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[smjjames]

Well, Japan is totally different culturally from Greece and they sort of humbled themselves for a while after WWII.

[Sergarr]

Japan has much bigger problems than Greece, because Japan culture is self-genocidal: it actively causes the Japanese people to die out due to the unsustainable work culture preventing people from getting married, and the omnipresent xenophobia preventing immigration.

[scrdest]

Japan has much bigger problems than Greece, because Japan culture is self-genocidal: it actively causes the Japanese people to die out due to the unsustainable work culture preventing people from getting married, and the omnipresent xenophobia preventing immigration.

Glorious Nippon Genes, crossed-over over 1000 times.

[LordSlowpoke]

Japan has much bigger problems than Greece, because Japan culture is self-genocidal: it actively causes the Japanese people to die out due to the unsustainable work culture preventing people from getting married, and the omnipresent xenophobia preventing immigration.

better to die japanese than to live on as nothing in particular m8

on a more serious note, the islands are currently overpopulated, and saying they're subjecting themselves to genocide is a bit overboard at this point of time

[mainiac]

Greece has engaged in the most radical set of structural reforms in a loooooong time for a capitalist society (them crazy commies are hard to beat).  Not really your fault for not knowing that though.  Ignorant jackasses in the media can't be arsed to read a budget and economists are shit at getting the word out there.

[Loud Whispers]

It's funny how that is an "openly hostile act" but firing flares at Swedish planes aren't.

Swedish planes secretly enjoy it

[FearfulJesuit]

Starry-eyed but delusional souls are trying to crowdfund a bailout.

It's times like these that I'd like to see what would happen if budgets were allocated according to a direct-democracy process, say, by letting taxpayers indicate on their returns where they'd like their tax money to go. The Eurozone's 550 million people strong; a bailout at this stage would cost, what, three euros a person? You could bail out Greece and let the austerity folks have their cake (they didn't have to pay for any of it, after all.)

[Sheb]

Nah, 3 euro per person would let you repay the IMF for that one part that was due on tuseday.

[martinuzz]

Still, 3 euro per person is not much, if you consider that for example in the Netherlands, the money used to save the Dutch banks that were 'too big to fail' cost about 1000 euro per head of the population.

[10ebbor10]

Still, 3 euro per person is not much, if you consider that for example in the Netherlands, the money used to save the Dutch banks that were 'too big to fail' cost about 1000 euro per head of the population.

Yup, but the part of the IMF that had to be repaid is also an incredibly tiny part of the debt. A bit of googling suggests the current Greek debt is 340 billion.

So, about 600 euro per head of the European population.

[Reelya]

Japan has much bigger problems than Greece, because Japan culture is self-genocidal: it actively causes the Japanese people to die out due to the unsustainable work culture preventing people from getting married, and the omnipresent xenophobia preventing immigration.

better to die japanese than to live on as nothing in particular m8

on a more serious note, the islands are currently overpopulated, and saying they're subjecting themselves to genocide is a bit overboard at this point of time

Actually depopulation in Japan has little to do with fertility rate and almost everything to do with immigration policy. Japans fertility rate is almost identical to that of Germany, and where is the talk of Germans going extinct? Japan also has markedly higher fertility than most of the other wealthy east asian nations. We will run out of Koreans (fertility 1.25) before Japanese (fertility 1.42). Singapore fertility is 0.80, so mothers don't even replace themselves, let alone mom and dad. (All figures from 2014 CIA World Factbook). South Korea (1.25), Taiwan (1.11), Hong Kong (1.17) and Singapore (0.80) make Japan look live everyone is popping out babies like it's going out of fashion in comparison.

Several European countries are headed to population oblivion as fast or faster than Japan - Germany, Spain, Greece, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Portugal. Basically, half of Europe has fertility rates worse than Japan, yet we don't seem to have that conversation and pinpoint the "otherness" of Japan. It seems to be that low-level sort of xenophobia. Much easier to discuss the "otherness" of an asian culture than look at world trends that affect every nation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_fertility_rate#Countries

[Helgoland]

Greece has engaged in the most radical set of structural reforms in a loooooong time for a capitalist society (them crazy commies are hard to beat).  Not really your fault for not knowing that though.  Ignorant jackasses in the media can't be arsed to read a budget and economists are shit at getting the word out there.

Link/source? Because I've read exactly the opposite...

[mainiac]

Nah, 3 euro per person would let you repay the IMF for that one part that was due on tuseday.

Yeah you'd need a whole 20 or 25 Euros a person to be sure this problem is solved for good.

Several European countries are headed to population oblivion as fast or faster than Japan - Germany, Spain, Greece, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Portugal. Basically, half of Europe has fertility rates worse than Japan, yet we don't seem to have that conversation and pinpoint the "otherness" of Japan. It seems to be that low-level sort of xenophobia. Much easier to discuss the "otherness" of an asian culture than look at world trends that affect every nation.

Well that is one possible explanation but I think whiplash is a big part of it.  Back in the 80s, Japan was an economic giant.  Half the value of stocks in the world were Japanese.  Japan was ploughing money into every high tech idea under the rising sun.  There was talk (stupid talk but widespread) that Japan would have a bigger economy then the US.  So people are thinking about that.  Then overnight the Japanese economy tanks and we start hearing about the plummet in the Japanese birthrate.  People connect the new information to their existing ideas and come up with "Japan was a juggernaut but something extraordinatry happened and now they are dying!"

[XXSockXX]

Japans fertility rate is almost identical to that of Germany, and where is the talk of Germans going extinct?

Very much exists, but in these explicit terms only in far-right circles. Otherwise it's the "demographic threat to our social security system" or the "lack of qualified workers".

Greece has engaged in the most radical set of structural reforms in a loooooong time for a capitalist society (them crazy commies are hard to beat).  Not really your fault for not knowing that though.  Ignorant jackasses in the media can't be arsed to read a budget and economists are shit at getting the word out there.

Link/source? Because I've read exactly the opposite...

Yeah, Greece has engaged in some structural reforms since this whole thing started, but many problems are left untouched because it would hurt the political elite. For example they still don't have a land registry office AFAIK and don't really do much against massive tax avoidance.

[Sheb]

But then those aren't the sticking point in the negociations. It's the further VAT raise and pensions cut that cause problem...

Although in all fairness, the Greeks have a tendencies to not follow on their reform commitment.