Japan finds decade, realizes it was never lost

[The Brain]

1992 GDP: 483 trillion
2012 GDP: 476 trillion

GDP figures are nominal.

1992 pop: 124 million
2012 pop: 127 million

This looks pretty damn lost to me.  Japan has more people than they did 20 years ago, but less GDP.  Any economic improvement they may have enjoyed in the past 20 years has been in the form of price decreases.

Are things ever going to be good enough for the population to just kick back and relax, and not procreate too much? 

I see all too often people citing growth, but not often are people citing how much we already grew to.  Obviously there is a difference between steady state economies and growth economies, and a growth economy that stops growing is going to cause painful dislocations, but I am wondering were we're going with all that economic growth.  What's the end game, a new iPad every week?

When was the first time you were approached by the Communists? Was it someone you knew? Maybe even trusted? Could you then imagine the baby steps that would lead you to being a card-carrying member of the Party? All the little lies you would tell yourself to balm your conscience and to make what you did seem fair, maybe even noble? Probably not.

[garbon]

When was the first time you were approached by the Communists? Was it someone you knew? Maybe even trusted? Could you then imagine the baby steps that would lead you to being a card-carrying member of the Party? All the little lies you would tell yourself to balm your conscience and to make what you did seem fair, maybe even noble? Probably not.

He was planted as a not so secret mole. So obvious that he was sure to be overlooked.

[DGuller]

  I was actually supposed to be a secret mole. 

[The Brain]

Have you been a bad mole? Do you need to be punished?

[Eddie Teach]

Have you been a bad mole? Do you need to be punished?

You get the board, I'll get the water.

[Josquius]

Yeah, there's a lot more run down older buildings in Japan. Everything in Korea looks shinny and new in comparison.

I'm not so sure about that. I saw a lot of pretty ghetto run down areas in Korea. It seems to have the same buildings designed to last 5 minutes and who cares how they look philosophy and it did have economic troubles of its own back in the late 90s iirc.

There was this one really cool area in Seoul, it was a street full of electronics components shops which was beneath what looked like a disused highway, which was in turn lined with closed down shops. It was fascinating, would be a great place to shoot a post-apocolptic themed music video.

[Ideologue]

1992 GDP: 483 trillion
2012 GDP: 476 trillion

GDP figures are nominal.

1992 pop: 124 million
2012 pop: 127 million

This looks pretty damn lost to me.  Japan has more people than they did 20 years ago, but less GDP.  Any economic improvement they may have enjoyed in the past 20 years has been in the form of price decreases.

Yeah, but when you have over a billion dollars per capita GDP, I think you can afford to lose a few million here and there.

[Eddie Teach]

1992 GDP: 483 trillion
2012 GDP: 476 trillion

GDP figures are nominal.

1992 pop: 124 million
2012 pop: 127 million

This looks pretty damn lost to me.  Japan has more people than they did 20 years ago, but less GDP.  Any economic improvement they may have enjoyed in the past 20 years has been in the form of price decreases.

Yeah, but when you have over a billion dollars per capita GDP, I think you can afford to lose a few million here and there.

That's actually only about 3 million per capita. Still, I suspect he mistyped somewhere. Or perhaps the figures are in yen.

[Ideologue]

I meant million.

Well, I mean, I meant to my math right.

[The Minsky Moment]

. Or perhaps the figures are in yen.

Yes the numbers are in yen.  That way there is a like to like comparison that doesn't get distorted by $/yen currency movements.

[alfred russel]

1992 GDP: 483 trillion
2012 GDP: 476 trillion

GDP figures are nominal.

1992 pop: 124 million
2012 pop: 127 million

This looks pretty damn lost to me.  Japan has more people than they did 20 years ago, but less GDP.  Any economic improvement they may have enjoyed in the past 20 years has been in the form of price decreases.

date=1376945575]
1992 GDP: 3.87 trillion
2012 GDP: 5.54 trillion

GDP figures are nominal.

1992 pop: 124 million
2012 pop: 127 million

Converted to USD. There are different sides to the story.

[MadImmortalMan]

date=1376945575]
1992 GDP: 3.87 trillion
2012 GDP: 5.54 trillion

GDP figures are nominal.

1992 pop: 124 million
2012 pop: 127 million

Converted to USD. There are different sides to the story.

1992 USD:JPY - 130

2012 USD:JPY - 80

[Zanza]

Stuff on the world market is paid in USD, so they can now import much more stuff for the same amount of Yen. As there was a deflation in Japan for most of the last two decades they probably have a higher domestic purchasing power now than they had in 1992 too. So as Minsky said, their "growth" could be through price decreases. Are you getting richer when your income stagnates but everything you buy gets cheaper all the time? I guess so...

[MadImmortalMan]

[Zanza]

What are those two charts supposed to tell us?