Today is by far the hardest day in terms of classes since I have so many. I have my two morning Japanese classes from 9:00 to 10:30 and 10:45 to 12:15. After that I eat lunch in the cafeteria and then go to my Japanese grammar elective class from 1:00 to 2:30. Unfortunately, the next class I have is at 4:30 to 6:00 since this is just how my schedule turned out. I couldn’t find another class to take in between these times. Usually during this two hour period, I sit down at a desk near the International Center and either study or play games on my cell phone like tetris.
Today, I realized that I didn’t have any homework I could do since I had already worked ahead earlier this week so I ended up playing a lot of tetris and sort of looking at my textbook.
When I went to my last class of the day at 4:30 which is another Economics class taught in English, we spent some time discussing the birth rate decline in Japan which is actually symptomatic of nearly all developed countries with perhaps the exception of the United States which has one of the highest birth rates out of these countries. According to Wikipedia though, a regional breakdown suggests that New England has birth rates similar to Western European countries while the South and border states have higher fertility rates. Additionally, states like Utah and other places where there are a large number of mormons have much higher than usual birth rates.
In any case, from predictions that we read about in my other Economic class on Thursday, developed countries and many developing countries will hit a peak in their populations and then begin to decline within the next 50 – 70 years. Japan is at the forefront of this change but does not seem to be too worried about a decline in population. Japan is not particularly open to immigration like the United States is to solve the problem and I remember reading an article where some official expected Japan to rely on its strengths in technology to help ease the problems of having fewer working people supporting older people in society. I remember specifically that the official pointed out robots as a technological solution which may explain why Japan seems to be working so hard on making and developing them since I hardly ever see other countries showcasing or presenting robots.
For the rest of class today, we watched a video about Japan’s bubble economy which grew during the 80s and collapsed in 1990. The bubble rested mainly on land prices. Also at this time, interest rates set by the Bank of Japan were extremely low. As a result, banks pushed loans without thinking too much about what the people taking out the loans would do with the money. Most of the time, the collateral for these loans was the value of the land that the companies or persons owned. Additionally, because of this time of high prosperity, people or companies would ask for a loan and the bank would often suggest giving a loan much higher than originally asked. This would later compound the problem when these loans defaulted as the bubble popped.
The bubble was somewhat fueled by the banks since they would lend money for someone to buy a piece of land for say $4 million and then lend money to someone else to buy that same piece of land for $6 million and then lend more money to someone else to buy that piece of land for $7 million. So the perceived value of the land continued to rise when, in fact, this was just a bubble and people were trying to turn over quick profits. Eventually, it had to stop.
When the bubble popped, land value decreased by more than 60%. The stock market collapsed and the economy sunk. The next 10 years during the 90s are now called “the lost decade” since Japan had to flounder about to get its self back on track and workers entering the workforce during this era often had to take unskilled or part-time jobs resulting in their loss at a chance of a skilled job since companies would rather hire new graduates out of college.
The good news though is that Japan’s economy has had sustained growth over the last five years. In fact, this is the longest period of consecutive expansion in its post-war history. While the gains aren’t nearly those made during the bubble period in the 80s, perhaps this growth is real economic growth and not just fueled by speculation. We’ll have to wait and see what happens next.
Anyway, as I said before, this is the longest day for me in terms of classes since I have to be at Keio University from 9:00am to 6:00pm. Adding on my commute by train means I’m out of my room from 8:00am to well past 7:00pm. Also, I have the luxury of riding the trains to and from school at rush hour which means I’m packed in without any space to move or anything to hold on to as the train bumps and moves down the tracks. It’s just me and a sea of salarymen.
