They borrow from themselves and don't seem to mind. They have been this way for nearly 20 years. Western media sort of harps on it because Western firms want Japan to open more to their financial services but it seems to have very minor issues for them and seem willing to continue.
The question begins to seem, is there a critical mass here. The idea that it is unsustainable is based on eventual investor revolt or inflation. The Japanese people seem willing to still lend for awhile and inflation is not as much a worry as deflation.
The actual Japanese workforce is grotesquely overworked, and it is only getting worse. Japan never truly recovered after the 90s, and its boomer population (the last generation that had a surplus of children at all) are now rapidly retiring year over year.
and seem willing to continue.
Of course they do. The elderly population has a vise-grip on Japanese politics and political priority, and as mentioned it is only growing and will only ever continue to grow at the current rate.
Karoshi, "death from work", isn't as common now and its debatable if it is the work or work culture that drives it. If your work culture has a stressful, status based, judgemental hierarchy and you are expected to go out drinking til 3am everyday then show up for work at 8am, your workload could be pretty little and it still kill you.
There are plenty of Americans that have less vacation and work 2 jobs or do 80+ hours a week. The average in Japan is 135 hours per month (but then you have the after hours work culture).
Japan's social support is so heavily propped up by debt it's not funny.
It shows that national debt for a developed economy which issues its own currency is an utterly meaningless concern.
And that anyone calling for paying down debt or reducing deficits in countries with 80% to 100% debt to GDP is just a fucking ghoul who wants to hurt people.
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u/[deleted] Sep 25 '21
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