There's a lot to admin about Japan, but this article is hackery at best and deceptive at worst.
The article is almost solely focused on Tokyo. Yes, Tokyo is still doing well. It's still one of the richest cities in the world. But Tokyo cannot be held up as "Japan", just as New York cannot be used as representative of the entire U.S.
Life expectancy in the U.S. has gone up by 4.43 years since 1980. All rich-world countries has seen a similar increase. [1]
Unemployment is lower in Japan because labor force participation rate is (much) lower. The popular is older, far fewer women choose to work, and many men have dropped out of the workforce (a similar phenomenon is happening in the recovery here). [2]
Cell phone supremacy? You mean the iPhone which is designed in California? [3]
He links to Shadowstats which is a conspiracy theorist website about understanding CPI. CPI is one of the most scrutinized measurements out there.
It also has wonderful quotes like: "The Japanese are dressed better than Americans. They have the latest cars, including Porsches, Audis, Mercedes-Benzes and all the finest models. I have never seen so many spoiled pets."
Americans do the same crazy stuff, but they do it in a way that looks unremarkable to other Americans.
That sentence made me wonder if the author had never been to California. Speaking as a Brit, that sentence could so easily apply to any non-American's perspective on people in that state (I've only really spent time in NY and CA, BTW, so I acknowledge that my perception of life in the US is just as skewed as the author's pereception of life in Japan, but in a sense that's exactly my point).
The article is almost solely focused on Tokyo. Yes, Tokyo is still doing well. It's still one of the richest cities in the world. But Tokyo cannot be held up as "Japan", just as New York cannot be used as representative of the entire U.S.
Life expectancy in the U.S. has gone up by 4.43 years since 1980. All rich-world countries has seen a similar increase. [1]
Unemployment is lower in Japan because labor force participation rate is (much) lower. The popular is older, far fewer women choose to work, and many men have dropped out of the workforce (a similar phenomenon is happening in the recovery here). [2]
Cell phone supremacy? You mean the iPhone which is designed in California? [3]
He links to Shadowstats which is a conspiracy theorist website about understanding CPI. CPI is one of the most scrutinized measurements out there.
[1] http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&#...
[2] http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/JPNLFPRNA
[3] http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/18/the-iphone-4-tops-handset-s...