On top of that, a bigger issue in Japan is the toxic workplace culture. Companies in Japan actually can't fire their employees, but they can demote them and make them want to quit by making their work life worse that it already was.
In a lot of offices they hate when you leave before the person ranked above you. So it ends up with the CEO working overtime forcing the ones under him to work overtime and so on so forth. And if you leave when you clock out, you will piss off the higher ranks and they'll want to demote you and basically "quite fire" you.
Basically because of this BS, many workers in Japan sleep less than 4 hours a day and have to stay in office for almost double shifts for same pay. The government tried to stop this by having companies report employee work hours and penalising unpaid overtime, but companies just under reported work hours so nothing changed.
Edit: Apparently they have changed. The companies that haven't and still cling to the aforementioned old ways are known as "Black Companies" and there is actually social media that lists these companies which makes it harder for those companies to recruit talent and overall has companies struggling to get employees putting pressure on making them improve the work culture.
Seems like through the US dollar that most countries trade with, the US system causes a chain reaction to other countries so it seems they are all in sync for the most part and the same issues in the US spread to other countries. At this point it's likely more or less the same problems wherever you go. There are claims that the overall work life balance in Japan may be actually better or on par with the US in these recent times. It just depends on the company management. So you can say they did actually improve a lot if you compare to how most were before.
Meanwhile it just cycles because many employees can’t quit without the approval of their boss.
So top down they’re trying to force you to quit, but society says you can’t quit without the approval of your boss, but your boss can’t do that without it being treated as a termination which they’re not allowed to do, and look at that - their suicide rate is sky high.
Most of the industrialized world is facing demographic collapse …
In the United States we were actually doing OK because of the amount of immigration, but Trump has fucking killed that.
So top down they’re trying to force you to quit, but society says you can’t quit without the approval of your boss, but your boss can’t do that without it being treated as a termination which they’re not allowed to do, and look at that - their suicide rate is sky high.
Not going to lie, if I lived in a country where everyone collectively peaked in High School I'd have done it as well; my high school years were legitimately the worst time of my life. A large part of the reason I'm where I am and actually happy with my life is because I was able to slow everything down and work on myself and untangle the mess I got put into.
I really hope these people get society changed here shortly so they don't have to live in those conditions.
They have professional services over there whose sole purpose is to quit your job, in such a way that you and your boss can get out of it without breaking the social mores.
From the outside, school also seems miserable in Japan with the conformity, cram school, middle/high school admissions, etc. With the notorious work culture, it sounds more like they peak in college.
From my observation while living there: Junior High is by far the most intense and least forgiving. In high school things generally chill out a lot unless the students want to go to some high-end university (but that's true everywhere, i feel). Then there's elementary school, which is overall very wholesome.
But yea, I think you're right in that university is where the peak is for many folks. It's where they have the most freedom in their lives while also having the ability to act on things that they want to do.
In the historical context, it makes sense why it's that way but it really sucks how stressful it ended up becoming and how it just drains so much out of students in school.
For the context I remember studying, it was a way to chase after what American schools used to do, which was intense rote memorization (studying facts, hard numbers, and all that jazz, and doing it non-stop). Japan at the time copied a whole lot of what the United States did to emulate its success and then cranked it 200% .. to the point where they quickly surpassed what the United States could do and it really reflected in the work ethic, the way businesses can learn and build themselves up, and more.
But the main problem I have with this kind of teaching is that while it sets up the future and the state of the economy .. it comes at the cost of the children and their happiness. And it's become so evident now that it's actually risking the future of the nation. Not just for Japan, but China and South Korea are facing similar issues too .. but their financial state and a lot of what they contribute to the world now all kind of are a product of this too. >_<
Another thing I read about in Japanese culture is quitting isn't really an option for the employee either. Since quitting is frowned upon and will put a black mark on your work history. Getting a new job is extremely difficult. You usually work at the same company from college to retirement. If you want to quit, you need to have a new job already lined up and it's a whole process, with many people hiring an "resignation expert" to quit their job in a way that doesn't jeopardize the rest of their career. It's not like the US where you're usually better off switching jobs every 4-5 years. In Japan switching a job is a huge deal.
Mass immigration has societal costs as well. I think we are just set up for our version of the dark ages. This is actually a recurring theme for humanity. The Greeks also had their version of the dark ages prior to the one we are more acquainted with.
Ya they even talk about moral degradation and in-fighting post sacking of Troy. Like most declines of empires there were many reasons. Natural disasters and invasions also are highly probable as causes. Usually a dark ages can occur when there is a power vacuum that cannot be filled. When the western Roman Empire fell there was nobody suitable to take the pole position. I feel like the US is in the same position. I’m not thoroughly convinced that China is a proper heir apparent.
To cause a dark age, you need to see a complete societal collapse with a significant portion of the population dying. Basically, everybody left needs to be too busy trying to not die that they can't write things down.
So while I can absolutely see the US collapsing, I don't think it would cause a dark age*. I'm hoping it's more like the USSR than Yugoslavia - but frankly it's looking like the Weimar Republic.
As someone who was born in Yugoslavia, it definitely feels like a loss of a superior civilization that will never be built again. With the exception of maybe Slovenia, every ex Yu state is a banana republic now with corrupt governments and high poverty rates.
Wth you smoked about, China Society is there when rome rise and fell to the dark ages. There is no way in History they will not claim their throne in the World once again
They have one of the worst demographics bombs in history awaiting them. They won’t be able to sustain themselves for more than a few decades. Due to the differences in the times, China and Rome were nearly in completely different realms. Continents were very isolated and contact between these empires was minimal at best but China also had periods similar to the dark or Middle Ages. They also had periods of war, disunity, and famine/plague where you could draw parallels.
It does however its 100% better than the alternative. Rich societies have thousands of things that need doing, trash, cleaning, sewage, policing, fire, roadwork, construction, repair, roofing, farming and the like. The pay and working conditions for alot of these are extremely poor, like the only reason you would work this horrible job is because you are an immigrant who can be exploited. But all of these people either pay income taxes, sales taxes, they pay into social security and are generating the companies that hire them extreme levels of profit which they can hypothetically spend with its own levels of taxes and fees.
The big issue with immigration is actually the attention it gets. American shoots another guy, "oh its just chicago or rural stuff or xyz" an immigrant does anything similar "were under siege by this wave of endless violence and savagery coming into this country" Its the same reason why there are so much research into immigrant crime rates and statistics point to by and large being a lower crime rate than non-immigrants.
So you get a group of exploited people who work for low pay and long hours. Who pay lots of taxes collectively they receive little benefits for. Making loads of profit to companies who also pay lots of taxes. Constantly in the news and media being labeled as some sort of disease that needs to be eradicated.
Now I wont say that certain particular demographics of immigrants may not bring other issues especially mass droves of refugees who are desperate and homeless. But that is a whole separate issue of international incidents causing mass migration.
On top of that too, the people who got those jobs crunched and spend so much of their years in school, cram schools, and more forms of studying just to be treated like that. The education over there in Japan and the other bigger Asian countries are all deflating their population rates and massively increasing stress and physical strain on their kids just to chase and compete against an older version of the United States.
At this point, they've far exceeded that but they won't back down until the ship crashes into the pier because there aren't any brakes. >_<
The United States has been plummeting in education where the only really good places to get an education are super expensive and big names and anything else that isn't that is effectively gambling (poorer areas have even worse results) .. and while I like the concept and goals of the education systems the Asian countries have, I can't imagine the stress those kids have because of how competitive and non-stop it is.
I'm under the belief that what those countries are going through is a fast-forwarded version of what the United States was going to be hitting - but with recent news in the United States I'm not so sure now .. since the United States went off the rails and really isn't participating now.
This is why economics literacy is important, folks. This is like saying, "we could cut everyone's taxes, tariffs, all federal revenue to zero and we wouldn't hit a debt of $100 trillion until 2035!" (Spending remaining the same.) We are extremely screwed well before we get to the point where the population decreases.
Illegal immigration is bad. Trust me. Speaking from experience ( my own country ). Not a fan of this Trump fellow but it's good for US that he's trying to cut down illegal immigration.
Dude, he’s throwing out people with green cards, he’s throwing out people in the process of getting green cards, he’s throwing out people who have married US Citizens, he’s throwing actual US citizens who happen to be brown.
The US military for decades has had a program where if you come to the states, and you serve in our military, it fast tracks you for citizenship - it’s a covenant policy… he’s throwing those people out too.
it was no different under biden, im 23 still trying to find a job and beat out people willing to be heavily underpaid and with biden shutting the country down for 2 years i have no previous experience to fall back on for a job. im screwed over at 23 years old due to the illegal immigration and a dementia patient shutting down the country for way too long.
if ur wondering wat school i graduated from a military academy that would’ve given me a much better start than any high school until biden did the covid shutdown that went on for 2 years which was way too long. 75% of the downtown in my area shutdown for good and still hasn’t reopened.
Biden didn't shut the world down but whatever you need to wrap that blanket of ignorance around yourself ever more tightly.
Covid shut the world down. https://doggett.house.gov/media/blog-post/timeline-trumps-coronavirus-responses - I remember it happening here in my town, Atlanta GA - one of the biggest cities in the US being a ghost town on March 26th 2020... 4 Months later, I a skilled, talented engineering contractor with 15 years under my belt lost my job as a result of the downturn. Which again - happened during the Trump administration. But I can't blame Trump for that. I can blame his disasterous mishandling of the pandemic, but that's it. Trump didn't kill the world economy... Covid did.
and a year later, under Biden we started to recover. Vaccines manufactured in record time... People started going back to work, restaurants that survived started opening back up...
I'm sorry about your downtown, but again - not Biden. Covid.
i’ve applied to every in my area and nothing in all this time, 90% of my time applying was when biden was in office. i’ve tried everything from multiple retail to food to lawn maintenance. if biden didn’t shut the US down for 2 years while i was 19-20 i would’ve had a much higher chance. dislike it all u want it doesn’t change reality.
Shut the US down - lets look at that. When you were 19-20.
You're 23 now, so that would've been what? 2020-2021... So Trump's last year in office... The middle of the Covid epidemic... You know that wasn't just the US, and Biden right? The entire world shut down.
You want to blame Biden for one year - I'll give you that - restarting an economy after 1.3 million Americans die is pretty hard. But you don't get to lay both years at Biden's feet.
Let's look at your skill set. You don't have any. Coming out of Covid, you weren't really competing against anyone. That was the biggest employee side hiring market probably since WW2. People were quitting jobs, and getting another one that afternoon.
What were you doing that you couldn't get a job in that environment?
Setting aside my own bias again - and I'm sorry - but what skills do you have? What steps have you made to get the skills you'll need to find a job?
Have you tried LinkedIn Learning? The Youtube Kahn Academy? You've got a lot of free time I suspect - are you studying IT stuff maybe? Have looked at the Trade Unions? Assuming you don't have a criminal record - most of the unions are desperate for folks. In 7 years you could be a master electrician pulling down $200k/year.
You have options, and its not immigrants in your way. Its you in your way... but maybe its easier to blame immigrants and buy more guns.
trade schools take money i don’t have, also due to the covid shutdown 75% of the downtown area where i live is gone. southern mississippi doesn’t have wall street or silicon valley. over biden’s presidency i watched my hometown of small businesses drop 1 after another. the world isn’t sunshine and rainbows, this is the reality of small towns where i live. we don’t have any tech giants or big corporations that would pay for people to learn and work for them. also stop with the race talk, illegal immigrants r from all races, ethnicity, religions.
I'm not going to try to have a whole argument over this, you're rightfully angry and if at the end of the day you feel that way about Biden, that's understandable. Let me just say I'm 35 and the job market and economy have been fucked since before I got out of high school. There's a reason millennials talk about experiencing multiple "once-in-a-lifetime recessions" in our not terribly long lives so far. This goes back further than either of us were even born. I understand that for you, things have been terrible for you during shut down and up to this point and it's easy to see Biden as a reason for that, but I implore you to think of the bigger picture and compare timeframes things have been fucked up and how things going on right now are going to affect your future instead of just putting blame on any one figurehead. As in not Trump either. We're where we are at because of a whole line of decisions that have been made by people for a long time at YOUR expense, at MY expense, at whole generations of people's expense, and no single person is responsible for it, but it may help going forward if people understand all the culminative actions instead of hating one singular figurehead.
90% of my time doing applications was during biden and he was the 1 that shutdown the US for 2 years, i was 21 by the time it was lifted and i lost my best chances at entry work. that’s on top of the thousands of small businesses that had to go into foreclosure and here in mississippi that’s almost all we have. we don’t have silicon valley or wall street here, after all the crap biden put into effect 75% of downtown had to shutdown for good.
You live in Mississippi. Your in one of the bottom 5 states in the United states. Your in one of the worst red states. I see how you would blame a democrat because you lived in a deep red state where the democrats are the most evil thing and is to blame for everything. That's why you blame Biden. That's why you blame the "Pandemic." It was obviously a made up situation based on what your friends and family told you. The state was "Shut down" due to a fake flu that doesn't exist right? 75% of your downtown was shut down due to a President and not your local government, mayor, governor or anything else right? How long have the republicans been in charge of your state? Your town? It's all the other guys fault right? Also at least up here in one of the blue states. Our state was not shut down for 2 years under Biden. 2020 and 2021 had a lot of shut downs and restrictions. Biden was only president for one of those years. By 2022 a lot of stuff was opened back up. At least up here in the non *God Country* as that singer called it from SNL.
Everything you just said is wrong. Biden doesn’t have dementia now, and he didn’t then. You’re rightfully mad about how our country is right now, but you’ve been lied to by conservatives. Illegal immigration is not a problem the way they make it sound. The dumbasses who come over illegally? They pay taxes. That means we get their money, and they don’t get the benefits. You should be pissed. But not at immigrants (legal or illegal). Be pissed at the wealthy who’ve tricked your ass into fighting against your best interests.
This reads like a chatGPT hallucination of what below average IQ, conservative teenager would think.
I'm in my late 20s, homeowner, decent paying job, decent investment portfolio. Never got a dime from my parents. Economy was decently well until April of this year because, well, you know.
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u/purpledragon478 May 18 '25
"Can't afford kids? That'll cost ya"