Japan slips into recession, becoming the 4th-largest economy, behind the US, China and now Germany.
Japan’s economy is now the world’s fourth-largest after it contracted in the last quarter of 2023 and fell behind Germany.
The government reported the economy shrank at an annual rate of 0.4% in October to December, according to Cabinet Office data on real GDP, though it grew 1.9% for all of 2023.
It contracted 2.9% in July-September. Two straight quarters of contraction are considered an indicator an economy is in a technical recession.
Japan’s economy was the second largest until 2010, when it was overtaken by China’s. Japan’s nominal GDP totaled $4.2 trillion last year, while Germany’s was $4.4 trillion, or $4.5 trillion, depending on the currency conversion.
Truth is they are both going down at a different pace.
Germany just passed a €72 billion defense budget. As they say: “When the economy is sore, join a war.”
Did you miss the developments in Eastern Europe that necessitate this increase in spending?
No. Just pointing out that military spending is a very efficient way to increase economic activity. The US economy would not be doing very well if it wasn’t for all the military spending.
But Germany is doing it without putting it all on the big credit card like the Americans, so I’ll take Germany’s economy and well-advised budgeting any day of the week.
It still amazes me that a country that small with that little natural resource as Germany can have such a strong and big economy!
“We have declining birthrates and extremely strict immigration rules.”
“Why is our economy failing?”
You know not everything is a problem of too little or too much immigration…
What? Yeah except I’m not talking about everything I’m talking about the economy. Dying countries have low immigration and Japan’s self-imposed rules are pushing it into a recession because a lack of human workers leads to a weak workforce.
But I’d love to hear your theory on why Japan has fallen behind Germany.
It’s ridiculous. My friend married a Japanese woman and they had a boy. If the boy wasn’t born in Japan, he wouldn’t be a Japanese citizen in the future. Meanwhile, his Mexican father can’t aspire to be a Japanese, even if his whole family is and they have been married for years.
Is even more ridiculous for people like this boy, since their double nationality rules are kind of weird to me. Whatever, it’s just nuts.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The government reported the economy shrank at an annual rate of 0.4% in October to December, according to Cabinet Office data on real GDP, though it grew 1.9% for all of 2023.
"Japan’s top currency diplomat Masato Kanda communicated his displeasure around rapid yen moves which he says could have an adverse effect on the economy.
Mr Kanda even went as far as to suggest deploying FX intervention as a potential solution to the matter," Richard Snow, a market strategist at DailyFX, said.
"Japanese officials previously intervened in the FX market in September and October 2022 when it sold dollars and bought yen to strengthen the value of the local currency.
Cingari also noted that labour shortages represent a bottleneck to economic activity, while a trade-driven recovery is also unlikely amid stagnating export and import dynamics.
“On a more optimistic note, market financing conditions have eased recently, with expectations of continued relief facilitated by more accessible bank lending,” he said.
The original article contains 474 words, the summary contains 159 words. Saved 66%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Shame it don’t see anything of it, I just see a country falling into ruins and disrepair
LOL, a little over dramatic, aren’t you?
Examples?
What on Earth are you on about?