lifestyle

Taste for luxuries suggests Japan's tax rise hangover fading

16 Comments
By Stanley White and Izumi Nakagawa

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16 Comments
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Companies are targeting the 40% of the population that earns 8 million yen or more per year.

Can those numbers be right?? Seems high to me.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

What a bunch of rubbish. The economy is going to tank, just like it did last time they raised taxes. From a purely mathematical standpoint, Japan's economy simply can't continue like this for more than 5-10 more years, if that.

All they're doing is printing money. This raises the debt, which raises the percent of government budget on servicing the debt (now at a shocking 25%).

From a purely mathematical standpoint, the economy will self destruct when the government needs to spend 100% of their taxes ONLY on interest.

However, it will likely self destruct LONG before that, as all they need is a slight uptick in interest rates (which usually go hand and hand with the inflation they so crave) and Japan is DONE.

Meaning Japan has NO CHOICE but to default on its debt, which means that all the money people have in J-post (which has been used to buy government bonds which will be worthless) will simply POOF and not exist any more.

Within 5-10 years, the government, and every Sato who's got money in the bank will see all their money simply VANISH.

Then what?

-2 ( +4 / -6 )

This is complete BS, the rich are getting richer the poor are getting poorer

0 ( +6 / -6 )

All they're doing is printing money. This raises the debt, which raises the percent of government budget on servicing the debt.

Money printing by itself doesn't raise the debt, it lowers the value of each unit of currency, and by extension reduces the value of the debt. However, using the printed money to by government treasury securities does raise the debt like you say.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

"Companies are targeting the 40% of the population that earns 8 million yen or more per year" This probably means companies are targeting 40% of the ones that earn 8 million or more per year?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Ten percent or a hundred percent is not going to make any different to the rich, what the rich do is finding a ways robbing the poor to subsidy for their life styles.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Japan’s imports of champagne and other sparkling wine climbed 18.8% by volume in April from a year earlier, barely slowing from March’s 21.1% rise

"Barely slowing"? It looks to me like the imports have declined by just about the same value that their post-tax consumer prices have increased. If they imported 1000 units last March /April, 1211 units this March, and 1188 units this April, that looks like a 2.3% month-over-month decline... in the exact month where a tax increase raised the prices of everything by almost 3%!

Japannoob, to answer your question about Y8m earners, I suspect that 40% of the population lives in households with that income. So if an upper management husband earns that much, his stay-at-home wife and his school-age kids also count in that 40%.

And yes, this will end terribly for all but the rich. Everyone with savings in the bank will see the value of the fruits of their labor siphoned away by inflation and taxation. They could have stuck with the 2010-2012 status quo, running small surpluses which would very gradually pay down the national debt, and letting mild price declines and a strengthening yen make Taro Salaryman a little richer each year. But we all know what has happened since Abe took over.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Some people just sit and whinge, others find ways to overcome the tax increase or the down turn in the economy or the decrease in income, that's what sets the smart or the rich apart from the not so smart and the poor.

Some people use yahoo to buy, sell and trade to get a little extra income, some take on a part time job, some get even smarter and use some entrepreneurial nous, others sit and whinge.

the 3% increase has not affect most people I know or come across on a daily basis, but then I don't tend to come across the average Taro's or smith's as some of you call them.

Gaijininfo do you have any data or a link to verify the economy is going to "tank" please share if you have also please likewise share where you get this info about the self destruction of the Japanese economy.

All recent data being published shows differently.

-2 ( +3 / -5 )

MyJT2014

what the rich do is finding a ways robbing the poor to subsidy for their life styles.

Does somebody have a chip on their shoulder?

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Some people use yahoo to buy, sell and trade to get a little extra income, some take on a part time job,

So we regular folks have to take on part-time work just to stay where we were before? Sounds like a pretty good plan... if you're the government.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Thontaddeo would you prefer a govt hand out?

Sit n whinge doesnt work

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

Companies are targeting the 40% of the population that earns 8 million yen or more per year. Can those numbers be right?? Seems high to me.

Japanoob, they probably mean "household income."

1 ( +1 / -0 )

“Companies are targeting the 40% of the population that earns 8 million yen or more per year,” said Yoshiyuki Sodekawa, research director at Dentsu Innovation Institute, which studies market trends for advertising giant Dentsu.

This demographic, which compares with Japan’s median wage-earner income of 4.4 million yen, “accounts for much more than 40% of total spending and is leading the recovery in consumption now.”

On the one hand the article claims that 4.4million yen is the median wage earner's income, it then baldly states that those earning "8million or more" constitute 40% of the population. The former, I can believe. The latter proves only that the writer should enrol in a remedial math class.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

All the people I know have a hard time to make ends meetAnd yes they are having jobs and familyNot one has a salery invrease to make up for theSales tax aloneWhat I am concerned I go better do something otherwise it over and outIn this nice land for me at leastWhen paper money becomes no more than a sheet of foodstamps!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

It's of course tragic to see that Japan cannot get with the times. This country goes on and on about how to get people to spend mote of their hard-earned cash as if that would somehow solve anything. The whole damn society and its identity seems to be about using money on overpriced, more or less useless stuff, and rinse and repeat, ad infinitum. The notion of sustainability, repair, reuse, or quenching the useless money throwing, seems to be something incomprehensible here.

On good example is all the people going hiking. It seems that, to enjoy nature in Japan, you have to buy as much gear as you can bring. Nobody ever seems to reflect over that, perhaps you can enjoy a bit of fresh air without stocking up on stuff being used twice/year.

Japanese spend because they can and that's it.

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

“Companies are targeting the 40% of the population that earns 8 million yen or more per year,” said Yoshiyuki Sodekawa, research director at Dentsu Innovation Institute, which studies market trends for advertising giant Dentsu."

Dentsu must not have interviewed any of the employees at the company I work for, I guarantee way less than 40% of them have income less than 8 million/year, even most of the ones whose spouses are also working have income under 8 million.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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