I wrote a blog entry on how my 2008 predictions fared, and what I think will happen in 2009. Well, wow, I did not expect one of them to happen that quick.
My prediction was that in 2009 Japan was going down. It seems Japan is already going down. The headlines read "Japan November industrial output falls ‘off the cliff’".
Before people panic and say, "OMG this will happen to us", you need to go back into my predictions on why this is a Japanese problem.
The Japanese economy is dominated by what I would call "too much inbreeding". As I wrote in my prediction Japan imports very little other than commodities. You only need to look at their immigration statistics to get an understanding of the problem.
Japan Immigration: Immigrants as percentage of population 1.6%
American Immigration: Immigrants as a percentage of population 12.61%.
My point regarding immigrants is that a country needs immigrants if it wants to prosper, grow, and adapt. If a country does not have immigrants it becomes "inbred." Immigrants offer new potential to a country through their new ways of doing things.
Supposedly Japan wants to improve things, simply because of the demographics, but my question is "why on earth go to a country like Japan when you could go to China?"
Just today my brother who got back from Kahzakstan, was telling me, "you know China is one heck of a country!" I asked why? He replied, "Christian they are doing business with everybody!"
There are lots of foreigners who live in China! While China exports quite a bit, they also import quite a bit. Thus I ask why on earth would anybody want to go to Japan?