What would an Olympics cancelation cost Japan?

Japan is a wealthy country. The cancellation isn't gonna affect the Japanese economy in any meaningful way. This is due to the brilliant leadership from the Abe administration. He really deserves to run for the fourth term!

Who cares about the cancellation of a sporting event if it means that deaths are prevented?

@Jeff Ko

I see what you did there. The people who down votes, didn't.

I still don't get why there is more talk of cancelling than delaying the Games. Wouldn't it save the economy just to delay a year?

This is due to the brilliant leadership from the Abe administration. 

Abe didn't ask for the Olympics. The bid was drawn up and approved by the IOC before Abe became prime minister. Shintaro Ishihara, the Tokyo governor at the time, and others gave us the Olympics.

CNN news article provided a rather detailed look at the Tokyo Olympic options:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/sport/tokyo-2020-olympics-coronavirus-economic-cost-spt-intl/index.html

At least construction companies won’t suffer much from a possible cancellation or postponement now that most of the construction work for the Olympics has already been done and bills have been collected.

Face.

Jeff Ko - Japan is a wealthy country. The cancellation isn't gonna affect the Japanese economy in any meaningful way. This is due to the brilliant leadership from the Abe administration. He really deserves to run for the fourth term!

Wow! Is this the same Japan? If this were so, Japan would not hold the world’s largest public debt by more than double the next country (the US). Japan is not a wealthy country at all. Japan is a country up to its eyeballs in debt and they just keep printing money to compensate for their mismanagement of the country’s funds.

The cancelation of the Olympics will severely hurt the 90% of the Japanese population who are not rich. There will be more tax increases to compensate for their loss. People are already over taxed and are paying into a failed pension system with less than 20% return on their so-called ‘investment’. Add to this the 60% of workers who are in short-term or part-time working contracts and it’s easy to conclude, Japan is not a wealthy country at all!

huge waste of money. look at Brazil what did it do for them? nothing. green pools, disused facilities and the same number of poor people...

 Japan is a country up to its eyeballs in debt...

No it isn't. In fact it's the opposite: Japan is the world's biggest creditor nation. The symptoms of a serious debt burden are runaway inflation, a worthless currency, and steep interest rates. Japan has none of those things. Not even close.

People in my country do not have enough beds to take care of patients and many are dying everyday, meanwhile Japan not only is not in any way supporting the fight against the virus, but it’s also promoting an event that will possibly be the cause of an epidemic.

"Japan would not hold the world’s largest public debt by more than double the next country (the US). "

The year is 2020; some people still don't know,( or pretend not to) that the US is the World's LARGEST INTERNATIONAL DEBTOR!!!

Japan is the LARGEST INTERNAL (Domestic) debtor.

2 very significant differences, yet some pretend there's none.

"No it isn't. In fact it's the opposite: Japan is the world's biggest creditor nation."

Yup.

For more than 20 consecutive years now.

And their overseas wealth is actually projected to increase.

Some just don't have a clue; or pretend not to.

Japan is a country up to its eyeballs in debt...

This is misunderstood by some. Since almost ALL debt is owed to Japanese creditors - citizens, corporations and banks - all the Japanese gov't needs to do is order the Reserve to print more money when they choose to pay back that debt. Its no problem at all.

How much would it cost Japan?

I think much less than what Fukushima cost Japan and what the 2008 financial crisis cost Japan. But when we say "Japan" do we mean Japan as a whole, or just major corporations that are dependent on thousands of young volunteers hoping to put something useful on their resume so that one day they can perhaps work at one of these large corporations and receive a barely livable salary.

Hey moderator, was that comment too offensive for you?

@JeffLee @Fighto! I think you must look at the state of this economy more closely. Explain

Japan’s government might be owed plenty of money but the public are being royally shafted by increasing levels of tax and diminishing income-touché!

I would think the bigger question is; How many lives would it save if it were cancelled? Or Will it reboot the coronavirus in Japan.

It doesn't have to be cancelled, only postponed.

It’s probably a bad idea to import people from around the globe in the midst of a pandemic. I am guessing that the Japanese are assuming the virus will be on the downhill side by late Summer. That would be a gamble. Delay until next year.

The year is 2020; some people still don't know,( or pretend not to) that the US is the World's LARGEST INTERNATIONAL DEBTOR!!!

I don’t see much difference between internal and international debt. The money that was barrowed must be repaid regardless. Japan is largest debtor per capita - each person owes roughly twice the amount of each person in the US. That is an important indicator of the scale of the problem particularly given the lower labor market participation rate.

there are no trickle down economics from the olympics. 

Such blanket statements don’t seem logically supported. In normal times plenty of small and medium businesses benefit from the trickle down effects of increased demand. A small business near an Olympic venue would benefit from increased demand. Problem is these aren’t normal times.

Trickle down economics is really a thing. Trickle down government just creates debt.

The silver lining is it forces Japan to face economic reality sooner than later as there would most certainly be a drop off post Olympics. Tighten the belt and suck it up. Climb out of recession and rely less on tourism.

"I don’t see much difference between internal and international debt"

The fact you don't see it doesn't mean there's none.

There's a huge difference.

Japan is a domestic debtor; they owe it to themselves. Conversely, they're the biggest international creditor.

By miles.

The Government could default and that would be it; Japanese people would just accept it in a "Japanese way".

My girlfriend gets JCB's for birthdays from her dad. When I hinted they may be worthless as the Gov may decide not to pay, she replied: so be it.

Japan does not owe money to foreigners; they're a lot of it owed instead.

I commend them for not borrowing from outsiders; they can burden themselves, as it should be.

Japan gets way with a lot internationally because they're creditors to everyone else.

I did not know how much hold Japan has on the UK until a few weeks ago when my girlfriend had to do some accounts work for Hochiki Europe; they have their fingers in almost every fire alarm systems in this country.

The US owes it to international "customers"; the US is not in a position to default at will (unlike Japan).

If the US defaults there will be international repercussions.

Americans won't accept their gov default either. Surely there would be rioting.

Japan can default towards their own Japanese people, I'm more than sure there won't be any massive earthquakes in the country on account of that.

Japan owes hugely to themselves, yet their Credit rating is A1 (stable).

So yeah, there's a difference. A big one.

JGB, not JCB, sorry

Japan is a domestic debtor; they owe it to themselves. Conversely, they're the biggest international creditor.

The US owes it to international "customers"; the US is not in a position to default at will (unlike Japan).

I see you are trying hard to make the case that internal debt is preferable to debt to external lenders. And I agree that in the case of Japan, the people are not as likely to raise the same level of ruckus over getting stiffed by their government as would occur in the US or Europe. But even the Japanese people wouldn’t take getting shafted out of trillions of yen lightly- particularly the young who will have to take the brunt of it. Their future investments in in the country and their future prospects would vanish. Do you think there would not be a huge number of business failures resulting in a depression? Who would be given ownership of property that were financed by all that debt? Does the law no longer matter?

An internal financial catastrophe to the Japanese economy is not going to get the same level of coordinated support from the world than a default by the US - still the largest consumer economy on the planet. In time this could change and I agree that the horrible chaos a default would cause in either case would be catastrophic.

Then consider what a foreign country who gets stiffed by the US could do. Can they then decide that they can no longer do business with America? What alternatives do they have - China, the EU? China needs the US consumer. Additionally, China is itself a predatory lender to a large part of the developing world. The EU is itself deep in debt. These countries would be back for a reset out of necessity.

He is not trying hard at all lol. If I'm gonna borrow money I prefer that I borrow from my sister instead of from the neighbor. If I defaulted my sister would lend money to me againthe neighbor will probably haul me in court or shoot me or something =)

If I defaulted my sister would lend money to me againthe neighbor will probably haul me in court or shoot me or something =)

I would consider it much worse to fail to repay my sister than a guy in China that I don’t even know. Many families are destroyed by financial disagreements. At some point the guy in China will get over his loss to the stranger and move on. The breach of trust among siblings is much more corrosive to family cohesion.

"I see you are trying hard to make the case that internal debt is preferable to debt to external lenders."

No Sir.

Not trying hard; I'm saying it. Loud and clear.

If Japan's Gov defaults towards its people the country will just carry on, minor bumps notwithstanding.

Try that in the US, (or the UK) and see what happens.

 The money that was barrowed must be repaid regardless. 

Not really. For example, the biggest purchaser of Japanese sovereign debt is the BOJ, effectively a public sector institution. The proceeds from the bonds' coupon payments and encashment at maturity are transfered to...the ministry of finance. There's your "debt," folks. This largely explains why Japan doesnt has never actually suffered any risks associated with indebtedness.