We might experience something like Japan's "lost decade" of the 1990s. I expect that, actually. But we'd live through it. My all-time favorite pair of HN comments was the question and answer I saw I think before I signed up here, when I was lurking for interesting discussions.
Q: Anyone here lived through the Japan depression care to share their experiences with us?
A: It was terrible. People were forced to eat raw fish for sustenance. They couldn't get full-sized electronics, so they were forced to make tiny ones. Unable to afford proper entertainment, folks would make do by taking turns to get up and sing songs.
The current situation is much worse than Japan's "lost decade." Unfortunately, the crisis today is global in scope. When Japan went through its "lost decade," it was eventually able to export its way back to growth. That option does not exist today. Europe - particularly Eastern Europe - is contracting faster than the US; Japan is falling off a cliff; China is most likely already technically in recession. Trade and industrial production are actually contracting at faster rates than they did at any point during the Great Depression. It's not at all clear where global growth will come from at this point.
Obviously, we will have growth at some point in the future - maybe even in a year or so if we fix the financial system. But it might be five years from now. It might be ten. It might be longer. But there are social factors at work here complicating the picture. There is most likely going to be substantial social unrest around the world in the next few years. Eastern Europe and China are probably the most immediately vulnerable areas. It's impossible to predict what the consequences of potential social unrest or governments collapsing (like Latvia last week) would be, but they need to be considered in assessing how bad this current crisis could become.
This is not to say that we're all going to start living in a Steinbeck novel, or that shanty towns will start propping up everywhere. Our standard of living will go down, but we'll still live better than we did thirty or forty years ago. But we are going through an economic reset. This will be much worse than the mild recessions we've become accustomed to.
"Roger & Me is a 1989 American documentary film directed by independent filmmaker/author Michael Moore. With sarcasm and irony, Moore illustrates the negative economic impact of the late General Motors CEO Roger Smith's summary action of closing several auto plants in Flint, Michigan, costing 30,000 people their jobs and economically devastating the city.
[...]
The most famous resident that appears in the film is Rhonda Britton, who sells rabbits for "Pets or Meat" (The scene many believe was the reason Roger & Me received an R-rating features Britton killing a rabbit by beating it with a lead pipe. The rabbit fights back before and during the early part of the beating.)"
That comment is funny, but not actually useful. Sushi, consumer electronics, and karaoke were all a part of Japan become their economic turmoil. Since this is HN (as opposed to say, Reddit), I would like to see actual facts suggesting that the situation in Japan in the 1990s was not that bad, as opposed to snarky comments.
Perhaps the useful comment would take the form that even though Japan suffered a lack of forward progress that was remarkable after its several postwar decades of rapid economic growth, it was still a country with a traditional culture, advanced technology, and consumer-driven popular entertainment. In other words, things weren't so bad. And that is what I think the quoted comment said, in memorably humorous form that made the point very well for people like me who are familiar with Japan.
The fact that might appeal to other ways of looking at the issue would be a fact about immigration to Japan from other areas of Asia.
"The growing status of Japan as a major global and regional economic player was the background for the arrival of newcomers. The rise in the value of the yen, labor shortages, and the development of transnational networks (including the activities of migrant brokers) all contributed to a marked increase in foreign migrant workers in the late 1980s.
"The number of visa overstayers, who comprised the bulk of immigrant workers, grew from 100,000 in 1990 to 300,000 in 1993, and stood at around 207,000 as of January 2005. They have come mostly from other Asian countries, such as Korea, China, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia."
"However, two channels were available for de facto 'unskilled' labor migration. One was the trainee system, which subsequently expanded with the launching in 1993 of the Technical Internship Trainee Program. As of 2004, there were over 75,000 foreign workers in Japan under this program, marking the largest number ever. They found opportunities in agriculture, fishery, construction, food manufacturing, textile, machinery and metal, and other industries.
"The other channel was the recruitment of Nikkeijin (descendants of Japanese emigrants), who were given access to residential status with no restriction on employment. The most important visible impact of the legal reform was the influx of Japanese Brazillians.
"Whereas the aggregate number of visa overstayers began to decrease in 1993, according to Immigration Bureau statistics, the Brazilian population more than tripled from 56,000 in 1990 to over 176,000 in 1995, and to over 286,000 in 2004."
Q: Anyone here lived through the Japan depression care to share their experiences with us?
A: It was terrible. People were forced to eat raw fish for sustenance. They couldn't get full-sized electronics, so they were forced to make tiny ones. Unable to afford proper entertainment, folks would make do by taking turns to get up and sing songs.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=328685