
Japan's population is falling faster than ever before - artsandsci
http://www.businessinsider.com/japans-population-falling-faster-than-ever-before-2017-7
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neilwilson
And yet GDP per head continues to grow.

Funny that isn't it. It's almost like the Japanese have invested in robotic
automation, high quality public infrastructure and using older people to best
advantage.

~~~
burkaman
Wouldn't you expect GDP per capita to grow as population shrinks? Why do you
say "and yet"? The top 10 countries by GDP per capita are all small or tiny.

~~~
MR4D
That a natural thought, but there are several complexities that make it
unusual (possibly even unlikely):

For instance, infrastructure is a fixed cost. All the investment into roads,
power grid, rail, airports, waterways, etc is now spread over fewer people.

Since public projects are usually debt funded, that usually means that fewer
people have to shoulder the same debt burden.

When more of a person's income goes to servicing debt, then by definition,
there is less for savings and investment. Less investment usually leads to
less growth.

And here is where Japan is unique - they have managed to adjust to the debt
servicing, and get better at allocating their investments to provide for a
growing GDP per capita. Even more interesting is that their growth per capita
in the first part of this century outstripped both the US & Germany
([http://www.economist.com/node/10852462](http://www.economist.com/node/10852462))
- and the US was in a Fed-induced bubble at the time!

~~~
teslabox
> And here is where Japan is unique - they have managed to adjust to the debt
> servicing,

Japan has recently been using its bank to capture more of the interest
payments on its debt:

"Japan has found a way to write off nearly half its national debt without
creating inflation. We could do that too."

Sovereign Debt Jubilee, Japanese-Style -
[https://ellenbrown.com/2017/06/27/sovereign-debt-jubilee-
jap...](https://ellenbrown.com/2017/06/27/sovereign-debt-jubilee-japanese-
style/)

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neiwikl
Why is that bad? Should population on earth increase indefinitely? We are
already too many. What about overpopulation? I also take a declining
population over mass immigration, it has teared my country apart.

~~~
pishpash
Declining population and deflation and abundance and no work are not bad at
all. They are just bad for capital.

~~~
notadoc
Deflation is the endless terrifying boogieman of economists and academics and
drives the constant obsession with creating inflation by central banks. Prices
coming _down_? Oh dear, we can't possibly have that!

~~~
Osiris
I used to think that also until I studied economics in college. If you don't
understand how deflation can be a bad thing, I suggest spending some time
reading up on it. Deflation isn't just about prices drop while all else
remains equal.

~~~
pishpash
Economists and psychotics are the only creatures who, when they and the
universe do not agree, believe that it is not they who are wrong but the
universe.

More to the point, you may not want uncontrollable deflation just like you
don't want uncontrollable inflation, those are system instabilities due to
feedback. But a controlled deflation that responds to long-run demographics
and economic reality is no problem. In fact, forcing the opposite is stupid.

~~~
MaysonL
_But a controlled deflation that responds to long-run demographics and
economic reality is no problem._

Except for people with mortgages or student loans to pay.

~~~
pishpash
They can refinance just like they refinance now to a lower rate.

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xbmcuser
Most Western countries would have gone the same route if not for immigration
and high birth rates amoung immigrants. Last month US birthrate fell below
replacement rate despite immigrants if you take out immigrants us population
is also declining.

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tcbawo
Are there any studies of the effect of falling population on the capitalistic
model? It seems that much of our assumptions about the incentives of
inflation, interest rates, etc. presume a slowly increasing population.

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autokad
i have always theorized that a population decline first yields a boom, and
then a strangling almost impossible to end bust to follow.

I imagine it like this, say everyone but you died. you'd have all sorts of
crap, you would virtually have anything you wanted. but with no people to make
food, stuff, medicine, keep things running, eventually you have virtually
nothing.

I have always believed the great depression was the result of a population
decline from ww1 and Spanish flue that lead to the roaring 20s, followed by a
bust that was only put to a close by the end of ww2

~~~
pishpash
No. "You" would just make the things you need, slowly. Why would you have
virtually nothing?

~~~
Robotbeat
Because after everything starts rusting and decaying, you're left with just
what you're able to maintain as an individual. Which is to say, you'd be
approaching iron age technology after, say, 70-80 years.

There'd be plenty of metals all around, but, without a technological society
to maintain them, almost all machines will have decayed beyond usefulness by
that point.

There's a strong benefit from division of labor and economies of scale that
would bite you HARD if you're all by yourself.

Anti-globalism and population decline together would slice and dice up useful
populations to the point where you'd get strong negative productivity curves
as time went on.

Slight population decline combined with increasing globalism and automation
isn't too bad. Until you get to the point where you have an incredibly aged
population. That starts to bite hard as it still takes people to take care of
the elderly. So either productive people have to spend their time primarily
taking care of the elderly (instead of inventing things and building things
and growing the economy) or the elderly go without care. Neither are very
good.

If we get increasing and arbitrarily good automation and AI, it's not so much
a problem. The robots take care of the elderly, and human beings gradually
decline in population to be replaced by sentient AI. But I guess that's still
a problem if you don't want humans to become extinct.

~~~
pishpash
You may not have experienced overpopulation. There is a point beyond which
negatives outweigh the positives. Many people in the Old World feel they would
like to live with more space between people. One person left is not a useful
extremum to consider, but population declining to early 20th century levels is
arguably good for everybody.

~~~
Robotbeat
I don't buy that. The problem in the third world isn't over population but
under development.

~~~
xbmcuser
It is population growth speed that hurts the third world most as the
population increase to fast for development to keep pace. But overall high
population is a big problem people in the western/first world use atleast 10
times the electricity per person compared to the third world. First world
population is 1 billion third world population is 7 billion. Similar is for
other resources as the economic situation improves for these 7 billion they
will put larger strain on all resources which are finite.

~~~
Robotbeat
Hardly finite. Do you realize how much solar energy hits the Earth every
second?

Provided we transition to clean energy (as we're doing) and electrify
everything especially transport, there are plenty of resources.

And there definitely aren't 7 billion in the third world.

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notadoc
The same demographic trend is projected to hit the USA if the USA doesn't
negate it with immigration.

Really the entire industrialized modern world has shrinking or stagnant
population growth. Educated people are having less children (if any) and later
in life.

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thriftwy
You can't really negate it with immigration, can you?

Immigrants are going to retire too, and when they do, you're stuck with even
more old people and still not enough working-age people for modern economy to
function. Immigration is like going into debt to sustain quality of life.

Worse yet, you can end up with "illegal" elderly with zero savings. That would
make for a miserable sight.

Edit: Is the idea to sustain the ever growing population anyway? Until what?

~~~
notadoc
> You can't really negate it with immigration, can you?

Well from a purely numerical standpoint, yes you can.

> Worse yet, you can end up with "illegal" elderly with zero savings. That
> would make for a miserable sight.

That describes a huge number of native elderly in the USA too. Most elderly
rely on social security entirely.

~~~
solidsnack9000
> > You can't really negate it with immigration, can you?

> Well from a purely numerical standpoint, yes you can.

Not forever, though -- eventually everyone will immigrate.

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pyroinferno
This is not a bad thing considering how overpopulated Japan is.

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intopieces
Over populated? By what metric? Looking at a list of country by population
density, Japan barely cracks the top 40:

[https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_popul...](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density)

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wintyfreshhh
The article describes a 0.2% annual loss. Is that so bad?

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muninn_
I think it's good. We don't need more people on the planet. We need to build
sustainable populations and economic models. Growth! Growth! Growth! isn't
needed right now. It probably won't be needed unless/until we move people to
live on Mars.

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gorkonsine
I actually disagree a little bit. I think too many people could possibly drive
demand for more development in space. Instead of Mars, what we really should
be doing is mining the Moon and the asteroids, and building gigantic rotating
space stations. Theoretically, we could house a nearly infinite number of
people that way, with artificial habitats optimized for human living unlike
the planet we're on now.

Population stagnation could potentially lead to worldwide cultural stagnation,
which would result in humans never getting off the planet and eventually
getting wiped out somehow.

~~~
muninn_
> Population stagnation could potentially lead to worldwide cultural
> stagnation, which would result in humans never getting off the planet and
> eventually getting wiped out somehow.

I understand the population piece, but I don't understand the cultural piece.
Japan has stagnated, and it's clearly culturally vibrant. On the other hand,
the United States brings in immigrants and is growing, yet I'm constantly
scolded and reminded that I have no culture since I'm just a white person.

Oh, and back to the population piece. We're approaching 8 billion. How do you
feel about, say, 3-4 billion? I mean, it seems like that's a pretty good
number of people to get things done. We'd have less people doing menial work
(or not working) and we'd have more essential and necessary work, wouldn't we?

