I'm a bit surprised at the economic analysis of economist Marc Abela. Generally speaking, i agree with him but his analysis looks shallow. Does he mention the maaaaassive quantitative easing (creating money ex nihilo) policy in Japan (english is not my native language) ? Proportionally, Japan does the biggest QE in the world. Last year in 2014, Japan has done more than 20 QE. Its economy represents only 1/3 of the US economy, but its QE volume was nearly the same as the US one. Shinzo Abe has even declared "unlimited quantitative easings". It is well known among serious economists that QE destroy the real economy. They are used to maintain financial flows that would stop if not artificially fueled, while real economy shrinks. Marc Abela mentions the taxes that weigh heavily on Japanese population. He should mention the QE, that are the main reason for that.
Furthermore, he does not mention the fact that Japanese population owns the public debt. The government, that will never pay off its debt, does not seem to have a problem with robbing its population. This will happen sooner or later, and i expect their emperor to tell the population to accept it gladly. And it will. A question is to know if this criminal outcome is linked to the symbiosis between the politicians and the Yakuzas. There has been the "Yakuza recession" in the 80s, and Japan has not recovered yet. They are well integrated in financial economy and insert their criminal logic, like all the mafias of the world.
Another issue that he mentions without going into details while it is a key problems is the demographic crisis. In Japan, we sell more diapers for seniors than diapers for babies. I've spent 3 months in japan and loved it. My feeling is that while their living standard is among the highest of the world, their quality of life is among the lowest of the world. This is why they think twice before having children.
What do Japanese forumites think about it ?