|
It's worth noting that people have jumped in with both feet trying to build up the domestic IT and web services industries over the last decade that manufacturing has been in decline, I just feel sorry for all the kids who are going to industrial high schools for vocational programs preparing them for non-existent factory jobs.
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 18:43
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 00:21 |
|
|
Protocol 5 posted:It's worth noting that people have jumped in with both feet trying to build up the domestic IT and web services industries over the last decade that manufacturing has been in decline, I just feel sorry for all the kids who are going to industrial high schools for vocational programs preparing them for non-existent factory jobs. President Obama is running on creating 5 million manufacturing jobs over the next 10 years. I have no idea what exactly he has in mind, to be honest, for example, cars seem to be doing lousy globally, except maybe in China, but I read somewhere it is slowing down there.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 20:18
|
|
|
Protocol 5 posted:It's worth noting that people have jumped in with both feet trying to build up the domestic IT and web services industries over the last decade that manufacturing has been in decline, I just feel sorry for all the kids who are going to industrial high schools for vocational programs preparing them for non-existent factory jobs. By in decline do you mean just declining jobs or output? Because in both the US and Japan, even though jobs are leaving, output is going on strong. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 20:28
|
|
|
I was talking about jobs. Output is up, but much of the sourcing for parts, components and a large portion of the assembly is offshored. So while there are still a decent number of white collar jobs in the manufacturing sector, production line jobs have been drying up for quite some time now. It's been standard practice for years to have the bulk of the your line workers signed on as temps, so you can cut staff whenever you have a dip in incoming orders. With fewer and fewer companies sourcing stamped sheet metal parts etc. from companies in Japan, all of those suppliers are folding up or cutting way back on staff. The sustained profits have more to do with cutting back on production costs by offshoring sourcing and labor than they do with the health of the industry in a long term macro sense. The big thing for Japanese automakers in particular at the moment is offshoring the whole operation, from R&D all the way to sales and after service. Do everything locally to keep costs down and shorten the supply chain.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 20:39
|
|
|
More output with fewer inputs can only mean higher productivity. Isn't that a good thing?
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 21:08
|
|
|
It is if you consider unemployment a good thing.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 21:18
|
|
|
So forcing companies to hold on to inefficient employees is better?
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 21:38
|
|
|
PrezCamachoo posted:So forcing companies to hold on to inefficient employees is better? Well, the next step along the chain of argument is asking if there is enough work to go around. If there isn't and the issue is structural then you shouldn't be condemning and castigating the poor souls who end up unemployed.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 21:49
|
|
|
Ideally, the government should redistribute the productivity gains through the population using taxes and spending, and enact measures that ensure employment, such as subsides to pay for more public service workers and maybe a reduction of working hours. Of course, that would require a sensible government that wasn't run by the rich, who want to keep most of the gains for themselves.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 22:03
|
|
|
But isn't the "hollowing out" of manufacturing - fewer jobs - a necessary counterpart to the increase in personal services (healthcare) that are the largest component of consumption in the developed world?
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 22:47
|
|
|
Would you care to advance and argument here or are you just going to keep phrasing pithy right wing talking points as questions? (See what I did there?)
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 00:43
|
|
|
PrezCamachoo posted:But isn't the "hollowing out" of manufacturing - fewer jobs - a necessary counterpart to the increase in personal services (healthcare) that are the largest component of consumption in the developed world? All those manufacturing line workers are going to go back to school to become nurses and doctors? Those skills and workers aren't that fluid. You're talking about a thing that may happen in the aggregate from an economic standpoint while completely discounting any of the individual actors in that economy. The answers to your questions here don't really have anything to do with Japan, and have more to do with basic economic concepts. You're doing a kind of surface application of neoliberal economics, and then just leaving it at that. The questions you're asking have been answered in economic literature already. They also apply to almost every developed nation right now. Efficiency going up is generally an alright thing, but the problem right now is that governments are not equipped to and were not built for the real redistribution that needs to happen in a post-jobs economy. Developed nations, as long as there is oil, are going to continue to find themselves in this situation where they are so efficient that they do not need every single worker to work in order to meet aggregate demand. The question is what you do with the remaining people that can work but there's no place in the economy for. It's not fair to let anyone starve ever, and it's also unfair to create an underclass of unemployed poor people who mostly do want jobs but are unable to find them. Japan has an alright safety net, and that's a good start. However, what's really needed is a lot more than a safety net. The remaining people in the economy shouldn't be kept forcibly at the bottom rung by having to rely on that safety net. Ideally they should be able to have the equivalent of what they would get from a job because they would be hired in proper jobs were there a place for them in the economy. What needs to happen is either true redistribution where the government hands money to people or massive government jobs programs. There's zero political will to do the former and little political will to do the latter since the capitalists' half century propaganda effort to demonize government as an institution after they plowed socialism under. I will admit there is a third option where the government does a little bit more redistribution in order to try to stimulate aggregate demand, but I find that option less than ideal with regard to manufacturing specifically. I'd rather we not use up oil on makework bullshit and further entrench rampant wasteful consumerism just so we can see a bunch of aggregate economic numbers shooting up for the benefit of the investor class. Ideally we would start to have governments built around economic realities rather than free market fantasies. Japan's better than the US in that regard, but I suspect it has to do with the homogeneity of Japan. If diversity in Japan was more of a thing we might see more otherization of recipients and pushback against the welfare state like we do in the US. ErIog fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Sep 29, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 00:48
|
|
|
Yes, people will get new jobs in new fields. Just as they've already been doing for decades. Loss of manufacturing jobs is not new. In Japan, factory jobs fell by 26% from 1990 through 2008. During the same period, they fell 28% in Germany, 24% in France and 24% in the US. In the former West Germany, factory jobs peaked and started falling way back in 1970...
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 01:02
|
|
|
PrezCamachoo posted:Yes, people will get new jobs in new fields. Just as they've already been doing for decades. Employment declining in the graph you posted would point to the fact that things aren't actually that pat and dry. Those people don't all find jobs in new fields. The employment data you posted makes that clear. A certain percentage of them did, and the rest left the work force. What do you propose be done about that? It's an inherent problem of capitalism that if you force people to work in order to be able to eat that people have trouble eating when there's not enough work to go around. Japan has a social safety net so it's not about literal eating in this case, but as I said before: Is it not unfair to doom people to a lower quality of life simply because they lost a die roll on receiving one of the increasingly scarce jobs available in the economy? ErIog fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Sep 29, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 01:09
|
|
|
ErIog posted:
Is this not EASP? （雇用調整助成金） How did that work out for Japan?
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 01:12
|
|
|
ErIog posted:Employment declining in the graph you posted would point to the fact that things aren't actually that pat and dry. Those people don't all find jobs in new fields. The employment data you posted makes that clear. A certain percentage of them did, and the rest left the work force. The graph is manufacturing employment only.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 01:12
|
|
|
PrezCamachoo posted:The graph is manufacturing employment only. I should read better. Sorry for the derail.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 01:18
|
|
|
Konstantin posted:Ideally, the government should redistribute the productivity gains through the population using taxes and spending, and enact measures that ensure employment, such as subsides to pay for more public service workers and maybe a reduction of working hours. Of course, that would require a sensible government that wasn't run by the rich, who want to keep most of the gains for themselves. The problem with this idea is that it will reduce the rate of surplus value (By paying the same wage for less work and by increasing the rate of taxation) and render your industries "uncompetitive." It would only really "work" if a global labour movement could secure it across almost all the major manufacturing countries, and even then long-term consequence would be a profit squeeze crisis. The problem cannot be solved in the long term under the capitalist mode of production, especially as the advance of technology renders it worse and worse. Now on the other hand if these measures could be secured (if only temporarily) they would have some benefits because they would force capitalists to invest in more automation and increase the speed at which productivity is increasing. This doesn't really solve any problems, but it does create a better basis for socialism. EDIT: Misquote Also people should remember that automation doesn't just operate upon the manufacturing sector. It operates upon the service sector quite a lot as well (In the form of software, roboticization of routine tasks, and in the future social robotics). MaterialConceptual fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Sep 29, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 03:20
|
|
|
So in a bit of economic news. It seems the new finance minister is threatening to make Japan a potentially [more] poisonous investment.Ritholtz.com posted:The Japanese economy minister Mr Maehara is threatening to buy foreign bonds to weaken the Yen and to create inflation of 1.0%, the target set by the BoJ. He added that the government will be more vigilant of the BoJ’s actions. At present its just talk, but the Japanese will be forced to act soon. I keep watching the Yen, but will not short at present. However, in due course……; I had been wondering how long it would take someone to come out and propose something like this.
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2012 01:28
|
|
|
I was expecting some reaction in this thread to the return of Shinzō Abe. Why did his party want him back after his disastrous time as Prime Minister?
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2012 16:34
|
|
|
Munin posted:I was expecting some reaction in this thread to the return of Shinzō Abe. I don't think anyone is surprised at how dire the political choices are anymore. I cackled about it when I heard but even Twitter was quiet. He is a terrible choice, he quit because of making GBS threads too much previously (slightly more complex), but that only makes him as bad as every other choice out there. What we got... Hashimoto, Ishihara (any), Ozawa, Maehara... It is dire.
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2012 17:07
|
|
|
hadji murad posted:I don't think anyone is surprised at how dire the political choices are anymore. I cackled about it when I heard but even Twitter was quiet. He is a terrible choice, he quit because of making GBS threads too much previously (slightly more complex), but that only makes him as bad as every other choice out there. But still any word on why the members of the diet went for him? Why was he still in the running at all? Does he have a huge patronage network? Is he a puppet for someone else? Nothing I've read actually seems to give any reason why he was in the running and actually won. What (presumably even more horrible) defects made the other two choices worse prospects? I also read read that he might start cooperating more closely with our favourite politician from Osaka.
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2012 17:13
|
|
|
Munin posted:But still any word on why the members of the diet went for him? Why was he still in the running at all? Does he have a huge patronage network? Is he a puppet for someone else? My guess? The Mori faction (or whatever Abe is in) has some kind of pull now for reasons that have nothing to do with public politics. Abe is patently unqualified to hold the position--didn't he have a psychological breakdown in office because of stress already?
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2012 23:24
|
|
|
Actually, it's pretty clear that Abe won not so much because he had more pull but because the LDP Diet members detest Ishiba. The first round of the voting was open to rank-and-file of the party; Ishiba's support comes mainly from the base and the he won the round handily. The second round with Ishiba & Abe was only open to Diet members -> the LDP Diet members voted to make sure Ishiba was out.
|
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2012 00:31
|
|
|
shrike82 posted:...Ishiba's support comes mainly from the base... Well, screw that, I guess. It's not like there's an election coming up or something which would require motivating a huge floating base of indifferent, alienated voters. God, the LDP.
|
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2012 00:42
|
|
|
Didn't Abe then make Ishiba his deputy?
|
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2012 01:01
|
|
|
hadji murad posted:I don't think anyone is surprised at how dire the political choices are anymore. I cackled about it when I heard but even Twitter was quiet. He is a terrible choice, he quit because of making GBS threads too much previously (slightly more complex), but that only makes him as bad as every other choice out there. When you put it that way it does seem pretty dire. I can't say I would vote for any of them. EDIT: Richard Seymour's description of the "petty caesarism" at work in British politics right now seems like it could apply to the situation in Japan: Richard Seymour posted:Caesarism emerges because the contending classes have reached a stalemate. What I referred to as ‘petty caesarism’, then, is just the expression of this tendency in a muted form: not exactly a total stalemate but certainly a state of disarray; polarisation but each side hesitating to enter the fray wholeheartedly; both sides almost running on empty. One morbid symptom of this tendency is the emergence of rival hybrid forms of politics – ‘Red Toryism’, ‘Blue Labourism’ – in an attempt to short-circuit political polarisation and reconstitute the relationship between party and class. When people say ‘no one voted for this, how do they think they can get away with it’, the answer is clear: caesarism in this case is a symptom of mutual weakness. Yes, the ruling class is in crisis, yes it is divided and hesitant, yes it lacks political legitimacy; but as of now, its opponents are not in a better state. Except the stalemate is so stale that nothing is even being done. If Hashimoto is elected I expect the situation will better fit Seymour's description of the phenomenon. MaterialConceptual fucked around with this message at 14:11 on Oct 6, 2012 |
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2012 13:51
|
|
|
Munin posted:I also read read that he might start cooperating more closely with our favourite politician from Osaka. Honestly, I'd be suprised if he does. Sure, the two are close when it comes to foreign policy, but that's about it. Hashimoto is a die hard federalist (in that he wants more devolved powers for the big cities, especially Osaka) whereas Abe is a Tokyo man through and through (its how he won the leadership election.) The nippon ishin no kai has already started to position itself as an alternate to the LDP rather than a partner.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2012 07:43
|
|
|
Ishihara has stepped down as Governor of Tokyo... to run for a Diet seat! Ishihara/Hashimoto 2013! Doom in our times!
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2012 08:36
|
|
|
hadji murad posted:Ishihara has stepped down as Governor of Tokyo... to run for a Diet seat! edit: Ishihara's a lot older than I thought, surely he's going to retire soon. The lieutenant governor Naoki Inose will take over for him right, is he as big a scumbag as Ishihara? Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 09:00 on Oct 25, 2012 |
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2012 08:43
|
|
|
Samurai Sanders posted:So long Japan, I feel like I was just getting to know you. The only opinion I've formed about Inose is that he is either less informed than he thinks he is or he is one of those "JAPAN RULES GAIKOKU DROOLS" types. I bought his book and in the first chapter he extols the virtues of Tokyo's municipal water supply -- how awesome it is that you can drink the water straight from the tap! That's something that can only be found in Japan, random country A, random country B, city F and city G in the U.S., and Sydney in Australia.  Next caller please. UM YES I'm from Australia and I lived in a city that wasn't Sydney and in a small country town that wasn't a city and I'd like to inform Mr Inose that the entire water supply in Australia is potable, thanks very much.
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2012 10:19
|
|
|
That kind of hilariously ignorant and out-of-touch bullshit gets really tiresome after awhile. While less monstrously offensive than scaremongering about "death panels" and "FEMA concentration camps" by Republicans in the US, they're just founded on complete ignorance and contempt rather than paranoid conspiracy theories that somehow went big. For some reason, I'm more willing to make allowances for the mentally unbalanced than smug douchebags who just assume that every other country on Earth is a complete hellhole.
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2012 11:04
|
|
|
Samurai Sanders posted:The lieutenant governor Naoki Inose will take over for him right, is he as big a scumbag as Ishihara? According to the news they have to hold a special election to choose a new governor within 50 days.
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2012 11:08
|
|
|
Ganguro King posted:According to the news they have to hold a special election to choose a new governor within 50 days. Who can follow Ishihara? The choice is clear. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOuumGX-6uc
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2012 03:10
|
|
|
Roadside_Picnic posted:Who can follow Ishihara? The choice is clear. This guy is a fascist so I guess it would fit the times.
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2012 03:16
|
|
|
I knew who it was before I even clicked the link. "Scrap and scrap! Destroy everything!" Apparently he's a street musician now, I poo poo you not.
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2012 03:19
|
|
|
MaterialConceptual posted:This guy is a fascist so I guess it would fit the times. No! It says it clearly right there! He's on the far left and the far ri.... Oh, wait.
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2012 03:26
|
|
|
Samurai Sanders posted:I knew who it was before I even clicked the link. "Scrap and scrap! Destroy everything!" It's not really that crazy. He's always basically been a performance artist.
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2012 05:06
|
|
|
Lol, can anyone confirm or deny this happened? This seems ridiculous. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/10/201210201434970804.html I seem to recall hearing that the supreme court judges in Japan aren't elected or put in place, they are recruited. Is there any chance this is a play by the LDP to gerrymander? Rejigger the districts to knock out the DPJ strength?
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2012 05:14
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 00:21 |
|
|
Kenishi posted:I seem to recall hearing that the supreme court judges in Japan aren't elected or put in place, they are recruited. By "recruited" do you mean they're bribed, or that the people appointing them have trouble finding enough suitable lawyers for the positions? Kenishi posted:Is there any chance this is a play by the LDP to gerrymander? Rejigger the districts to knock out the DPJ strength? The article says it's the opposite: It's the current maps that are gerrymandered in favor of the LDP. Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Oct 28, 2012 |
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2012 05:27
|
|