Japanese Economy

Why Japan’s Economy if falling:

1. At one point, Japanese economy was blooming because of the “export-led” growth Japan was making. However, with lack of growth in productivity as well as domestic demand, Japan’s economy slowly died.

2. Japan is in debt! “The central and and local government debt” is around 180 percent of the GDP. The bad news: Japan isn’t stopping and is continuing to borrow money.

3. One third of the populace are now old people. With so much elderly people, the government loses on tax revenues and has to provide for more “health care costs”.

4. Many see Japanese women making a difference. If more women begin working, then the economy will grow. However there are some cultural barriers that need to be broken down before this can be achieved.

5. MORE RISK TAKING needs to happen in large industries. There needs to be innovation. If Japanese companies can once again come up with products for the world, then its export can boom again.

Our First Seminar

As our first seminar came to a close, I couldn’t help but feel like the whole thing had been for nothing. That after a 60 minute period of talking, the question “Is capitalism so deeply flawed that all attempts to ensure the public good is doomed to failure” wasn’t sincerely answered.

This is not to say that we did not have a smooth flowing seminar interspersed with valid ideas, but rather that quite a few people got too caught up with the data and quoting that they forgot to put their own two cents in.

I feel like overall everyone learned a lot. I myself have never dug so deeply into an article about economics. I had usually simply given up after a couple of minutes but this activity really forced me to suck out every last penny out of the articles.

I hope that we can do another seminar sometime in the future where people will feel more encouraged to voice their own opinions and be willing to take risks and be a little original.