Japanese just sit back and cruise through college, barley making Cs. Thats not the point though.

I think really the point, when the topic of "Japanese not going abroad," comes up is that it shows a problem in exposure. You go abroad for international cultural exposure which many people (politicians and the public) believe is crucial if Japan wants to stand a chance at recovering back to its 2nd place in GDP and technological leader of the world. People in Japan look at the country and go "We haven't innovated anything lately. We haven't had any major companies grab the world by the collar and 'Hey, take a look at THIS!' like Sony, Panasonic, Toyota, etc. did in the 80's." Then they look for reasons why this isn't the case and compare it to other rising countries like South Korea, China, Singapore, India. In the numbers they see people doing well in English compared to Japan. They also see that many people in those countries are going abroad in college while Japan's numbers are continuing to fall. Whether or not any of this is the ultimate cause/solution to their problems is quite debatable, but Japan's data-mining the stats and these are the things that are staring them in the face.

South Korea, China, and Singapore all have trade dependency ratios far higher than Japan's. This is why their companies have been so aggressive in expanding abroad and placing a premium on people who can do business in foreign countries.

Japanese companies have always relied on their huge domestic market. If you look at their actual export and import dependency ratios (14 and 12% in 2010) you will see that the long standing idea that Japan is an export driven economy is a myth. I think this is a big reason why Japanese companies don't really care to hire people educated abroad, because the main focus of their resources has always been domestic rather than abroad (for most companies).

This is of course changing as the domestic market stagnates and shrinks. But for some reason middle management hasn't caught on to the need to focus abroad.

Trade openness (exports + imports / GDP) is directly related to economic size. The bigger a country's economy, the less it will trade with the outside world. The only real outlier here is China because it is more export-dependent than any economy its size in history.

Throughout Japan's economic boom years, the most important contribution to growth came from two sources: investment in "fixed assets" (meaning covering the country in concrete, building toll highways and shinkansen tracks etc), and exports. Can't do much of the first any more with debt of 200% of GDP, and to export you need to be competitive in manufacturing. Perhaps Japan needs internationally-trained people for that, perhaps it doesn't.

But you definitely need internationally-trained people for banking and financial services, and Japanese banks (being in better shape than their Western competitors) are investing heavily overseas. I wonder if the thread header also applies there.

What I do know though from friends is that Japanese banks in London are hiring foreigners, but that they're not fun to work at, that there is a noticeable glass ceiling, and that they take forever to take any decisions.

Irixmark Wrote:investment in "fixed assets" (meaning covering the country in concrete, building toll highways and shinkansen tracks etc).
...
Can't do much of the first any more with debt of 200% of GDP

Tohoku.

Sure its not "the entire country" but the whole area has been destroyed. Japan was mulling involving the private industry (Tax free economic zone was an idea flown out) but they'll need to figure out ways to pull people in (likely from abroad! Imagine that). But the whole thing has stalled as far as I can reason in the media. I think a few months ago I saw an article that said the govt. still hadn't decided WTF to do and its been a year.

Bureaucracy--it'll kill your country.

vix86 Wrote:

Irixmark Wrote:investment in "fixed assets" (meaning covering the country in concrete, building toll highways and shinkansen tracks etc).
...
Can't do much of the first any more with debt of 200% of GDP

Tohoku.

Sure its not "the entire country" but the whole area has been destroyed. Japan was mulling involving the private industry (Tax free economic zone was an idea flown out) but they'll need to figure out ways to pull people in (likely from abroad! Imagine that). But the whole thing has stalled as far as I can reason in the media. I think a few months ago I saw an article that said the govt. still hadn't decided WTF to do and its been a year.

Bureaucracy--it'll kill your country.

Everything happening around me suggests the contrary. I just went to 塩釜 last weekend, which was devastated by the tsunami, and almost all the buildings in the downtown area have been completely reconstructed.

However, railway infrastructure is being restored at a sloth's pace. A friend who lives in 石巻 (one of, if not the, most damaged areas hit by the tsunami) said that trains won't run between 石巻 and 仙台 for 1.5-2 years. However, I should add that she mentioned they're completely re-planning and redeveloping the path for the railway in preparation for future disasters.

vix86 Wrote:Bureaucracy--it'll kill your country.

Yep. Getting anything done in this country seems to require getting the stamp of approval of 10 different people (half of whom are just middle men). And ideas seem to flow along a very fixed vertical hierarchies meaning every assignment, idea, report, comes via the same direct supervisor. Maybe the same problem exists in western companies too though. But the loss in decision making speed is very tangible.