> buying 150 F35's

Your immediate neighbor is going on an imperialist streak right now, and Xi says he wants the fireworks to start in his lifetime. I don't know if F35s are the right answer for Japan, but Xi isn't that young. Get ready however you can.

Japan desperately needs some defense of its own, American is an unreliable ally and Japan has no nukes. And we’ve seen what happens to countries with no nukes.

Ultimately the problem is that Japanese people are not having enough kids. It's a huge emergency. It is recoverable, but it has to be done very soon or it will be much harder. Right now, 5.1% of the population is 25-29, prime childbearing years. If all of those people had 2.1 kids, and so did their descendants, Japan's population would stabilize reasonably well. The problem is that the 0-4 range is only 3.1%. Even if that generation has 2.1 kids, the population will be massively diminished.

If that happens, the majority of Japanese people will be retired, and the cost to provide medical care for them will be astronomical compared to the number of people that can provide that care. It's easy to say "Japan is a rich country, they can afford it." However, medical care for old people is very labor intensive. Even if the old people have "savings", this is just a claim against the labor of young people. If the young people are too worn out from caring for their parents to have their own kids, the country dies out.

The only solution I can think of is to provide massive incentives to have kids. Massive meaning something like "you get $40k per year for every kid in your house under 18", or "you get a free house when you have your first kid, and a bigger one when you have your second."

Maybe this sounds extreme, but the alternative is that young people are taxed at punitive rates in order to provide care for older people. As the situation progresses, younger people will have even less kids because they can't afford them, and eventually they won't even be able to pay for a reasonable living standard for themselves. Older people won't care and will vote themselves excellent benefits, since they would have a good majority in voting. The only option younger people would have would be to leave the country, which only forces the tax rates higher. Eventually something breaks. It's difficult to predict exactly how it would go but it's not pretty.

If Japan is to be saved though, it has to happen in the next 5-10 years or so, and the sooner the better. Once the population pyramid slides up another decade, you'd need the average couple to have 4 kids or so, and the incentives required to make that happen are not affordable, and wouldn't be agreed to democratically when the majority of the population is retired and wants the money for the remainder of their lives rather than paying for kids that would be too young to provide labor to care for them while they're alive.

>And the government buying 150 F35's is just a slap in the face when there's a massive chunk of the population that is, very quickly, going to need extra care.

I'm torn on this issue. I think the elderly and people in general should get a decent life, but on the opposite side we have Europe that's investing massively more in making its boomers richer and more comfortable than anyone in human history has ever been(average pension in France is now higher than the average salary), rather than investing that money in ensuring opportunities and prosperity of future generations, who are facing economic stagnation/degrowth and are forced to foot the bill for this elderly spending, with the guarantee the pyramid scheme they're funding will fail them when their turn comes to benefit from it.

So perhaps Japan sees the defense capability those 150 F-35's bring to its future national security more valuable than keeping the elderly alive for a few more years.

Yeah, it sounds harsh when you look at people like that, but taking care of people takes resources(money), and money is finite, so all these decisions are a game theory trolley problem, where you have to choose whose lives a country should prioritize the most: the past generations, or the future generations.

Historically in the history of nations would be willing to sacrifice the elderly to prioritize the survival and growth of its future generations, that was the social contract of the tribe, that is until the western boomers came and decided they deserve to fuck the future of their nation if they can get wealthier and feel good till the end.

I'm not saying there's one correct solution here, because I don't have it. I'm saying tough decisions have to be made from which there will be winners and losers, so a nation should choose the winners carefully, if it wishes to have a future.

From the article. >While immigration has risen in previous years, foreigners only make up around 3% of the population and opposition to accepting more has grown.

That 10 USD isn't for you , it's for an immigrant from a less affluent country. The Philippines for one. Although Japan also has a significant South Asian population.

The tradition is you work a horrible job, but your kids get to grow up in a rich country with much better opportunities.

Japan doesn't want immigrants though. They can fix there demographic crisis in a single year by opening immigration up.

As for defense spending. The only issue is its not homegrown tech. Looks like Mitsubishi is actually working on a 6th gen fighter though.

The socialized cost of protecting your castle is massive. It makes for a very popular and very lazy target for this kind of “think of the children” (or centenarians) style rhetoric.

Something I keep in mind when reading these kinds of opinions is that when war breaks out and moves through a region (think Ukraine), the elderly are common among those who cannot flee.

> very quickly, going to need extra care.

they don't "need" extra care, and at 100 years old, should be pretty content with concepts of dying without intervention.

What is with the obsession in the world today about those on deaths door taking precedent over those who live today?

investing in senior people is not good ROI but at the same time they are the ones who vote the most...

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What does buying one hundred and fifty F35 aircraft have to do with not being able care for your parents / grandparents?

Why do people think The Government™ is able to, should, or can, solve everyone’s problems?

The Government™ probably can solve defence.

It probably can’t solve your lack of desire to do the right thing and look after your aging parents.