[gydfi]

Japan is going pretty well last I checked. It's one of the few places that is successfully transitioning to a lower birth rate via population shrinkage rather than mass immigration, enabling them to maintain their own culture and people.

[csa]

Serious question... do you or have you recently lived in Japan?

Japanese people don't think things are going so well.

Many knowledgeable non-Japanese don't think that things are going so well.

My personal take is that Japan is taking a huge gamble by taking on a massive amount of debt relative to their GDP. The piper will need to be paid at some point.

John Mauldin had described the Japanese economy as a bug in search of a windshield. Based on what my Japanese friends in the financial sector say, they agree. Everyone is just crossing their fingers now and hoping that something... anything... happens to force a redirect. No one is quite sure what this will look like (I personally think yen will take a big hit, but that's just a guess).

[rangibaby]

I have lived in Japan since I was a teenager and people have been predicting an economic collapse leading to the end of Japan since before then.

Not saying that you're wrong but it's not the first time I have read that comment.

[csa]

Agreed. This demise had been predicted for a LONG time.

Trying to time a short has always been a fool's game. I don't think it's different this time.

That said, I don't see any reason on the ground to be optimistic at all.

[konceptz]

I've been told that the olympics in 2020 is one such possible happening.

[thaumasiotes]

Well, for a very unintuitive value of "maintain their own people". A low birth rate has pretty direct effects on that.