They still have high speed trains and can send spacecraft to distant asteroid. How many countries "living in 2020" can achieve that? Or by "living in 2020" you mean by gender ideology, racism, overmigration and so on.
its simple...Japan its not independent country since they have a huge american military. so whatever decisions they make they are done in the interest of americans. Just see what Plaza accord is.
@@havencat9337 South Korea and Singapore also have American military but they don't suffer from bureaucracy like Japan does. So your argument is extremely dumb and you should think before you write.
@@olska9498south korea and Singapour have a different kind of US intervention. Japan was punished to make them dependent of the US, they were riddled with american propaganda, the high consumption of bread despite how wheat doesnt even grow in japan is one of the most transparent exemples.
@trevorwebb448yup. They don’t import people with different values that destroy their culture for “MUH GDP!!!!!!1!!”. Some things are more important than having a constantly growing economy at the expense of your society.
@@barexampasser but it is at the expense of their society Their birth rate is plummeting and the Yen is unstable Nothing is static, the Japanese from today would be unrecognisable to the Japanese from the 1900s, They have made changes before and they need to do it again if they're planning on sticking around but implementing changes that suits and works for them.
In most of Japan, the trains run on time, the service at any establishment, no matter high end or low end, can be counted on to be decent and pleasant, the streets are clean and incredibly safe, you can walk anywhere alone at night without looking over your shoulder, you can take care of most of your errands at the convenience stores that are everywhere, the food is good and affordable at most restaurants, and housing is much more affordable than most cities in the west. I would take this over some measure of “efficiency” and “growth” made up by economists any day. Economists these days are just cheerleaders for the one percent.
affordable by your western salaries standards... Japanese people work long hours and overtime to make ends meet and live in cramped spaces. These measures made up by economists unfortunately affect the little man more than the big capitalists.
Rigorous social conservatism isn’t all sunshine & rainbows. They have a nearly %100 criminal conviction rate, more xenophobia than fundy Christians, many businesses are weirdly afraid of objectively useful progress like debit cards & their suicide rates make America seem like an international paragon of mental healthcare
@@vladys5238 actually if you look at measures of housing and general affordability in comparison to wages, no Japanese city is even in the top 20. It’s mostly western cities with more “productive” economies lol.
Japan is fine. You can't have infinite economic growth in a finite world. It's already richer than 190+ other countries. Keep in mind they have the highest life expectancy in the world still
exactly. I have lived in Japan for many years with salary the same each year and I never felt anything missing from my life. In fact its their process oriented nature that helps keeps things working and stable, and I personally loved it.
I was looking forward to this but disappointed by the shallow and stereotypical analysis. The more interesting question is whether Japan's course is really worse than what other countries have chosen. The US may have hyper-productivity and innovation but are the outcomes - economic and societal - really better than Japan's? I guess it depends on what is important to you. For me, I'd choose the balance of Japan's positives and negatives over those of the U.S. any day.
@@Valentin-oc5nh The average American worker works more hours per year than the average Japanese worker, according to OECD data The idea that Japanese workers have incredibly long hours is quite outdated. Similar to the incorrect notion that Japan has an exceptionally high suicide rate (their suicide rate is now markedly lower than the US)
I think if a country has low productivity, their economy is plunging, their workplace is overworked and disappointed. Then yes I would say it's going rather bad for you.
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Totally disagree on the Starbucks example. In US, most Starbucks with far fewer workers means longer waiting time for the customers. This same "efficiency" achieved by lowered service quality can be found in most retail establishments.
This is why Japan is such a nice place to live, there is a trade-off between profit and quality, in the West things have gone too much in the opposite direction.
Yea he gave a bad example. The Japanese construction sites often requires unnecessary guards, even for smallest construction like refurbishment and even for the least populated area where no body is around.
it's a bad example but a good point. mikami's about the guards is better. also the traffic directors for parking lots, or having 5 registers at a supermarket open when no one is in line. and these are just the customer facing ones we can see. think how many redundant jobs are there in all those buildings all over the cities.
Yet with the way the US operates, employees can see their wages increase a lot faster than they do in Japan. And dont be fooled, just b/c a Japan business has more employees does not mean theyre not overworked. Japan citizens are the second most overworked individuals on the planet on avg after Mexican citizens. So not only are wages not increasing in Japan, people still get overworked more so than the US....
Most insightful comment here. The obsession with high marginal productivity of labor in customer facing service industry makes the worker experience horrible in US and customer experience horrible in Europe
Agreed entirely, the focus on “worker productivity” has made a lot of jobs miserable to perform in the USA. His Starbucks example was indeed a very poor one when you consider the situation from the perspective of the employee on that floor and effects on turnover. Also charts of wage growth in the US versus Japan are worthless without a corresponding chart to show inflation rates. Japan has had relatively low inflation for awhile now and that’s relevant. Also surprisingly considering their land area constraints housing has not ballooned how it has here in the US in recent times. This video seems to want to paint Japan as a dinosaur but in many many ways they’ve got a great thing going seems to me. Low crime to boot.
@jorgeavelar98 I have worked alongside Mexicans here in the US since the 80s in Chicago. Got tired of having to do their work and mine. Their work ethic is a myth.
Housing market depressed in Japan because of population decline. But i agree with you. Low inflation has been a boon for the workers. Only the capitalists of the WSJ complain
The video fails to acknowledge what seems to be the elephant in _every_ room these days, which is *China* . Even in the 90's it was already known that Japan was a "two speed economy -- a globally competitive export-facing economy subsidizing an inefficient domestic one." Mr. Koll's anecdote about Japanese fax machines has been repeated by historians and economists ad nauseum for decades now. The difference now is that Japan's bread and butter export industries have been slowly displaced by the rising boats of first the Koreans (Samsung, LG, Hyundai) and the Taiwanese (TSMC, Foxconn) and now by 1.4 billion Chinese. The US has avoided this fate mainly by fleeing to higher ground, to the labor-rate-insensitive knowledge-worker industries of the Magnificent Seven, but there are only a limited number of such jobs (even with the US nearly monopolizing these industries in the global economy), which are leading to the US' signature problem today -- a limited quantity of extremely lucrative jobs creating a shortlist of crammed, overpriced, gentrified cities, leading to mass suffering and inequality.
wow, i would love to learn more about what you said. it's very interesting. if you dont mind, could u please elaborate more or point me to a direction where I can learn more about this? Thank youuu!
@@christine_notchristina there's not a lot I can do in TH-cam comments, but certainly there are two phrases which you can look up to find more of what I am referring to here. The first is _"Rise of the Rest"_ , coined by Fareed Zakaria in his book of the same name, describing the process of what China and the rest of the BRICS are doing in the world economy. The second is _"Dual Economy"_ , coined by Richard Katz in his book "Japan: The System That Soured" (which, notably, was published in 1998).
@@farzana6676 A probable scenario. But like you said it is manufacturing. Not manufacturing JOBS. How are the American people going to buy the stuff being manufactured by robots if they don't have jobs, or even fewer jobs. I still haven't figured out the conundrum. Robots and AI will take over many of the physical labor as well as knowledge based jobs.
Respect, finally someone in a commentry section, who has at least read the works of Adam Smith and Ricardo. The only mistake you made is in case of US. It did not avoided this fate, it just prints money and uses it to buy the goods while at the same time, investing some of it into financial sector's blob. As long as US$ is the main currency in the world's trade, US will consume large part of goods produced abroad, and does not need to worry about having a competitive economy or anything like that. Thus, it is not because of the magnificant seven that there are no jobs, it is because most of the money and investitions is sucked into financial markets for speculations, etc, not into real sector of economy. Thus, one trully needs only a limited number of brokers, bankers, etc not so many as in case of factories, etc.
@@livwake Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of homeless people here in the US. The millions that can barely afford rent. The millions that can't pay medical bills. Not to mention the majority of the country that can't even afford a $1K emergency.
@@gimei-chan so what's the issue if more people are rich than middle class? Because it will spiral into what we have in the US today. A few rich people and a whole bunch of poor people that have to live on the street. >Wouldn't you wanna be rich than stay middle class? People always assume they would be on the winning end of a society of few winners and a majority of losers. Statistically speaking, your odds of being well off are low in that kind of society (see US).
@@mehg8407 That's just false. US has seen increase in number of rich people, meaning people have moved from middle class to rich. What the US calls "poor" is actually a very high bar, even for japan. Of course, when the mean is moved higher, more people will count in the 2nd quartile, but that's just how statistics work; it doesn't mean those people are way worse than before.
As a person having japanese dad and Amerian mother, and living in Japan right now, I would say it is fact Japan has some outdated custome in business. but honestly, I found it unique, and interesting. I enjoy the diffrence. I feel like if entrie world focus on productivity and discard uniqueness, the world would be more boring.
Definitely. I'm English and I would absolutely love to spend some time in Japan. It's of course so different, but endlessly fascinating. And, let's not forget, there are many things the Japanese do *really* well, better than everyone else, in fact. Like trains, to name but one. I love the fact that they have these rich cultural traditions that we discarded decades, if not centuries ago. We should celebrate our differences, but make an effort to understand why we are different.
" I found it unique, and interesting." Congrats, now you know how the tourists of the 19th and 20th centuries felt when visiting backwards nations - It is what fueled exoticism, including orientalism. Later on, these sentiments justified imperialism against these places - on the grounds that the people there were did not deserve to rule themselves if they were incapable of modernizing. That is how Japan itself rationalized colonizing Korea and later China. As Paul Krugman said “Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run, it’s almost everything.” - As a metric productivity is the key to a country's prosperity and standard of living. And for Japan, they have stagnated for the past 2 generations. Even former Socialist countries in Eastern Europe have already reached or surpassed Japan here. And that is not good news for Japan's future, since it's population will only get older, requiring even more investment and focus on that aging cohort, which will only increase pressure on younger generations. We already see from the low birthrates and closing schools, higher tax burdens and labour shortages, dying countrysides and lack of innovation that Japan's standard of living is diminishing.
Makes you realise that if Japan can have such a large and advanced economy with so many fundamental inefficiencies, their best days could really be ahead with all of the low hanging-fruit. Just need a proper reform movement.
Japan's problem is they believe their economy is advanced while using fax machines. The first thing they need to do to move forward is to acknowledge their economy is neither advanced nor large.
I don't think so. Their population is aging quickly, their birthrate has decreased to the point of unsustainability, and they are averse to immigration.
Keep the quality up Japan, it matters to a lot of people. If the alternative is overpriced, fragile junk that will end up in landfills or recalled then I wouldn't say that's a worthy alternative to strive for.
The US wanted Japan to fail since the 90's when the Yen value was so high for Americans to afford to buy Japanese cars. The US then asked Japan to drop its currency value down to almost nothing. So Americans can afford to buy Toyotas. Since then, the Yen has never gained it value. That's how America get rid off its competition. Do America want the EU to fail? The answer is YES.
I have visited Japan many times. Unlike my hometown in the USA, the streets are clean (no litter, feces, needles, tents, comatose drug addicts) and safe, people are polite and the trains run on time. We have nothing to be smug about.
You've never lived in Nagoya then. The streets are clean, but you go by the train tracks, there's liter everywhere. The bridges are rusting away from lack of maintenance and the malls looks like ghost towns. Women of the night line the streets, many of them underage Yakuza girls. What Japan lacks in street liter and addicts, it makes up for in urban decay and human trafficking.
Part of this is also due to how US impose Japanese technology products to be priced same as US and Europe products in 90s. Since the Asian market are looking for cheap products, of course, Japanese lost their markets since their products, to this day, is difficult to enter those countries who imposed these condition on Japan. Asian countries then see Chinese made products being cheaper, even though some of the brands are from the US and Europe, of course they would buy it. As time goes on, Chinese got the skills uplifted from massively producing US and Europe digital products, leading to steadily create their own products with much cheaper price. This further leads Japanese losing their markets. So, who should be blame on this? Japan? China? Of course, it is those who always imposing whatever on countries they deemed a threat (to be frank, it would be US). Then, US argue that they do that to 'safeguarding' the principle of free market. What a load of BS, if I could say. When they see certain country comes up with cheaper products with quality rivals theirs, they will do everything to stop them. Then, why don't they create cheaper products than them? Then, they will argue that to cover the cost since they pay their worker 'fairly'. They will always trying to justify themselves even though what they are justifying is unjust.
The wage in the US has increased 150%+, but most Americans are not getting richer. It is because of the high inflation and the wealth transfer from the poor to the rich,
accounting for inflation, wages have kept up in the US. that is not the case everywhere else. the US seems to be the only country in the entire planet where wages grow along with productivity
No wonder service is so much better in Japan - if you've got five people getting things done at Starbucks, that means you will actually get treated more than just a number as a customer.
Japan is even moving away from sewing machines, which they are/were a global leader in -- and have set the entire standard for sewing machines that make all of our clothes. What happens when Japan moves away from holding supremacy in that space will be interesting. No one makes metal parts as precisely as Japan on such a mass scale. Your clothing was sewn on a Japanese sewing machine ... as soon as they lose interest in their process-centricity and "obsolete technologies" like mechanical sewing machines, the quality of clothing and sewn goods dies and //you// naked. Think about it. Support Japan, buy Japanese, and stop the over-emphasis on virtual technologies, rather than tangible ones. Japan needs tech diversification and a way to retain the old while integrating the new. Humanity is dependent on Japanese reliability and innovation. Praise and respect to Japan!!!
This is was a waste of 5 minutes. 🙄Japan is worse than US because stamps and fax machines? Okay but their citizens enjoy clean streets, excellent public transportation, and don’t worry about being drowned in educational and healthcare debt and not being shot down while going grocery shopping.
It was a question of productivity, and stifling bureaucracy. Japanese people are awesome, and will remain awesome with more efficient processes if implemented. Singapore has great productivity and still retains a great culture for comparison.
Japan should not listen to foreign critics. A bustling economy, on paper, isn't the mighty end all be all. Strides for perfect efficiency have destroyed so much of the good we have here in the west, where all of our goods have turned into junk quality trash, and an economic environment that feels sickly despite markets being at "all time highs". Companies here work very hard to redefine US culture, with pride. Companies there work hard to respect and oblige by Japanese culture. Companies here have a price-gouging attitude of "the right price is the highest someone is willing to pay for it". In Japan, they practice self restraint. Your prices for goods don't fluctuate regardless of whether you're in or out of the airport, in the heart of a busy city, or out in the country. Let Japan address their own issues in accordance with their values.
Leave it to Americans to always think the grass is greener on the other side. Companies in Japan don’t “respect and oblige by Japanese culture”, they are just as fiercely materialistic and shallow as anyone else. You seem to have some sort of rosy picture where companies can have these idealistic values and still be competitive. Go search up some of the Japanese corruption or shady and appalling business practices.
@@team3am149 Firstly, I am Japanese American. Secondly, I have observed many of these differences and attitudes from businesses myself. I am not saying that Japanese businesses are without blemish, but there very much is a clear difference in how companies make decisions and how they behave towards Japanese consumers versus the states.
Its VERY hard to beat USA's ludicrously high homeless population, but if you look into it, a number of outlets and orgs are highly skeptical of Japan's homeless reporting. Some consider it to be very lackluster and dismissive with intentional agenda of keeping their numbers low to look good to the rest of the world. Additionally, there's a sizable phenomenon in Japan of young adults and teens technically not being "homeless" only because they are literally forced to go home by police when they are intentionally trying to harmful home/family situations such as domestic abuse or SA, which Japan does not take a strong stance against, prioritizing "the parent is always right" philosophy. Does that change your point all that much when you compare to America? No. But don't think Japan is just all sunshine and rainbows either
@@sirebellum0 Japan is not all sunshine and rainbows. That's not what he meant. But COMPARED to the US. My god, it's way way better. I hope they don't change. We should be learning from them.
@@sirebellum0 Japan is not all sunshine and rainbows but you couldn't pay me to leave it. I've lived in Japan for 10 years, every time I return to the US everything just seems like a mess of rude people and disorganization
Yeah, that's because Japan has a lot of homeless shelter-esque net cafes, karaoke boxes and SROs, paired with a high social stigma towards homelessness, which makes a lot of homeless people to hide themselves away in those places, thus taking them out of homeless statistics. If they live in the US, they'd 100% become actually homeless.
All correct. But don't forget the Americans forcing Japan to double the value of the Yen in 1985, leading them towards their crazy real estate and stock market bubbles of the late 1980s.
@@SASMADBRUV7 That's why Japan's Ministry of Finance and media to support interest-rate increase, tax hike, a stronger yen and deflation. It is often said that there are many traitors in Japan's Ministry of Finance and in politicians.
The Japanese bubble was there regardless of the Plaza Accord, and their government continued pumping money into the economy for years even when the bubble was bursting.
Unlike in Japan, the conditions behind high productivity allow workers to be laid off quickly. Land prices are too high, and rental rooms are too expensive for them to afford. They cannot get proper medical care, and if they fall ill, they are immediately fired and end up at the bottom of society. I don't want advice from a country where former workers are roaming the streets like zombies in droves.
High productivity comes with innovation too, not just labour mobility. You can choose both wealth and social cohesion, some European countries are good at it.
This is what makes Japan's culture rich. Can't believe they have listed in this video all the good things about any civilization and calling it bad. American obsession with infinite growth is going to doom the whole world.
they killed millions of people and area very cruel civilization - also they build temples for those criminals ofwar... and neve apologised fully (given that they are known for deep apology when it comes to the WW2 they did very very small gestures) . ask the Koreans, Chinese, Philipine and others in Asia. IMO their culture should be reformed and surpassed.
If they stop the negative press on Japan, Americans might start to question why we can't all live in a big, safe city and live to 84 years old while making only $33,000
My opinion of Japan was that the worst thing was the fertility rate. If that country could stabilize at like 2.3 TFR somehow Japan would be the gold standard for how to be a nation state in the modern world
Forcing people to come into the office to stamp a document instead of using a digital certificate like everyone else in the world is what makes Japan's culture rich? Maintaining a business culture where looking busy instead of streamlining problem solving and paying out dividends instead of investing in R&D is what makes Japan's culture rich? Enduring sexism and terrible working culture creating non-existent work-life-balances, plummeting birthrates and karoshi is what makes Japan's culture rich? You think all of these things are the best Japanese civilization has to offer?
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I know this is WSJ but life and culture ain't all about making money. Let Japan be a one of kind in piece. There is still the rest of the world to do as the rest of the world does...
The dude that he interviewed gave terrible examples to be honest, he could have given Japanese love for cash instead of using digital payments which is more surprising in an advanced economy.
I just came back from Japan and it seems the change from cash to digital payment is definitely improving. I was able to use my card for like 95% of places. This pertains to the big cities like tokyo/osaka. It was way different from when I visited back in 2017.
@@tonyquach9655 That's great to hear, heading that way later this year again and constantly using cash was quite a hassle, especially when so many cards now have no foreign transaction fees
@tonyquach9655 the Suica card is honestly great. You can use it as a debit card in most of Tokyo. These days though it's more so through the app as sort of an apple pay type affair. The US has been really bad with cards for a long time. When Europe switched to chip and pin the US didn't adopt that. And the US was very slow to adopt contactless debit/credit card payment. It's improved a lot in the last few years at least.
@@tonyquach9655 absolutely, I remember times when transiting through NRT or HND I couldn't buy ANYTHING from those vending machines without coins or their own cards. Looks like they are on the right path now, at least in this matter. More, same NRT and HND, the multitude of employee just unnecessary guiding people from jetways to security AGAIN, is far from efficient...
Germany also has that problem because they love cash and they apparently also still use faxes, my country in small businesses has that problem but because they like a bit of tax evasion don’t tell anyone ect
Japan's population has been getting older and has dropped. They are doing perfectly fine considering the deflation this causes. Economic growth based on unlimited population growth is unsustainable.
Did you guys have AI edit this video?!? It is so ridiculous. The narrator says the line, "a country rich in culture, but resistant to change" while footage of a rickshaw, and women wearing kimonos are shown? Give me a break. People in Japan don't travel around using rickshaws: they are a novelty geared towards tourists. And kimonos are worn for special occasions, or by performers, restaurant hosts, etc. Women in Japan don't just throw on a kimono and go to the grocery store. And kimonos and rickshaws and temples, etc. are not signs that the country is 'resistant to change.' They are signs that the people of Japan celebrate and choose to perpetuate their traditions, which is not a bad thing. And doing so does not mean the country cannot move forward. After all: these traditions and customs have been present continuously, even during Japan's technological heydey in the 1980s.
There is a very strong implied assumption in this material that GDP growth is the chief metric by which a country's economic success should be measured. Why should Japan wish to "keep growing in the future?"
If Japan's economy is so bad, why is so much of Japan better that the US? Big cities are extremely clean, almost no homeless, very little crime, longer life expectancy, easy and affordable public transportation. Is dollar per hour output what is important about a country?
American companies typically strive for efficiency. Meanwhile, urban development is oftentimes hamstrung by preservationists who want to preserve landmarks and neighborhood character. Japan is the opposite of this. You have all of the issues with corporate culture but the national government sets a zoning code and development is much easier in Japan than in the US (which is saying something because Japan has strict earthquake standards). As a result, NYC is filled with buildings from the early 20th century while Tokyo is cutting edge. Housing is notably more affordable in Japan than in the US because Japan keeps on building.
But overall, all service speed in Japan feels at least x2 as efficient as in the US. Waiting time at the grocery cashier or on the phone in the US are ridiculous. People just don't get paid enough in Japan for what they do.
@@darthutah6649 Tokyo has embraced modern buildings because of *TWO* bad experiences with large scale fires last century: the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake and the infamous firebombing raid of March 9-10, 1945. That's why it's just about impossible to find wooden structures in Tokyo that pre-date World War II.
@@Sacto1654 It was a choice of Japan as a whole to move into the modern. Western European cities were devastated in WWII but were pretty much rebuilt the way they were before the war. This contrasts with Warsaw which was completely destroyed and rebuilt in the soviet image.
GDP is a very poor metric to use. There is no such thing as infinite parabolic growth forever in a world with finite resources. Stability and prosperity is a better metric.
Even if they economy is inefficient, it still has respect, good work ethic and does not reply on outsourcing overseas workers do to cheap jobs for like America. I very much respect Japan for still being traditional.
I remember being a kid in the 80s and 90s and seeing Japan as this technological tour de force.. Which it was, but upon moving here. It's a lot more complex than that. And I believe you captured what it's really like to live here for those who want to take the big step. This is very important information to have.
If the purpose of an economy is to produce safety or health, Japan's Economy is highly efficient in both value per cost and absolute terms. Even if we want the benefits of high economic growth among the wealthy, its quite tragic that we don't offer a comfortable Japanese lifestyle to poor Americans who at least on paper have a higher income than the average Japanese.
Japan literally has some of the highest work related suicide and burnout rates on the planet. Not to mention karoshi - a Japanese term literally invented to describe death from overwork. This on top of a highly sexist and toxic work culture that has already borne fruit in a sharply declining population and generations worth of lacking innovation. Japan's economy is not highly efficient, in relative or even absolute terms. Even Korea has overtaken them in those metrics. Even certain Post-Socialist and Ex-Soviet countries have overtaken Japan in productivity and PPP/capita, let alone the other important metrics in HDI.
@@serebii666I’m Russian and believe me, Russia has NOT overtaken Japan in wealth and life quality in general (especially infrastructure), it still has a very long way to go. It’s such a nonsense. Also, Japanese suicide rate is comparable to that of the US so your “karoshi” argument doesn’t make sense. There is only one difference - Japan takes these problems seriously and pays attention to it, that’s why whole world knows about “karoshi” even though its not that high in Japan compared to others
4:16 There are more employees working in Starbucks in major cities all over the world, not just in Japan. In Tokyo, for example, coffee shops can be extremely busy, with constant lines. As such, more staff is needed. Starbucks is a profit-hungry corporation, and are not prone to overstaffing for no reason. Duh.
The videos I've seen from WSJ lately have been consistently terrible. They don't do enough research, there logical issues with their analyses, they utilize or make deliberately controversial, or misleading clickbait titles. I don't read from them, but I hope that they're putting out better stuff than these videos. They are destroying their reputation and credibility.
I just went to Japan and nothing I encountered made me think that they should be doing anything like the United States. I think sometimes the pinnacle of human culture can't be distilled into economic efficiency. The magic and reverence for old ways make Japan special in a way where I feel like the United States is a mess. By the way I actually saved my receipts in Japan because they were stamped individually and they were the most perfect receipts I've ever received and I never knew about hanko.
Yes it's all very quaint and cute and novel as a tourist. Not so fun once you try living here as a foreigner and get stonewalled everywhere you turn because "we are Japanese and you are a gaijin. This is Japan and this is traditional Japanese way". Also not fun if you are trying to hustle and earn a living instead of fawning and marvelling at all these "tradition" as if you are strolling inside a country-sized museum.
There is value in quality and something that’s handmade vs machine made! Economists can say whatever but that doesn’t change ground reality. Look at the state of public transportation in the US vs Japan, look at the state of bridges and road in the US vs Japan. Look at the quality of stuff that’s made in US vs Japan. It’s day and night😊
My observation is Japan prioritizes social stability foremost. This includes over employing workers even at low wages overall and trying to support workers at the expense of the bottom line. At least citizens have their basic needs met especially with their good national healthcare. Compared to the US companies that easily fire employees to appease shareholders and staggering displays of homelessness and citizens struggling w healthcare needs/costs. So we need to ask “what’s the point of just focusing on efficiency?”
A bit disappointing how this WSJ analysis could not get beyond the surface level. 1. Japan slipped behind Germany mostly because of the exchange rate ---- which is a result of external factor(USD) rather than internal. 2. Japan's inefficiency may be notable in a few examples, but almost everyone can also agree they'd rather make the money in the US(the "more productive" economy) and then spend it in Japan, usually because quality and service are better. Should we not factor quality, service etc. into the measurement too? 3. Is there more data than the anecdotal Starbucks diss in the video? (which seems to be the only quantifiable evidence of Japanese low productivity here). It is widely accepted by economists that individual productivity had stagnated globally since the 1960s ---- I really doubt Japan is faring worse than global average.
I grow up with Japanese products. When I was young, everything electronics come from Japan. TV, mobile phones, Radio, Cars, portable CD players. Now, I don't see any Japanese products, TVs are Korean or Chinese, mobile phones are Chinese, Korean or iPhone, there are still Toyotas here but it is losing ground to Korean cars and Chinese cars. Japan is just slowly fading away and becomes irrelevant.
German population is only 84 vs 125 million of the Japanese. What is it with all the Japan white knights, when something even remotely negative is said about the country? Weakening of the yen might not even be a temporary issue but may persist for the foreseeable future. The situation will only get worse, not better due to the dire demographic situation in the country.
It's all relative. French Bourdeaux Wine, Mexican Tequila, Japanese Sushi Knives, look to the traditional artisans that hold up these world renouned industries and they have no equals. When pride is measured in a tradition of perfection, instead of the fatness of wallet, outsiders see distress, but locals feel rich with satisfaction. Culture may not make much money but it is what makes you famous. In some ways, Japanese culture is like Nike, the brand is worth more than the sum of it's physical assets. If you were to compare countries as brands in the way it shapes the minds of people around the world, Japan is in the top 3. Imagine whipping out a hand carved white marble stamp when signing papers, or dabbing a MontBlanc fountain pen in a bottle of ink, we call that snobby, but the guy doing it feels pretty good.
The use of hanko (dojang in Korean) is optional and very much the exception rather than the rule. In fact, these days, most documents are digital requiring electronic signatures so i'm not sure if dojang is still accepted in these cases.
Japan is an extraordinary nation. As the first non European country to achieve industrialization by early 20th century, this nation prooved that it was possible to ascend technologicaly as a oriental civilization. Indirectly Japan was the inspiration behind every non western success story. Japan is a phoenix. Rising from the ashes of defeat and disasters. Land of rising love and beauty. 🗾
Hmmm, the U.S. is a society where only a few rich people are making money, right? There is no proper social insurance system. Inflation is so high and the gap between the rich and the poor is so great that it cannot be compared to Japan.
We still use faxes in the united states just not as frequently , the primary reason being that ultimately Email isn't that secure, and for communications that are meant fundamentally to be private, Fax machines are the better bet. Like you'd fax your Doctors office information, sometimes. And when they need to send your informaiton from one office to another in the medical industry they'd likely use Fax as they can't quite trust the security of Email. The West likes to make jokes about Fax machines being Obsolete but the reality is they're still used here, and will be whenever Email isn't sufficient.
why it is not safe? Are you using Chinese mail account and network? If not, US always claim their email account and network is the safest in the world. 😅😅😅
@@mujur9101 For one thing in terms of tech at the level of personal computers tech evolves at a rate much faster than nature itself does and by exponents it improves so with that in mind "Tech time" is not like human time and in technical years the invention of email makes it just as ancient as fax because after just 2 years computers tend to double in speed these days and for many years it was every 18 months per moore's law which held up until relatively recently so once you go past 5 years everything older than that is Ancient in tech years and similiarly so like after that it's all legacy AF and usually expected to be what you'd find in a landfill and Email is "Ancient" the same way Fax is already, and thus hackers have had far more time to dicover vulrenabilites in the underlying system and I recall a certain kind of engineering where email that passes between domain names taking a rather lengthjy route that involves multiple hops to it's final destination such that it doesn't take a purely linear path from sender to recipient under the hood but boiunces a round a lot before it arrives at it's final destination at any point of course a person could man in the middle it should they want to. Which is why you're well advised to use PGP to send email if you really need privacy - but training someone how to use that is cumbersome compared to a fax.
Japanese Government "people aren't buying enough stuff. we must stimulate consumption." Also Japanese government "we're gonna raise the consumption tax."
It's sad how difficult things have become in the present generation. I was wondering how to utilise some money I had. I used some of it for e-commerce business, but that sank. I'm thinking of how to use what's left to invest, but I don't really know which way to go.
It's a good idea to seek advice at the moment, unless you're an expert yourself. As someone who runs a service business and sells products on eBay, I can tell you that the economy is struggling and many people are struggling financially.
A lot of folks downplay the role of advlsors until being burnt by their own emotions. I remember couple summers back, after my lengthy divorce, I needed a good boost to help my business stay afloat, hence I researched for licensed advisors and came across someone of utmost qualifications. She's helped grow my reserve notwithstanding inflation, from $275k to $850k.
How can one find a verifiable financial planner? I would not mind looking up the professional that helped you. I will be retiring in two years and I might need some management on my much larger portfolio. Don't want to take any chances.
The problem with Japan's economy is that Japan is a colony of the United States, and the United States does not allow its younger brothers to be better than itself. Japan even needs to provide blood transfusions to the United States amid the U.S. economic crisis. Japan's semiconductor industry was dismantled by the United States itself and distributed to South Korea, Malaysia, and Taiwan.
I don't agree with the Hanko craftsman, but what he actually said was "When it comes to the things that matter, inefficiency matters". What he's trying to say was something like polite language tends to be superfluous, or there's always a ceremony for an event of great magnitude, which is inefficient from an economic point of view. I hate Hanko tradition, but the subtitle is unfair translation.
Thing is Japan doesn’t have unemployment, in fact they have opposite problem-rapidly shrinking labor force due to their rapidly aging population and are running out of workers
It doesn't create employment, it creates _underemployment._ Most young adults in Japan are underemployed and poor. Is it better than unemployment? Yes, marginally.
so tired of DW, WSJ and many other western perspectives on how other nations are inefficient or whatever. It's getting old and the boomer perspective is pretty annoying.
it is true though and Japanese howl w pain at the consequences. this is why the japanese will work 70-80 hour suicidal inducing weeks and have lower salaries than western 9-5 workers.
Hahaha. Look at what 'productivity' and 'economic growth' brought the USA: the most in-debt population in the world, high cost of living, highest healthcare costs, ridiculously unaffordable housing, the most obese and chronically ill population in the industrialized world, depleted soils and environmentally degraded lands and polluted waters. I actually love a lot of things about America, and I love the people I have met there, but I don't count their 'productivity' as something to look up to. After living there, I am happy to be back to Japan because I am allowed to live a more simple, low-productivity lifestyle where I can spend my energy to make life good for me and other people, to do beautiful things, to share, to build things together, to care about my neighbors, and all the other things that one can do when we are freed of that constant stress to contribute to an economic growth engine that is so out of control it does not even realize it is killing people and the earth as is bulldozes culture, health, and tradition for profit. I think a lot of us want what Japan has, and we can also see that the American 'productivity' and 'economic growth' mantra does not make as much sense as it once did, nor is it the only way to make a future. But I guess, to each their own?
Americans fail to understand that countries are made to serve all its people and not just the business class. I wish we had more than 2 employers working at every Starbucks in the US.
Using the Hanko isn't going to cause a big drop in productivity. Floppy disks aren't widely used in Japan, similarly the starbucks example is silly. The number of workers per store doesn't seem much different to other countries when you take into account the business of the store. Productivity isn't the only measure of the quality of life in a country. Japanese products and services are better than many other countries in terms of quality, reliability and even price. There's also other factors like safety and cleanliness. Japan likely can make some changes to improve productivity but this video didn't really get to the core of the issue.
This is all BS. It's about market access. Germany, South Korea & above all China have been eating Japan's lunch for some time now because the US favored them over Japan.
Foreign direct investment from the US plays a part but it's not that big of a factor. The US doesnt control the global market. It's all about momentum. Japan was already developed and there not much room left for rapid growth like SK or China. SK and China grew from 0 development into manufacturing and export oriented economies, had allow them to accumulated fast wealth to reinvest and keep snowballing their economy momentum with growing export and domestic demand for the past 3-4 decades. China today dominates global export volume in all sort of low commodities to mid tech products, using its advantage in economy of scale, low wages, large population thus large domestic market. While Japan manufaturing and export hardly grew much since. The aircons, TVs, home electronics and appliances by Toshiba, Sony, Sharp in the 90s that Japan used to make today are replaced with Chinese brands like Midea, Haier, Hisense, TCL,... at much lower prices point, or more premium Korean brands like Samsung, LGs... Japan cant really compete with manufacturing edge on a low resource island, where most raw materials have to be imported, relatively higher wages and aging population. While Korea had luck with its large high tech innovate, high manufacturing based coporations like Samsung, Hyundai hauling its entire economy. Korea also invested heavily in their own manufacturing facturies and supply chains in other developing countries to keep their cost low. China also do this to some extend in underdeveloped countries for both raw material access, and hoping for high investment return once these countries become high growth formula like China used to be. On the other hand Japan similar to most other Western countries had moved to finance and services based economy, instead of heavy manufacturing where they had lost the advantage. Not only does its output and export becomes stagnant. Japan also 1stly doesnt innovate like it used to, it missed out on the smartphone and EV trends that China and Korea had capitalized on. And 2ndly their coroprate leaders are very conservative with foreign investment elsewhere to find a way out, probly because 90s bubble and recession wiped out much of their accumulated wealth and cash, and set them on a very risk adverse, focus inward mindset. For Germany, it always long have had many innovative small to mid size companies specialized in niche export of parts, machineries and 'machines that go inside other machines' for the global market to keep its economy going.
I found Japan (at least Tokyo) way more efficient/high-tech-oriented than North America. I mean, the ramen places had vending machines so you didn't need more than 2 waiters!!
@@missplainjane3905 In Japan, construction work is already being carried out using unmanned heavy machinery operated from a control room hundreds of kilometers away.
Japan is an extraordinary nation. As the first non European country to achieve industrialization by early 20th century, this nation prooved that it was possible to ascend technologicaly as a oriental civilization. Indirectly Japan was the inspiration behind every non western success story. Japan is a phoenix. Rising from the ashes of defeat and disasters. Land of rising love and beauty. 🗾
If Japan needs to be more efficient like the US is, then the US needs to be more civil like Japan is. And the US is a lot more uncivil than Japan is inefficient.
When I was a little kid in Seattle it was important to pay extra for American cars. When I was a metal fabricator in San Jose I realized the best machines are from Japan. I think Japanese products are better than American ones but I won't tell anybody
Booming? Have you taken a look at their rapidly declining population? In 15 years, the government will have a serious shortage of taxes to pay off the pension of its retired seniors... not to mention the government itself. It's GDP to Debt ratio is one of the worst. I'm not a Japan hater by any means and I admire Japanese people but their woes are real and people just realize it.
There's an expression in Japanese "Otona no jijoh" (Adult's reasons.) Hanko and fax are definitely some of those. I have like ten hankos. Meaning it's a huge market. About faxes I have a funny anecdote. In one factory that I worked some 15 years ago they still used big A1 size faxes to send and receive blueprints. It came all illegible but still it was mandatory (and of course they got the pdf version via email.) I asked my hancho (boss) what's all about and he said "well, otona no jijoh." It turned out the whole management kept this tradition to get kickbacks from the leasing company.
Agree. I don't think Government of Japan dictates how many employees will man a coffee machine. If there are 5 people, its probably coz Seattle decided there needs to be 5 people.
Look, you can’t marvel at how a train arrives on time, every time and in the same breath complain about hanko having to not touch the line. The REASON Japan is admired and tourists flock there is because it does things DIFFERENT.
@@Patricia-cn7ox You would be surprised how much better modern stuff is made versus in the past. it's commonly said that stuff made today is lower quality but that's because we have a better selection of things. You can absolutely buy American made products that are just as good if not better than Japanese ones.
@@sarkaranish Yeah but those have lower margins with high price tags for a much smaller audience, so what businesses push is not really that but cheaply made goods that will break in two minutes and you’ll need to replace constantly. That goes directly against Japanese way of living, even religious beliefs. That’s what’s stifling innovation for them as well, they do really push against the “cheap efficiency” let’s say.
Being in Japan was an eye opening experience compared to the US and still I am wanting to go back bc of the tradition and the way it was in Japan. We don’t have that in a diverse place like the US. Things still need to be improved in both countries (US and Japan) but the problems are way different ones bigger than the other.
I'm Japanese and from my point of view, this culture prioritizes 'be perfect' for everything (actually not everything but trying to be) You can see in Japan. No trash on the street. No delaying train. If you get in Japanese company, you will see a lot more. Even Japanese struggles to be used to it at first... Those all cost. But they expect that. However gradually they understand the economic situation and priority for QOL. Although it's still extremely perfectionism culture. But recently, technology catching up and it may cover human effort.
Too many employees in offices sitting at desks for long hours doing nothing apart from sharpen pencils or change the coffee filter. That's why Japan's economy is sinking like a stone.
There’s a difference between striving for perfection and being inefficient. I think the Japanese mindset of striving for perfection is something to be preserved and improved upon; it’s a good foundation. Being stuck in the past and the glory days of Japan has got to go if Japan wishes to stay relevant.
You realize Japan isn't the only country that has no trash on street or have trains running on time. Japan is inefficient because they tell themselves having no trash on the street makes them special and use that to justify not improving.
Jesper Koll and Peter Landers would be unemployed if it wasn't for the japanese. Its so weird they don't realize that its easier to fake signatures since a person's signature isn't 100% the same whenever they sign something. A stamp on another hand is an exact copy every single time.
Japan is an extraordinary nation. As the first non European country to achieve industrialization by early 20th century, this nation prooved that it was possible to ascend technologicaly as a oriental civilization. Indirectly Japan was the inspiration behind every non western success story. Japan is a phoenix. Rising from the ashes of defeat and disasters. Land of rising love and beauty. 🗾
@@Nerinav1985China was the most technologically advanced place on the planet for hundreds of years, did they somehow become non-oriental or European? They inspired everything Japan ever had or acquired.
Seen from a viewpoint of productivity at a corporate level, "fewer people are better". Alas, those who are denied to have a job then become a burden to the social system of the country, hence, to the taxpayers. With the exception of the US of course, as there social systems are almost non existent. Looking from a societal standpoint, Japan is doing far better, than the report tries to make viewers believe.
In the Japanese workplace, if you work efficiently, new jobs will be served to you. Actually, people don't want to work so much, so they work so lazy. That’s why we work inefficiently every single day.
Despite Japans lower economic productivity, their average life expanded stands at 84 year world vs 77.5 average life expectancy in the US. Perhaps there are things more important than how productive we can be.
Don't listen to others. Being the top largest economies has its own toll to its citizens. Just go at your own pace and maintain that balance between economy n culture. The price to pay for progress for progress sake is not worth it.
Japan data confirms first currency intervention since 2022: on.wsj.com/3X9gaex
I understand the point of the video, but surely it isn't growing because of the negative interest rate...
4th largest economy is great, it doesn't need infinite growth to prosper.
@@wsj Good stuff
When everybody lived in 1980, Japan already lived in 2000
When everybody lived in 2020, Japan still lived in 2000
Are you sure the 2020s are better than 2000?
@@w1s86Not sending Americans to fight in Iraq/Afghanistan and global decrease in poverty is a big one
@@kimjongoof5000idk. I had fun in Iraq...
They still have high speed trains and can send spacecraft to distant asteroid. How many countries "living in 2020" can achieve that? Or by "living in 2020" you mean by gender ideology, racism, overmigration and so on.
And when the Japanese were cannibals during the world war ..... where were we?🤔
It's simple.
Japan is extremely bureaucratic.
Companies value age over skills and pretending to be busy over being productive.
It destroys innovation.
its simple...Japan its not independent country since they have a huge american military. so whatever decisions they make they are done in the interest of americans. Just see what Plaza accord is.
@@havencat9337 South Korea and Singapore also have American military but they don't suffer from bureaucracy like Japan does. So your argument is extremely dumb and you should think before you write.
Exactly. All the Japanese have mastered is the illusion of industry and now the chickens are coming home to roost.
Ridiculous comment. Easily debunked by search.
@@olska9498south korea and Singapour have a different kind of US intervention. Japan was punished to make them dependent of the US, they were riddled with american propaganda, the high consumption of bread despite how wheat doesnt even grow in japan is one of the most transparent exemples.
Japan's stubbornness to stick to tradition is also the same reason why they are so fascinating to us outsiders
What is fascinating
@trevorwebb448 you can keep your traditions while at least upgrading your useless bureaucracy no one talks about changing their culture or whatever
@trevorwebb448yup. They don’t import people with different values that destroy their culture for “MUH GDP!!!!!!1!!”. Some things are more important than having a constantly growing economy at the expense of your society.
@@barexampasser but it is at the expense of their society
Their birth rate is plummeting and the Yen is unstable
Nothing is static, the Japanese from today would be unrecognisable to the Japanese from the 1900s,
They have made changes before and they need to do it again if they're planning on sticking around but implementing changes that suits and works for them.
@trevorwebb448 it's called racism
In most of Japan, the trains run on time, the service at any establishment, no matter high end or low end, can be counted on to be decent and pleasant, the streets are clean and incredibly safe, you can walk anywhere alone at night without looking over your shoulder, you can take care of most of your errands at the convenience stores that are everywhere, the food is good and affordable at most restaurants, and housing is much more affordable than most cities in the west. I would take this over some measure of “efficiency” and “growth” made up by economists any day. Economists these days are just cheerleaders for the one percent.
Well said.
affordable by your western salaries standards... Japanese people work long hours and overtime to make ends meet and live in cramped spaces. These measures made up by economists unfortunately affect the little man more than the big capitalists.
Rigorous social conservatism isn’t all sunshine & rainbows. They have a nearly %100 criminal conviction rate, more xenophobia than fundy Christians, many businesses are weirdly afraid of objectively useful progress like debit cards & their suicide rates make America seem like an international paragon of mental healthcare
@@vladys5238 actually if you look at measures of housing and general affordability in comparison to wages, no Japanese city is even in the top 20. It’s mostly western cities with more “productive” economies lol.
"Economists these days are just cheerleaders for the one percent"
Japan is fine. You can't have infinite economic growth in a finite world. It's already richer than 190+ other countries. Keep in mind they have the highest life expectancy in the world still
I'm tired of this bs propaganda of "economy needs to grow"... f the economy
Yes, Western media biased
exactly. I have lived in Japan for many years with salary the same each year and I never felt anything missing from my life. In fact its their process oriented nature that helps keeps things working and stable, and I personally loved it.
That's a fine mindset, hate this bs, a lot of things are more important than being rich.
@@मराठी.माणूसabsolutely agree. I live here currently and while it took some getting used to, I certainly do love it.
I was looking forward to this but disappointed by the shallow and stereotypical analysis. The more interesting question is whether Japan's course is really worse than what other countries have chosen. The US may have hyper-productivity and innovation but are the outcomes - economic and societal - really better than Japan's? I guess it depends on what is important to you. For me, I'd choose the balance of Japan's positives and negatives over those of the U.S. any day.
In 200 years, the US and Europe will be absolutely unrecognizable. But Japan will still be Japan.
working long hours everyday?
@@Valentin-oc5nh The average American worker works more hours per year than the average Japanese worker, according to OECD data
The idea that Japanese workers have incredibly long hours is quite outdated. Similar to the incorrect notion that Japan has an exceptionally high suicide rate (their suicide rate is now markedly lower than the US)
But compare to european countries then. Germany is richer and more innovative and still has a good economical and societal situation.
I think if a country has low productivity, their economy is plunging, their workplace is overworked and disappointed. Then yes I would say it's going rather bad for you.
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Totally disagree on the Starbucks example. In US, most Starbucks with far fewer workers means longer waiting time for the customers. This same "efficiency" achieved by lowered service quality can be found in most retail establishments.
yea exactly, Japan provides far higher quality services.
This is why Japan is such a nice place to live, there is a trade-off between profit and quality, in the West things have gone too much in the opposite direction.
Yea he gave a bad example. The Japanese construction sites often requires unnecessary guards, even for smallest construction like refurbishment and even for the least populated area where no body is around.
Yeah super bad example on Starbucks. 😅
it's a bad example but a good point. mikami's about the guards is better. also the traffic directors for parking lots, or having 5 registers at a supermarket open when no one is in line. and these are just the customer facing ones we can see. think how many redundant jobs are there in all those buildings all over the cities.
The Starbucks comparison is the most hilarious thing I’ve heard in decades. Working at a Starbucks in the US SUCKS because of this way of thinking smh
Yet with the way the US operates, employees can see their wages increase a lot faster than they do in Japan. And dont be fooled, just b/c a Japan business has more employees does not mean theyre not overworked. Japan citizens are the second most overworked individuals on the planet on avg after Mexican citizens. So not only are wages not increasing in Japan, people still get overworked more so than the US....
Most insightful comment here. The obsession with high marginal productivity of labor in customer facing service industry makes the worker experience horrible in US and customer experience horrible in Europe
Agreed entirely, the focus on “worker productivity” has made a lot of jobs miserable to perform in the USA.
His Starbucks example was indeed a very poor one when you consider the situation from the perspective of the employee on that floor and effects on turnover.
Also charts of wage growth in the US versus Japan are worthless without a corresponding chart to show inflation rates. Japan has had relatively low inflation for awhile now and that’s relevant.
Also surprisingly considering their land area constraints housing has not ballooned how it has here in the US in recent times. This video seems to want to paint Japan as a dinosaur but in many many ways they’ve got a great thing going seems to me. Low crime to boot.
@jorgeavelar98 I have worked alongside Mexicans here in the US since the 80s in Chicago. Got tired of having to do their work and mine. Their work ethic is a myth.
Housing market depressed in Japan because of population decline. But i agree with you. Low inflation has been a boon for the workers. Only the capitalists of the WSJ complain
The video fails to acknowledge what seems to be the elephant in _every_ room these days, which is *China* .
Even in the 90's it was already known that Japan was a "two speed economy -- a globally competitive export-facing economy subsidizing an inefficient domestic one." Mr. Koll's anecdote about Japanese fax machines has been repeated by historians and economists ad nauseum for decades now.
The difference now is that Japan's bread and butter export industries have been slowly displaced by the rising boats of first the Koreans (Samsung, LG, Hyundai) and the Taiwanese (TSMC, Foxconn) and now by 1.4 billion Chinese.
The US has avoided this fate mainly by fleeing to higher ground, to the labor-rate-insensitive knowledge-worker industries of the Magnificent Seven, but there are only a limited number of such jobs (even with the US nearly monopolizing these industries in the global economy), which are leading to the US' signature problem today -- a limited quantity of extremely lucrative jobs creating a shortlist of crammed, overpriced, gentrified cities, leading to mass suffering and inequality.
wow, i would love to learn more about what you said. it's very interesting. if you dont mind, could u please elaborate more or point me to a direction where I can learn more about this? Thank youuu!
@@christine_notchristina there's not a lot I can do in TH-cam comments, but certainly there are two phrases which you can look up to find more of what I am referring to here. The first is _"Rise of the Rest"_ , coined by Fareed Zakaria in his book of the same name, describing the process of what China and the rest of the BRICS are doing in the world economy. The second is _"Dual Economy"_ , coined by Richard Katz in his book "Japan: The System That Soured" (which, notably, was published in 1998).
@@leeswecho Robots with AI are going to reshore manufacturing back to the USA.
@@farzana6676 A probable scenario. But like you said it is manufacturing. Not manufacturing JOBS. How are the American people going to buy the stuff being manufactured by robots if they don't have jobs, or even fewer jobs. I still haven't figured out the conundrum. Robots and AI will take over many of the physical labor as well as knowledge based jobs.
Respect, finally someone in a commentry section, who has at least read the works of Adam Smith and Ricardo.
The only mistake you made is in case of US. It did not avoided this fate, it just prints money and uses it to buy the goods while at the same time, investing some of it into financial sector's blob.
As long as US$ is the main currency in the world's trade, US will consume large part of goods produced abroad, and does not need to worry about having a competitive economy or anything like that.
Thus, it is not because of the magnificant seven that there are no jobs, it is because most of the money and investitions is sucked into financial markets for speculations, etc, not into real sector of economy. Thus, one trully needs only a limited number of brokers, bankers, etc not so many as in case of factories, etc.
japan's way of doing things also allows them to have a MUCH larger middle class than the US
No point having money if there’s no time to enjoy it
@@livwake Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of homeless people here in the US. The millions that can barely afford rent. The millions that can't pay medical bills. Not to mention the majority of the country that can't even afford a $1K emergency.
so what's the issue if more people are rich than middle class? Wouldn't you wanna be rich than stay middle class?
@@gimei-chan so what's the issue if more people are rich than middle class?
Because it will spiral into what we have in the US today. A few rich people and a whole bunch of poor people that have to live on the street.
>Wouldn't you wanna be rich than stay middle class?
People always assume they would be on the winning end of a society of few winners and a majority of losers. Statistically speaking, your odds of being well off are low in that kind of society (see US).
@@mehg8407 That's just false. US has seen increase in number of rich people, meaning people have moved from middle class to rich. What the US calls "poor" is actually a very high bar, even for japan. Of course, when the mean is moved higher, more people will count in the 2nd quartile, but that's just how statistics work; it doesn't mean those people are way worse than before.
As a person having japanese dad and Amerian mother, and living in Japan right now, I would say it is fact Japan has some outdated custome in business. but honestly, I found it unique, and interesting. I enjoy the diffrence. I feel like if entrie world focus on productivity and discard uniqueness, the world would be more boring.
Definitely. I'm English and I would absolutely love to spend some time in Japan. It's of course so different, but endlessly fascinating. And, let's not forget, there are many things the Japanese do *really* well, better than everyone else, in fact. Like trains, to name but one.
I love the fact that they have these rich cultural traditions that we discarded decades, if not centuries ago.
We should celebrate our differences, but make an effort to understand why we are different.
" I found it unique, and interesting." Congrats, now you know how the tourists of the 19th and 20th centuries felt when visiting backwards nations - It is what fueled exoticism, including orientalism. Later on, these sentiments justified imperialism against these places - on the grounds that the people there were did not deserve to rule themselves if they were incapable of modernizing. That is how Japan itself rationalized colonizing Korea and later China.
As Paul Krugman said “Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run, it’s almost everything.” - As a metric productivity is the key to a country's prosperity and standard of living. And for Japan, they have stagnated for the past 2 generations. Even former Socialist countries in Eastern Europe have already reached or surpassed Japan here. And that is not good news for Japan's future, since it's population will only get older, requiring even more investment and focus on that aging cohort, which will only increase pressure on younger generations. We already see from the low birthrates and closing schools, higher tax burdens and labour shortages, dying countrysides and lack of innovation that Japan's standard of living is diminishing.
Too bad the locals who can't afford to travel because Yen fell 50% can't experience the difference.
@@serebii666 Lol, what?
exactly, just see how china running anything as fast as possible, it comes with price of losing identity
Makes you realise that if Japan can have such a large and advanced economy with so many fundamental inefficiencies, their best days could really be ahead with all of the low hanging-fruit.
Just need a proper reform movement.
They are doing just fine, unlike a lot of Americans strung out on a sidewalk near you.🤔
Japan and reform are like water and oil
Japan's problem is they believe their economy is advanced while using fax machines.
The first thing they need to do to move forward is to acknowledge their economy is neither advanced nor large.
I don't think so. Their population is aging quickly, their birthrate has decreased to the point of unsustainability, and they are averse to immigration.
@@josehawking5293 they're not doing "fine" they are in so much debt they are on the brink of collapse
Yet, living in Japan is more pleasant and safe than in any other western places...
ur not wrong yet video is also right
And it's still backward on so many levels!
@@Ex.zed.
What other things
@@anonymous_person-iv4pw
You live there
I’d argue the Scandinavian countries like Sweden and Norway also provide a pleasant experience while utilizing modern technologies
Keep the quality up Japan, it matters to a lot of people. If the alternative is overpriced, fragile junk that will end up in landfills or recalled then I wouldn't say that's a worthy alternative to strive for.
the alternative to floppy disks is better, i promise
Absolutely correct. I have several Japanese made products, including my 14 year old Toyota, they are all of good quality.
@keithmartin1328 so you still use floppy disks then?
The US wanted Japan to fail since the 90's when the Yen value was so high for Americans to afford to buy Japanese cars. The US then asked Japan to drop its currency value down to almost nothing. So Americans can afford to buy Toyotas. Since then, the Yen has never gained it value.
That's how America get rid off its competition.
Do America want the EU to fail? The answer is YES.
I agree
I have visited Japan many times. Unlike my hometown in the USA, the streets are clean (no litter, feces, needles, tents, comatose drug addicts) and safe, people are polite and the trains run on time. We have nothing to be smug about.
You've never lived in Nagoya then. The streets are clean, but you go by the train tracks, there's liter everywhere. The bridges are rusting away from lack of maintenance and the malls looks like ghost towns. Women of the night line the streets, many of them underage Yakuza girls. What Japan lacks in street liter and addicts, it makes up for in urban decay and human trafficking.
Both Japan and USA are in trouble.
@@missplainjane3905 Other places are nice, especially places catered to tourists. I never saw any liter in Nara, Kyoto, or Tokyo.
@a1sauce775 "I am black and beautiful."
- Song of Solomon 1:5🙏🏾✝📖
@@missplainjane3905 Nah I've been to Iga too but I wasn't there very long.
The irony of this video looking like it was made 30 years ago…
Part of this is also due to how US impose Japanese technology products to be priced same as US and Europe products in 90s. Since the Asian market are looking for cheap products, of course, Japanese lost their markets since their products, to this day, is difficult to enter those countries who imposed these condition on Japan. Asian countries then see Chinese made products being cheaper, even though some of the brands are from the US and Europe, of course they would buy it.
As time goes on, Chinese got the skills uplifted from massively producing US and Europe digital products, leading to steadily create their own products with much cheaper price. This further leads Japanese losing their markets. So, who should be blame on this? Japan? China? Of course, it is those who always imposing whatever on countries they deemed a threat (to be frank, it would be US).
Then, US argue that they do that to 'safeguarding' the principle of free market. What a load of BS, if I could say. When they see certain country comes up with cheaper products with quality rivals theirs, they will do everything to stop them. Then, why don't they create cheaper products than them? Then, they will argue that to cover the cost since they pay their worker 'fairly'. They will always trying to justify themselves even though what they are justifying is unjust.
The wage in the US has increased 150%+, but most Americans are not getting richer. It is because of the high inflation and the wealth transfer from the poor to the rich,
accounting for inflation, wages have kept up in the US. that is not the case everywhere else. the US seems to be the only country in the entire planet where wages grow along with productivity
Most people are richer. You are lying.
@@jorgeavelar98Wrong again. You need to study economics, then you'll be able to keep up on here
@@wallstreettrader1
Median Disposable Per capita income (PPP adjusted)
*US* (2nd): $48,625
*Japan* (24th): $24,855
What did they get wrong?
@@nouvelhomme8990wrong
When wsj criticizes you for being not productive, that is a compliment
WSJ "productive" defined is at 1:43 , GDP(USD)/Hours-Worked, so if worked too long then that's lower productivity.
No wonder service is so much better in Japan - if you've got five people getting things done at Starbucks, that means you will actually get treated more than just a number as a customer.
@SomeLazyDr you don't understand what productivity is
Exactly, according to them we should sacrifice our lives just to be productive for Wall Street, no.
@@SASMADBRUV7 I think, I might. from my vantage point, it is revenue per employ.
Japan is even moving away from sewing machines, which they are/were a global leader in -- and have set the entire standard for sewing machines that make all of our clothes. What happens when Japan moves away from holding supremacy in that space will be interesting. No one makes metal parts as precisely as Japan on such a mass scale. Your clothing was sewn on a Japanese sewing machine ... as soon as they lose interest in their process-centricity and "obsolete technologies" like mechanical sewing machines, the quality of clothing and sewn goods dies and //you// naked. Think about it. Support Japan, buy Japanese, and stop the over-emphasis on virtual technologies, rather than tangible ones. Japan needs tech diversification and a way to retain the old while integrating the new. Humanity is dependent on Japanese reliability and innovation. Praise and respect to Japan!!!
This is was a waste of 5 minutes. 🙄Japan is worse than US because stamps and fax machines? Okay but their citizens enjoy clean streets, excellent public transportation, and don’t worry about being drowned in educational and healthcare debt and not being shot down while going grocery shopping.
It was a question of productivity, and stifling bureaucracy.
Japanese people are awesome, and will remain awesome with more efficient processes if implemented.
Singapore has great productivity and still retains a great culture for comparison.
Usa has culture issues
@@Dan16673true, right wing culture is killing the potential for awesome public transportation and universal healthcare.
@@BluespicygreenJapan by nature, political and cultural POV is right wing
Us it's company not country
Japan should not listen to foreign critics. A bustling economy, on paper, isn't the mighty end all be all. Strides for perfect efficiency have destroyed so much of the good we have here in the west, where all of our goods have turned into junk quality trash, and an economic environment that feels sickly despite markets being at "all time highs". Companies here work very hard to redefine US culture, with pride. Companies there work hard to respect and oblige by Japanese culture. Companies here have a price-gouging attitude of "the right price is the highest someone is willing to pay for it". In Japan, they practice self restraint. Your prices for goods don't fluctuate regardless of whether you're in or out of the airport, in the heart of a busy city, or out in the country.
Let Japan address their own issues in accordance with their values.
Leave it to Americans to always think the grass is greener on the other side. Companies in Japan don’t “respect and oblige by Japanese culture”, they are just as fiercely materialistic and shallow as anyone else. You seem to have some sort of rosy picture where companies can have these idealistic values and still be competitive. Go search up some of the Japanese corruption or shady and appalling business practices.
@@team3am149 Firstly, I am Japanese American. Secondly, I have observed many of these differences and attitudes from businesses myself. I am not saying that Japanese businesses are without blemish, but there very much is a clear difference in how companies make decisions and how they behave towards Japanese consumers versus the states.
@@Aar69
You have work there sir, what are the differences ?
I remember when back in the 90s Japan was going to take over the world economy.
Suicide rates are higher in the United States.
Working hours are also higher in the U.S.
Mental illness rates are also higher in the U.S.
To the editors in charge of this video:
Did you really not realize the footage was shot in log?
log? Do you mean analog?
No, log format, Google it
@@addygreen8919
He’s saying the video wasn’t color graded. LOG video has dull looking color as it’s meant to be graded in editing.
Yes mate, it’s hilarious that such a big company made such a rookie mustake
@@addygreen8919 no i think that was on purpose to demonstrate a point
Fun fact: America now has a higher suicide rate than Japan, and Japan has only about 3,000 homeless people, compared to about 650,000 in America.
Its VERY hard to beat USA's ludicrously high homeless population, but if you look into it, a number of outlets and orgs are highly skeptical of Japan's homeless reporting. Some consider it to be very lackluster and dismissive with intentional agenda of keeping their numbers low to look good to the rest of the world. Additionally, there's a sizable phenomenon in Japan of young adults and teens technically not being "homeless" only because they are literally forced to go home by police when they are intentionally trying to harmful home/family situations such as domestic abuse or SA, which Japan does not take a strong stance against, prioritizing "the parent is always right" philosophy.
Does that change your point all that much when you compare to America? No. But don't think Japan is just all sunshine and rainbows either
@@sirebellum0 Japan is not all sunshine and rainbows. That's not what he meant. But COMPARED to the US. My god, it's way way better. I hope they don't change. We should be learning from them.
@@sirebellum0 Japan is not all sunshine and rainbows but you couldn't pay me to leave it. I've lived in Japan for 10 years, every time I return to the US everything just seems like a mess of rude people and disorganization
Yeah. Japan's unemployment rate is 2.6% so it's perfect. Many unemployed Chinese and Koreans are looking for work in Japan.
Yeah, that's because Japan has a lot of homeless shelter-esque net cafes, karaoke boxes and SROs, paired with a high social stigma towards homelessness, which makes a lot of homeless people to hide themselves away in those places, thus taking them out of homeless statistics. If they live in the US, they'd 100% become actually homeless.
All correct. But don't forget the Americans forcing Japan to double the value of the Yen in 1985, leading them towards their crazy real estate and stock market bubbles of the late 1980s.
Tbf I'm not sure how that relates to some of the issues like this which Japan now has
@@SASMADBRUV7 That's why Japan's Ministry of Finance and media to support interest-rate increase, tax hike, a stronger yen and deflation. It is often said that there are many traitors in Japan's Ministry of Finance and in politicians.
The Japanese bubble was there regardless of the Plaza Accord, and their government continued pumping money into the economy for years even when the bubble was bursting.
Huh? Usa didn't do that but they did screw them in the 90s
As a Japanese, I think it’s difficult to have a balance between tradition and efficiency. Overall I’m really proud of my culture and how safe is.
Unlike in Japan, the conditions behind high productivity allow workers to be laid off quickly. Land prices are too high, and rental rooms are too expensive for them to afford. They cannot get proper medical care, and if they fall ill, they are immediately fired and end up at the bottom of society. I don't want advice from a country where former workers are roaming the streets like zombies in droves.
High productivity comes with innovation too, not just labour mobility. You can choose both wealth and social cohesion, some European countries are good at it.
Capitalism: who are you texting?
Japan: just my culture and heritage
Capitalism: yeah, I don't want you talking to them anymore...
This is what makes Japan's culture rich.
Can't believe they have listed in this video all the good things about any civilization and calling it bad.
American obsession with infinite growth is going to doom the whole world.
I Like Japanese culture
they killed millions of people and area very cruel civilization - also they build temples for those criminals ofwar... and neve apologised fully (given that they are known for deep apology when it comes to the WW2 they did very very small gestures) . ask the Koreans, Chinese, Philipine and others in Asia. IMO their culture should be reformed and surpassed.
If they stop the negative press on Japan, Americans might start to question why we can't all live in a big, safe city and live to 84 years old while making only $33,000
My opinion of Japan was that the worst thing was the fertility rate. If that country could stabilize at like 2.3 TFR somehow Japan would be the gold standard for how to be a nation state in the modern world
Forcing people to come into the office to stamp a document instead of using a digital certificate like everyone else in the world is what makes Japan's culture rich? Maintaining a business culture where looking busy instead of streamlining problem solving and paying out dividends instead of investing in R&D is what makes Japan's culture rich? Enduring sexism and terrible working culture creating non-existent work-life-balances, plummeting birthrates and karoshi is what makes Japan's culture rich? You think all of these things are the best Japanese civilization has to offer?
Did you guys forget to color grade the video?
thought the same
No, it was intentional
Maybe it's intentional, to give some old vibes.
I think the intern edit this video.
Doubt it's intentional - I think theres a bit of stock footage at 3:02 which IS colour graded (probably because it wasn't downloadable in log)
"Be like us" is not a compelling argument americans. Please provide actual data points. "Americans does this" means nothing.
It's sad how difficult things have become in the present generation. I was wondering how to utilise some money I had. I used some of it for e-commerce business, but that sank. I'm thinking of how to use what's left to invest, but I don't really know which way to go.
Find stocks with yields that exceed the market and stocks that, at the very least, follow the long-term market trend. However, you should get guidance from a financial advisor if you want to create a successful long-term plan...
Yeah, financial advisors could make a lot of difference, particularly in a market such as this. Stocks are pretty unstable at the moment, but if you do the right math, you should be just fine. Bloomberg and other finance media have been recording cases of folks gaining over 250k just in a matter of weeks/couple months, so I think there are a lot of wealth transfer in this downtime if you know where to look. I have been using an FA since 2019, and I return at least $121k ROI, and this does not include capital gain.
My CFA ’’ Sharon Ann Meny, a renowned figure in her line of work. I recommend researching her credentials further. She has many years of experience and is a valuable resource for anyone looking to navigate the financial market..!
I know this is WSJ but life and culture ain't all about making money.
Let Japan be a one of kind in piece.
There is still the rest of the world to do as the rest of the world does...
Life ain't about working ridiculous hours either. Japan would have more time for culture if they cleaned up their inefficiencies
The dude that he interviewed gave terrible examples to be honest, he could have given Japanese love for cash instead of using digital payments which is more surprising in an advanced economy.
I just came back from Japan and it seems the change from cash to digital payment is definitely improving. I was able to use my card for like 95% of places. This pertains to the big cities like tokyo/osaka. It was way different from when I visited back in 2017.
@@tonyquach9655 That's great to hear, heading that way later this year again and constantly using cash was quite a hassle, especially when so many cards now have no foreign transaction fees
@tonyquach9655 the Suica card is honestly great. You can use it as a debit card in most of Tokyo. These days though it's more so through the app as sort of an apple pay type affair.
The US has been really bad with cards for a long time. When Europe switched to chip and pin the US didn't adopt that. And the US was very slow to adopt contactless debit/credit card payment. It's improved a lot in the last few years at least.
@@tonyquach9655 absolutely, I remember times when transiting through NRT or HND I couldn't buy ANYTHING from those vending machines without coins or their own cards. Looks like they are on the right path now, at least in this matter. More, same NRT and HND, the multitude of employee just unnecessary guiding people from jetways to security AGAIN, is far from efficient...
Germany also has that problem because they love cash and they apparently also still use faxes, my country in small businesses has that problem but because they like a bit of tax evasion don’t tell anyone ect
Japan's population has been getting older and has dropped. They are doing perfectly fine considering the deflation this causes.
Economic growth based on unlimited population growth is unsustainable.
Japan is a “lagging country” that has been gradually lagging behind leading countries for more than 30 years.
Did you guys have AI edit this video?!? It is so ridiculous. The narrator says the line, "a country rich in culture, but resistant to change" while footage of a rickshaw, and women wearing kimonos are shown? Give me a break. People in Japan don't travel around using rickshaws: they are a novelty geared towards tourists. And kimonos are worn for special occasions, or by performers, restaurant hosts, etc. Women in Japan don't just throw on a kimono and go to the grocery store. And kimonos and rickshaws and temples, etc. are not signs that the country is 'resistant to change.' They are signs that the people of Japan celebrate and choose to perpetuate their traditions, which is not a bad thing. And doing so does not mean the country cannot move forward. After all: these traditions and customs have been present continuously, even during Japan's technological heydey in the 1980s.
There is a very strong implied assumption in this material that GDP growth is the chief metric by which a country's economic success should be measured. Why should Japan wish to "keep growing in the future?"
It's the best we have and a good place to start. The problem is when people don't look beyond it.
Japan is a great example of a country who has been able to move past the modern obsession with GDP.
@gabaghoul__
That is absolutely not a thing.😅
What growth metric are you suggesting that one should look at instead?
how can you follow the WSJ and not have a basic understanding of economics?
If Japan's economy is so bad, why is so much of Japan better that the US? Big cities are extremely clean, almost no homeless, very little crime, longer life expectancy, easy and affordable public transportation. Is dollar per hour output what is important about a country?
American companies typically strive for efficiency. Meanwhile, urban development is oftentimes hamstrung by preservationists who want to preserve landmarks and neighborhood character.
Japan is the opposite of this. You have all of the issues with corporate culture but the national government sets a zoning code and development is much easier in Japan than in the US (which is saying something because Japan has strict earthquake standards). As a result, NYC is filled with buildings from the early 20th century while Tokyo is cutting edge. Housing is notably more affordable in Japan than in the US because Japan keeps on building.
But overall, all service speed in Japan feels at least x2 as efficient as in the US. Waiting time at the grocery cashier or on the phone in the US are ridiculous. People just don't get paid enough in Japan for what they do.
@@darthutah6649 Tokyo has embraced modern buildings because of *TWO* bad experiences with large scale fires last century: the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake and the infamous firebombing raid of March 9-10, 1945. That's why it's just about impossible to find wooden structures in Tokyo that pre-date World War II.
@@Sacto1654 It was a choice of Japan as a whole to move into the modern. Western European cities were devastated in WWII but were pretty much rebuilt the way they were before the war. This contrasts with Warsaw which was completely destroyed and rebuilt in the soviet image.
GDP is a very poor metric to use. There is no such thing as infinite parabolic growth forever in a world with finite resources. Stability and prosperity is a better metric.
Even if they economy is inefficient, it still has respect, good work ethic and does not reply on outsourcing overseas workers do to cheap jobs for like America. I very much respect Japan for still being traditional.
I think we can all agree that customer experience at a Starbucks is the true mark of societal progression.
Service progression
@CharlieGeorge - It's not but it can be a proxy for deeper systemic differences.
I want a coffee, but I don't want to get a coffee from someone who has to live with their mother because starbucks pays $$10 an hour in 2024
If their coffee was good it would a phenomenal success
😂
I remember being a kid in the 80s and 90s and seeing Japan as this technological tour de force..
Which it was, but upon moving here. It's a lot more complex than that. And I believe you captured what it's really like to live here for those who want to take the big step. This is very important information to have.
Someone hasn't been to Germany 😂
- easy to get a job
- low house prices
- declining population
Honestly way better than the west. Id rather have those problems
If the purpose of an economy is to produce safety or health, Japan's Economy is highly efficient in both value per cost and absolute terms. Even if we want the benefits of high economic growth among the wealthy, its quite tragic that we don't offer a comfortable Japanese lifestyle to poor Americans who at least on paper have a higher income than the average Japanese.
Japan literally has some of the highest work related suicide and burnout rates on the planet. Not to mention karoshi - a Japanese term literally invented to describe death from overwork. This on top of a highly sexist and toxic work culture that has already borne fruit in a sharply declining population and generations worth of lacking innovation. Japan's economy is not highly efficient, in relative or even absolute terms. Even Korea has overtaken them in those metrics. Even certain Post-Socialist and Ex-Soviet countries have overtaken Japan in productivity and PPP/capita, let alone the other important metrics in HDI.
Keep in mind averages don't mean much in the USA because it's the land of extremes.
Mental health services in Japan are very poor or non existent compared to Western countries.
Health in japan LOL
@@serebii666I’m Russian and believe me, Russia has NOT overtaken Japan in wealth and life quality in general (especially infrastructure), it still has a very long way to go. It’s such a nonsense.
Also, Japanese suicide rate is comparable to that of the US so your “karoshi” argument doesn’t make sense. There is only one difference - Japan takes these problems seriously and pays attention to it, that’s why whole world knows about “karoshi” even though its not that high in Japan compared to others
The stamp is interesting how Japan uses old technology to avoid foreign hackers
Did WSJ see US put a straw into Japan's vein by forcing Japan, with the help from Japanese collaborator, to sign the Plaza Accord in 1985?
4:16 There are more employees working in Starbucks in major cities all over the world, not just in Japan. In Tokyo, for example, coffee shops can be extremely busy, with constant lines. As such, more staff is needed. Starbucks is a profit-hungry corporation, and are not prone to overstaffing for no reason. Duh.
By far one of the worst "informational" videos I have ever seen.
5 minutes is way just to short to explain something so complex. You watch it and still dont have the fully picture, just a glimpse.
The videos I've seen from WSJ lately have been consistently terrible. They don't do enough research, there logical issues with their analyses, they utilize or make deliberately controversial, or misleading clickbait titles.
I don't read from them, but I hope that they're putting out better stuff than these videos. They are destroying their reputation and credibility.
I just went to Japan and nothing I encountered made me think that they should be doing anything like the United States. I think sometimes the pinnacle of human culture can't be distilled into economic efficiency. The magic and reverence for old ways make Japan special in a way where I feel like the United States is a mess. By the way I actually saved my receipts in Japan because they were stamped individually and they were the most perfect receipts I've ever received and I never knew about hanko.
Yes it's all very quaint and cute and novel as a tourist. Not so fun once you try living here as a foreigner and get stonewalled everywhere you turn because "we are Japanese and you are a gaijin. This is Japan and this is traditional Japanese way". Also not fun if you are trying to hustle and earn a living instead of fawning and marvelling at all these "tradition" as if you are strolling inside a country-sized museum.
Crisp ?
There is value in quality and something that’s handmade vs machine made!
Economists can say whatever but that doesn’t change ground reality. Look at the state of public transportation in the US vs Japan, look at the state of bridges and road in the US vs Japan. Look at the quality of stuff that’s made in US vs Japan. It’s day and night😊
My observation is Japan prioritizes social stability foremost. This includes over employing workers even at low wages overall and trying to support workers at the expense of the bottom line. At least citizens have their basic needs met especially with their good national healthcare. Compared to the US companies that easily fire employees to appease shareholders and staggering displays of homelessness and citizens struggling w healthcare needs/costs. So we need to ask “what’s the point of just focusing on efficiency?”
A bit disappointing how this WSJ analysis could not get beyond the surface level.
1. Japan slipped behind Germany mostly because of the exchange rate ---- which is a result of external factor(USD) rather than internal.
2. Japan's inefficiency may be notable in a few examples, but almost everyone can also agree they'd rather make the money in the US(the "more productive" economy) and then spend it in Japan, usually because quality and service are better. Should we not factor quality, service etc. into the measurement too?
3. Is there more data than the anecdotal Starbucks diss in the video? (which seems to be the only quantifiable evidence of Japanese low productivity here). It is widely accepted by economists that individual productivity had stagnated globally since the 1960s ---- I really doubt Japan is faring worse than global average.
I grow up with Japanese products. When I was young, everything electronics come from Japan. TV, mobile phones, Radio, Cars, portable CD players. Now, I don't see any Japanese products, TVs are Korean or Chinese, mobile phones are Chinese, Korean or iPhone, there are still Toyotas here but it is losing ground to Korean cars and Chinese cars. Japan is just slowly fading away and becomes irrelevant.
It's a 5 minutes long video. For more data, buy the newspaper? :-)
German population is only 84 vs 125 million of the Japanese. What is it with all the Japan white knights, when something even remotely negative is said about the country? Weakening of the yen might not even be a temporary issue but may persist for the foreseeable future. The situation will only get worse, not better due to the dire demographic situation in the country.
Absolutely agreed 👏
日本的主要原因还是创新不够，从而很难看到独角兽企业，所谓“完美”也是不愿改变、没有创新的体现。从另外一方面来说日本并不追求完美，从汽车行业经常性大规模数据造假可以看出这也点
It's all relative. French Bourdeaux Wine, Mexican Tequila, Japanese Sushi Knives, look to the traditional artisans that hold up these world renouned industries and they have no equals. When pride is measured in a tradition of perfection, instead of the fatness of wallet, outsiders see distress, but locals feel rich with satisfaction. Culture may not make much money but it is what makes you famous. In some ways, Japanese culture is like Nike, the brand is worth more than the sum of it's physical assets. If you were to compare countries as brands in the way it shapes the minds of people around the world, Japan is in the top 3. Imagine whipping out a hand carved white marble stamp when signing papers, or dabbing a MontBlanc fountain pen in a bottle of ink, we call that snobby, but the guy doing it feels pretty good.
1:50 *showing chinese tourists dressed in kimonos as it they were Japanese* LOL
My mom is Korean and also has a Hanko. They are also still used in Korea.
The use of hanko (dojang in Korean) is optional and very much the exception rather than the rule. In fact, these days, most documents are digital requiring electronic signatures so i'm not sure if dojang is still accepted in these cases.
Japan’s inefficient practices come from their post war excess population. But those people are retiring, smaller population following.
Japan is an extraordinary nation.
As the first non European country to achieve industrialization by early 20th century, this nation prooved that it was possible to ascend technologicaly as a oriental civilization.
Indirectly Japan was the inspiration behind every non western success story.
Japan is a phoenix.
Rising from the ashes of defeat and disasters.
Land of rising love and beauty.
🗾
Hmmm, the U.S. is a society where only a few rich people are making money, right?
There is no proper social insurance system.
Inflation is so high and the gap between the rich and the poor is so great that it cannot be compared to Japan.
We still use faxes in the united states just not as frequently , the primary reason being that ultimately Email isn't that secure, and for communications that are meant fundamentally to be private, Fax machines are the better bet. Like you'd fax your Doctors office information, sometimes. And when they need to send your informaiton from one office to another in the medical industry they'd likely use Fax as they can't quite trust the security of Email. The West likes to make jokes about Fax machines being Obsolete but the reality is they're still used here, and will be whenever Email isn't sufficient.
why it is not safe? Are you using Chinese mail account and network?
If not, US always claim their email account and network is the safest in the world.
😅😅😅
@@mujur9101 For one thing in terms of tech at the level of personal computers tech evolves at a rate much faster than nature itself does and by exponents it improves so with that in mind "Tech time" is not like human time and in technical years the invention of email makes it just as ancient as fax because after just 2 years computers tend to double in speed these days and for many years it was every 18 months per moore's law which held up until relatively recently so once you go past 5 years everything older than that is Ancient in tech years and similiarly so like after that it's all legacy AF and usually expected to be what you'd find in a landfill and Email is "Ancient" the same way Fax is already, and thus hackers have had far more time to dicover vulrenabilites in the underlying system and I recall a certain kind of engineering where email that passes between domain names taking a rather lengthjy route that involves multiple hops to it's final destination such that it doesn't take a purely linear path from sender to recipient under the hood but boiunces a round a lot before it arrives at it's final destination at any point of course a person could man in the middle it should they want to. Which is why you're well advised to use PGP to send email if you really need privacy - but training someone how to use that is cumbersome compared to a fax.
Japanese Government
"people aren't buying enough stuff. we must stimulate consumption."
Also Japanese government
"we're gonna raise the consumption tax."
It's sad how difficult things have become in the present generation. I was wondering how to utilise some money I had. I used some of it for e-commerce business, but that sank. I'm thinking of how to use what's left to invest, but I don't really know which way to go.
It's a good idea to seek advice at the moment, unless you're an expert yourself. As someone who runs a service business and sells products on eBay, I can tell you that the economy is struggling and many people are struggling financially.
A lot of folks downplay the role of advlsors until being burnt by their own emotions. I remember couple summers back, after my lengthy divorce, I needed a good boost to help my business stay afloat, hence I researched for licensed advisors and came across someone of utmost qualifications. She's helped grow my reserve notwithstanding inflation, from $275k to $850k.
How can one find a verifiable financial planner? I would not mind looking up the professional that helped you. I will be retiring in two years and I might need some management on my much larger portfolio. Don't want to take any chances.
Her name is. 'Stacy Lynn Staples’. Just research the name. You’d find necessary details to work with a correspondence to set up an appointment.
The problem with Japan's economy is that Japan is a colony of the United States, and the United States does not allow its younger brothers to be better than itself. Japan even needs to provide blood transfusions to the United States amid the U.S. economic crisis. Japan's semiconductor industry was dismantled by the United States itself and distributed to South Korea, Malaysia, and Taiwan.
❤Precisely
Toshiba and Plaza Accord.
That was awhile ago Japan can do better now but they need reforms
They did the same to Germany pushing the conflict with Russia and cutting off the germans from cheap energy and resources.
I don't agree with the Hanko craftsman, but what he actually said was "When it comes to the things that matter, inefficiency matters".
What he's trying to say was something like polite language tends to be superfluous, or there's always a ceremony for an event of great magnitude, which is inefficient from an economic point of view.
I hate Hanko tradition, but the subtitle is unfair translation.
one thing to be said about needing 5 baristas in a Japanese Starbucks vs only 2 in the US is that 3 more people are employed.
Thing is Japan doesn’t have unemployment, in fact they have opposite problem-rapidly shrinking labor force due to their rapidly aging population and are running out of workers
It doesn't create employment, it creates _underemployment._ Most young adults in Japan are underemployed and poor. Is it better than unemployment? Yes, marginally.
@@thomasgrabkowski8283 that one is a self inflicted problem. You improve workforce with immigration but Japan prefers robots to immigrants.
so tired of DW, WSJ and many other western perspectives on how other nations are inefficient or whatever. It's getting old and the boomer perspective is pretty annoying.
it is true though and Japanese howl w pain at the consequences. this is why the japanese will work 70-80 hour suicidal inducing weeks and have lower salaries than western 9-5 workers.
@@me9008
What about other countries
Hahaha. Look at what 'productivity' and 'economic growth' brought the USA: the most in-debt population in the world, high cost of living, highest healthcare costs, ridiculously unaffordable housing, the most obese and chronically ill population in the industrialized world, depleted soils and environmentally degraded lands and polluted waters. I actually love a lot of things about America, and I love the people I have met there, but I don't count their 'productivity' as something to look up to.
After living there, I am happy to be back to Japan because I am allowed to live a more simple, low-productivity lifestyle where I can spend my energy to make life good for me and other people, to do beautiful things, to share, to build things together, to care about my neighbors, and all the other things that one can do when we are freed of that constant stress to contribute to an economic growth engine that is so out of control it does not even realize it is killing people and the earth as is bulldozes culture, health, and tradition for profit.
I think a lot of us want what Japan has, and we can also see that the American 'productivity' and 'economic growth' mantra does not make as much sense as it once did, nor is it the only way to make a future.
But I guess, to each their own?
Japanese do not want to pursue efficiency and lose culture like the US. It is none of your business.
US lost its culture 200 years ago
God forbid that a country doesn't sacrifice it's soul on the altar of efficiency and profit.
But they work to death
Americans fail to understand that countries are made to serve all its people and not just the business class. I wish we had more than 2 employers working at every Starbucks in the US.
Using the Hanko isn't going to cause a big drop in productivity. Floppy disks aren't widely used in Japan, similarly the starbucks example is silly. The number of workers per store doesn't seem much different to other countries when you take into account the business of the store. Productivity isn't the only measure of the quality of life in a country. Japanese products and services are better than many other countries in terms of quality, reliability and even price. There's also other factors like safety and cleanliness. Japan likely can make some changes to improve productivity but this video didn't really get to the core of the issue.
Are you there sir
This is all BS. It's about market access. Germany, South Korea & above all China have been eating Japan's lunch for some time now because the US favored them over Japan.
Foreign direct investment from the US plays a part but it's not that big of a factor. The US doesnt control the global market. It's all about momentum. Japan was already developed and there not much room left for rapid growth like SK or China. SK and China grew from 0 development into manufacturing and export oriented economies, had allow them to accumulated fast wealth to reinvest and keep snowballing their economy momentum with growing export and domestic demand for the past 3-4 decades. China today dominates global export volume in all sort of low commodities to mid tech products, using its advantage in economy of scale, low wages, large population thus large domestic market. While Japan manufaturing and export hardly grew much since. The aircons, TVs, home electronics and appliances by Toshiba, Sony, Sharp in the 90s that Japan used to make today are replaced with Chinese brands like Midea, Haier, Hisense, TCL,... at much lower prices point, or more premium Korean brands like Samsung, LGs... Japan cant really compete with manufacturing edge on a low resource island, where most raw materials have to be imported, relatively higher wages and aging population. While Korea had luck with its large high tech innovate, high manufacturing based coporations like Samsung, Hyundai hauling its entire economy. Korea also invested heavily in their own manufacturing facturies and supply chains in other developing countries to keep their cost low. China also do this to some extend in underdeveloped countries for both raw material access, and hoping for high investment return once these countries become high growth formula like China used to be. On the other hand Japan similar to most other Western countries had moved to finance and services based economy, instead of heavy manufacturing where they had lost the advantage. Not only does its output and export becomes stagnant. Japan also 1stly doesnt innovate like it used to, it missed out on the smartphone and EV trends that China and Korea had capitalized on. And 2ndly their coroprate leaders are very conservative with foreign investment elsewhere to find a way out, probly because 90s bubble and recession wiped out much of their accumulated wealth and cash, and set them on a very risk adverse, focus inward mindset. For Germany, it always long have had many innovative small to mid size companies specialized in niche export of parts, machineries and 'machines that go inside other machines' for the global market to keep its economy going.
I found Japan (at least Tokyo) way more efficient/high-tech-oriented than North America. I mean, the ramen places had vending machines so you didn't need more than 2 waiters!!
@@missplainjane3905 In Japan, construction work is already being carried out using unmanned heavy machinery operated from a control room hundreds of kilometers away.
Living in Japan paints a very different picture to just visiting.
@@sumguy7716
Universal
Japan is an extraordinary nation.
As the first non European country to achieve industrialization by early 20th century, this nation prooved that it was possible to ascend technologicaly as a oriental civilization.
Indirectly Japan was the inspiration behind every non western success story.
Japan is a phoenix.
Rising from the ashes of defeat and disasters.
Land of rising love and beauty.
🗾
If Japan needs to be more efficient like the US is, then the US needs to be more civil like Japan is. And the US is a lot more uncivil than Japan is inefficient.
Examples
The extremes, the east and the west!
@@missplainjane3905 do you speak in sentences or phrases?
@@missplainjane3905 Res ipsa loquitur
@@108doublestitches
??
When I was a little kid in Seattle it was important to pay extra for American cars. When I was a metal fabricator in San Jose I realized the best machines are from Japan. I think Japanese products are better than American ones but I won't tell anybody
thats what the western media wants to believe. fact is japan is booming with weak yen and strong tourism
Japan is not booming, where did you get that idea from?
Not really, of anything the yen It’s tanking their wealth
Booming? Have you taken a look at their rapidly declining population? In 15 years, the government will have a serious shortage of taxes to pay off the pension of its retired seniors... not to mention the government itself. It's GDP to Debt ratio is one of the worst. I'm not a Japan hater by any means and I admire Japanese people but their woes are real and people just realize it.
@@pepper0075 The yen lost almost half of its value vs the USD in the span of about 3 years. That's not a sign of a healthy economy.
There's an expression in Japanese "Otona no jijoh" (Adult's reasons.) Hanko and fax are definitely some of those. I have like ten hankos. Meaning it's a huge market. About faxes I have a funny anecdote. In one factory that I worked some 15 years ago they still used big A1 size faxes to send and receive blueprints. It came all illegible but still it was mandatory (and of course they got the pdf version via email.) I asked my hancho (boss) what's all about and he said "well, otona no jijoh." It turned out the whole management kept this tradition to get kickbacks from the leasing company.
Agree. I don't think Government of Japan dictates how many employees will man a coffee machine. If there are 5 people, its probably coz Seattle decided there needs to be 5 people.
@@CheapSushi
Really
Fax is using in German offices too !
@@jimmylam9846 It's very famous. town offices , etc.
"Inefficient" at what, putting everyone into debt slavery?
that's wrong thinking
And probably at housing crisis, the US and the West are so “efficient” there 😂
Look, you can’t marvel at how a train arrives on time, every time and in the same breath complain about hanko having to not touch the line.
The REASON Japan is admired and tourists flock there is because it does things DIFFERENT.
EXACTLY
thank you vm
Koreans would love to see something like this.
Accuracy and detail oriented results in a process is important in most large consumer durable goods
Yeah but mass produced low quality is what rich people want us to believe as efficiency.
Detail oriented like Toyota, Honda and Nissan faking car safety rating?
@@Patricia-cn7ox You would be surprised how much better modern stuff is made versus in the past. it's commonly said that stuff made today is lower quality but that's because we have a better selection of things. You can absolutely buy American made products that are just as good if not better than Japanese ones.
@@vlhc4642what do you mean they're reliable
@@sarkaranish Yeah but those have lower margins with high price tags for a much smaller audience, so what businesses push is not really that but cheaply made goods that will break in two minutes and you’ll need to replace constantly. That goes directly against Japanese way of living, even religious beliefs. That’s what’s stifling innovation for them as well, they do really push against the “cheap efficiency” let’s say.
Being in Japan was an eye opening experience compared to the US and still I am wanting to go back bc of the tradition and the way it was in Japan. We don’t have that in a diverse place like the US. Things still need to be improved in both countries (US and Japan) but the problems are way different ones bigger than the other.
This says nothing about the effect of Japan's crashing population. It would be a sad world if the only way to stay on top is to give up who you are.
I loved Japan's penchant for perfection and precision, i dont mind if its slow and steady!
I'm Japanese and from my point of view, this culture prioritizes 'be perfect' for everything (actually not everything but trying to be)
You can see in Japan.
No trash on the street.
No delaying train.
If you get in Japanese company, you will see a lot more.
Even Japanese struggles to be used to it at first...
Those all cost. But they expect that.
However gradually
they understand the economic situation and priority for QOL.
Although it's still extremely perfectionism culture.
But recently, technology catching up and it may cover human effort.
確かに大企業などでは年功序列や流動性の低い人材市場なども背景に、非生産的な環境が出来上がっていますが、小売やサービスの世界では、やはり細やかな質の高さを求められるし、そこにかける労力は並外れていると思います。
Too many employees in offices sitting at desks for long hours doing nothing apart from sharpen pencils or change the coffee filter. That's why Japan's economy is sinking like a stone.
There’s a difference between striving for perfection and being inefficient. I think the Japanese mindset of striving for perfection is something to be preserved and improved upon; it’s a good foundation. Being stuck in the past and the glory days of Japan has got to go if Japan wishes to stay relevant.
You realize Japan isn't the only country that has no trash on street or have trains running on time.
Japan is inefficient because they tell themselves having no trash on the street makes them special and use that to justify not improving.
@@alastairhimmer1916Japan is fine, it’s still one of the wealthiest in Asia
Japan is so awesome that so many people from all over the world want to visit or live there.
Jesper Koll and Peter Landers would be unemployed if it wasn't for the japanese. Its so weird they don't realize that its easier to fake signatures since a person's signature isn't 100% the same whenever they sign something. A stamp on another hand is an exact copy every single time.
The Japanese have their culture and traditions and also live comfortable modern life. That's more than one can say about most other countries.
copied from China and then copied from western 😂
Japan is an extraordinary nation.
As the first non European country to achieve industrialization by early 20th century, this nation prooved that it was possible to ascend technologicaly as a oriental civilization.
Indirectly Japan was the inspiration behind every non western success story.
Japan is a phoenix.
Rising from the ashes of defeat and disasters.
Land of rising love and beauty.
🗾
Except the Japanese don’t live comfortable, modern lives.
@@Nerinav1985China was the most technologically advanced place on the planet for hundreds of years, did they somehow become non-oriental or European? They inspired everything Japan ever had or acquired.
@@team3am149
So what kind of live
As a Japanese, it is said here that "Japan is the most successful communist nation in the world."
Seen from a viewpoint of productivity at a corporate level, "fewer people are better". Alas, those who are denied to have a job then become a burden to the social system of the country, hence, to the taxpayers. With the exception of the US of course, as there social systems are almost non existent. Looking from a societal standpoint, Japan is doing far better, than the report tries to make viewers believe.
I agree with all points & criticism about Japan. But what is ignored in this video is that Japan is changing & adopting new strategies now.
In the Japanese workplace, if you work efficiently, new jobs will be served to you. Actually, people don't want to work so much, so they work so lazy. That’s why we work inefficiently every single day.
Are you local
The dude praising Starbucks 2-employee policy has obviously no idea what it means to work in such environments and how terrible a job it is.
Despite Japans lower economic productivity, their average life expanded stands at 84 year world vs 77.5 average life expectancy in the US. Perhaps there are things more important than how productive we can be.
beside life expectancy is the high cancer rate in US.
Now look at their suicide rate.
Don't listen to others. Being the top largest economies has its own toll to its citizens. Just go at your own pace and maintain that balance between economy n culture. The price to pay for progress for progress sake is not worth it.
Japan has low unemployment, low inflation, and low crime. They’re fine.