The worst thing that could happen to America is a Japanese-style Lost Decade, we’re told:
It always sounds like Godzilla, or maybe the B-29s, have come back.
And yet, Japan doesn’t actually seem to be a post-apocalyptic wasteland. A friend of mine who has lived in Japan since about 1980 said a couple of years ago that although he’s always reading in the English-language press about how badly off Japan is, it doesn’t see so bad when he steps outside. When he first arrived in Japan, the country was full of badly-dressed people and ugly buildings. Now it’s full of well-dressed people and attractive buildings.
I guess I’m just obtuse. It finally dawned on me that the reason you hear about how horrible Japan is all the time is that it has been horrible for financiers since 1990. The Nikkei index is now only one-third what it was in 1990 at the end of a ridiculous real estate bubble in which the grounds of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo were theoretically worth more than all the real estate in California.
That’s Steve Sailer, by the way.
Heather Mac Donald has her own contrarian point to make about Japan:
It’s hard to think of a greater repudiation of the American public creed of maximal “diversity” than Japan’s stubborn determination to remain monocultural. Japan’s economy may well be stifled by its resistance to immigration, though in sophisticated manufacturing for technology and energy, it has few competitors. However misguided Japan’s hostility to outsiders, the following crime figures, from a forthcoming book by the criminologist Frank Zimring, may explain part of its reluctance to embrace multiculturalism. The rates are crimes per 100,000 of population in 2007:
Robbery:
New York: 265
London: 610
Sydney (2006): 159
Tokyo: 4.7
Toronto: 133Burglary:
New York: 254
London: 1290
Sydney (2006): 1008
Tokyo: 137
Toronto: 362Rape:
New York: 10.6
London: 30.7
Sydney (2006): 51.4
Tokyo: 1.8
Toronto: N.A.Update: New York has the lowest crime rate of any big U.S. city, by several magnitudes, thanks to 17 straight years of Compstat policing; put Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Phoenix, Hartford, Newark, or Miami up against Tokyo, and the differences would be even greater.