Buchanan: Can Japan Recover?

Pat Buchanan

Townhall - In 1988, eight of the 10 largest companies in the world were Japanese. Today, Japan does not have one company in the top 20 and only six in the top 100. Her national debt is 200 percent of gross domestic product. Can Japan come back from this earthquake and 20 years of economic stagnation and political malaise to recover the dynamism she exhibited in the decades after World War II? To do so will require a far greater miracle. The reason for such pessimism may be summed up in a single word: demography. Japan has 127 million people, her highest population ever. Yet, the United Nations projects that 25 million Japanese will vanish by 2050. Why? 

Sendai From the Air



Japan is the oldest country on earth, with a median age of 45 and a fertility rate below zero population growth for 40 years. To sustain a population, the fertility rate of its women must be 2.1 children. Japan's rate, 1.27 children per woman, is not two-thirds of what is required to replace her present population. In 1960, when Japan was striding to overtake West Germany as the No. 2 economy, 49 percent of her people were under 25 years of age. Less than 8 percent was over 60. Today, only 23 percent of Japan's population is under 25, more than 30 percent of all Japanese are over 60, and Japan's median age has shot up to 45. Japan is projected to lose 3 million people this decade, and nearly 6 million in the 2020s. To put it starkly, Japan is aging, shrinking and dying. Read full column here: News New Mexico

Buchanan: Can Japan Recover?