While I don’t necessarily disagree with anything in this post, I moved to Tokyo from the US and for me life is much better even with a lower salary. I don’t need a car which saves me a lot of money, and my commute is relaxing and stress-free since I don’t have to deal with traffic. My apartment is small but it has everything I need. In the US most of my house was unnecessary space. I can walk to hundreds of restaurants within 10 minutes and food is cheap enough that I can eat out for every meal if I want. I don’t have to spend time at the gym because I can stay in shape through normal daily activity here. I can walk around day or night and feel safe and never be hassled by the homeless, mentally ill, or drug addicts.
So while Japan does have problems, most things have been moving in the right direction. Working hours have been decreasing, gender equality has been increasing, etc. If the economy can get better it will be a near-perfect place to live. Whereas I feel the US has been getting worse. The politics and culture are terrible, and to get Japan-level cities and transit would require bulldozing much of the country and starting over from scratch. I’m always shocked when I visit the US at how bad the cities and infrastructure are. It definitely feels much poorer than Japan despite it being richer on paper.
The best of both worlds might be to live in Japan but somehow work remotely getting an American salary right ? The main issue I see is once you decide to start a family with children the housing seems to be sort of a challenge there. But as a young single
Person with American wealth / job jt seems nice, if perhaps a bit staid?
I work for a tech company here so my salary is pretty good by Japanese standards, though less than I could make in the US. If you can make a US salary it’s great here but you have to figure out how to get a visa in that case. I don’t really like working remotely so I never looked into that. As for being staid, I wouldn’t really call it that. I would say it’s organized and respectful, but still a very lively and exciting place to live. I would consider most of Europe to be a lot more staid than Tokyo.
I wanted to say some things about the "dense city, walkable cities, no car cities, etc", since it is a topic of so many posts.
Of course I get what you mean when you praise denser cities, public transit, etc., but I live in one of those extremely praised "big walkable european cities blablabla", but I'm not born there, I'm from a smaller city, so I experienced both a more car centric and a more transit centric city. The transit is VERY modern and well developed (subway station every 1km that brings you anywhere in the city), buses/trams literally everywhere, etc.
One thing to note is that I own a car even in the bigger city where I live because you rapidly discover how longer trips, usually are exponentially (yeah ok, not really exponentially) faster with a car compared to public transport. If you live 100 meters away from a subway station, work 15 mins away from your house, and can use the subway to cover 90% of your trip to work using the subway then yeah, that's great, better than using the car.
But that's not the case for everyone, I know many people that have to do 1 hour or 1 and 1/2 hour trips to go to work and would do the same route in 30-40 minutes using a car (because you know, there are no intermediate stops).
If you want to go outside the city for the weekend, the advantage of the car becomes even clearer.
Yes, a 21 yo student can bear all of this and maybe he doesn't even notice certain things, but when you grow up or have a family, you notice all of this.
In fact where I live now it's damn full of cars, there is an excellent public transport (that I exclusively used for 2 years), but its FULL of cars. A ton of people have cars here.
I'm serious that you need a car anyway, even if your city has good public transport.
I would do 1/3 of the things without a car, expecially weekend trips, because it would be a nightmare relying only on public transit and trains.
In fact you can see that car ownership for major european countries is just like 10-20% less than american's, not that big of a difference considered that enormous geographical differences.
Sometime when I read this "omg paris/barcelona is literally heaven on earth" by some americans it's like you're reporting stuff from a place that doesn't exist. Even here, people dream of a good salary, a nice house and a nice car. Yes, a nice car, I mean, in many western european countries there's a huge culture and passion around cars, and in fact super-high car ownership rates, how the hell it is spreading the idea that we are somewhat anti-car here, or that it is an american thing lol.
A nice car is still a life goal for the vast majority of people here, for cultural and practical reasons.
Also, you can trust me that one thing I've never heard in my entire life is "wow, my dream is to live in a tiny shitty apartment that costs 700k in a horrible 12-storey building, in a dense walkable city where I have to use the bus at 1.30 am, along with junkies and weirdos (yeah I don't know where you got that info, but many european big cities and especially their public transit are ABSOLUTELY not safe by night)".
Nobody says that, the vast majority of people dreams of a good salary, a nice house and NOT living in a big city because of the way you're forced to live if you don't earn 10k per month (small and pricey houses, forced to use the public transit to go everywhere, etc.).
I think that there are good reasons to want to live in single houses and to have denser more walkable cities, I'm just saying it's not all pros, there are also cons to that.
I grew up in a very large, extremely walkable, kind of safe, with reliable (if old) public transit city and can confirm that many people still aspire to the big house, nice car and safe neighborhood.
But there's also tons of people that aspire to the pent house flat in the most expensive/nicest district.
The problem that Noah and other YIMBYs call attention to is that if you're in the first group it's fairly easy to find housing in the US. Whereas if you're in the 2nd group that housing is often ilegal to build, or extremely cumbersome to, so those options are not there. Even if it's a minority, it's a segment that should be addressed, and doing so has a host of related benefits.
"Of you want to go outside the city for the weekend, the advantage of the car becomes even clearer.
Yes, a 21 yo student can bear all of this and maybe he doesn't even notice certain things, but when you grow up or have a family, you notice all of this.
In fact where I live now it's damn full of cars, there is an excellent public transport (that I exclusively used for 2 years), but its FULL of cars. A ton of people have cars here.
I'm serious that you need a car anyway, even if your city has good public transport.
I would do 1/3 of the things without a car, especially weekend trips, because it would be a nightmare relying only on public transit and trains."
I tried doing the New York City thing without a car. Relying on car sharing services like Zip Car or rental car companies if you wanted to take a trip on popular weekends was always fraught and unpleasant with the question of whether there would be cars available and how high up the price would be jacked.
Even if you intellectually know that you are coming out ahead when you rent a basic car for $100+ dollars a day a few months out of the year, it's unpleasant at the time.
Agree, there are a lot of services here too to rent cars but have the same problems (costly, not convenient, don't know if there will be cars, many trips are not doable, especially longer ones, etc.).
Imho the rule of thumb is this: is your trip relatively short and mostly covered by public transit? Maybe a routine trip you have to do daily or even multiple times a day? Then go for it.
Everything else, especially longer trips? Very likely better to do this by car.
Even better, I found a house that allows me to just walk for a few minutes, so I don't have to deal with public transit (there are other things I find unpleasant, but that's more subjective).
I imagine it's a similar effect as Noah describes where tourists visit these dense cities and it's so convenient to get around without a car compared to visiting some US sprawl like Houston. And so they dream that this would be a fantastic way to live. But of course you also have difficulties shopping when you are older or have physical limitations (I've often had to help my elderly relatives, who live in a dense city and can't drive, it would have been quite hard for them without access to a vehicle).
There are pros and cons, this is a case where we need a middle ground, so dense and cheap/cheaper neighborhoods for those who want/need it, and less dense for those who like that kind of lifestyle.
Many overlook the fact that there are a lot of pros in single-family homes and so-called "suburbia", as there are cons, and the same is for denser housing.
I can tell you that both where I live now, and where I come from, richer people absolutely tend to inhabit two kinds of homes: 1) big, nice and very expensive (often "ancient") downtown apartments, often high-rise ones, 2) single family homes just outside the city or in greener/less developed areas of the city.
Nobody dreams of living their life in shitty, old small apartments in an ugly 10-storey condo with other 400 people, always depending on a crammed coach hoping there's no strike that day.
But on the other hand this allows for cheaper or FAR cheaper housing (not always, sadly) for many people that couldn't afford anything else.
I think Noah might want to tighten up the phrasing to be “a car not being required to live.” I live in the city and my car needed some recall work so they dropped off a loaner - do I “need it?” No. I can go to the gym, the doctor, the barber, the grocery store, the drug store, a restaurant, bar, coffee shop on foot and for work I can uber or take the subway.
Do we use the car for some of the other things you mentioned? Sure. But if for whatever reason the car wasn’t available, my life doesn’t come to a stop. For those in the suburbs if they suddenly didn’t have a car or couldn’t drive their lives would come to a standstill.
I agree, in fact I wouldn't live in suburbia style, I'd like, as many others in my city/ies, a single family home inside or just outside the city.
But if you live an active life it's really unlikely that everything you need/want to do is at walking distance or it takes a few minutes with the subway.
When I didn't have the car, I declined to go in some places because the idea of doing 1.15 hours (at best, if there are no delays) of subway full of people, where you need to stand up the whole time because it's so full the wagon is going to explode.
If someone invites you to a fair and 2.30 out of 8 hours involve you standing up against other 1245 people, than you lose interest. Or at least I lose it (and from personal experience, a ton more people like me).
I'm not saying that denser cities are for losers or some bs like that, I'm saying that it comes with pros and cons. And certainly I'm not endorsing ultra-isolated suburbias (although some might like that kind of lifestyle), crazy zoning laws and stuff like that.
Also, here:
"For those in the suburbs if they suddenly didn’t have a car or couldn’t drive their lives would come to a standstill."
Yes but if you don't have a car, if there's a strike (something that regularly happens in many big cities, suffice to say that where I live I think happened one day a week for 70% of the weeks in the last 2-3 months), nobody goes to work. I can walk to go to work (fortunately), and when strikes occur, I'm like the only one there.
I think it was france 1-2 years ago when they went on strike for like 3-4 weeks for the pensions' reform and in paris almost all of the public transit was shut down (entirely or with like 30 minutes per day running), and people couldn't move or go to work.
If transit prices skyrocket, you pay or you stay there. If you want to visit your family for holidays or some weekends, train/bus prices go crazy and many can't afford it.
In particular inclement weather (this depends on where you live), buses can stop for safety reasons, while a car with proper tires/chains can go almost anywhere (except really extreme weather).
Right - the goal is options. It’s a nice day so I’ll walk. It’s a crappy day so I’ll drive. There is a strike so no public transport and traffic will be a nightmare so I’ll ride my bike.
The little caveat is that at least nowadays if there is a strike people will work remotely, so you can drive easily because there's less people around because, especially in some european cities where salaries are not tech SF salaries, many can't afford to have a car, so if for some reason public transport is shut down, much less people move.
Great article. Wholly in agreement that the vast majority of foreign visitors, even those who live here for extended periods, do not get to see the "real" Japan. I've been living here for the last 21 years, I have a great many Japanese friends, travel widely, interact with neighbors and local community, and yet still know I live in a bubble in many ways. (I run my own company in a creative field so there isn't much overlap with the "salaryman" experience.) There are definite reasons why many of my high-school exchange buddies left Japan to live in the US. Japan was a place I could chase my dreams as an outsider, but to a local, it seems that often isn't the case.
Some thoughts on your specific points:
-Housing may indeed be "average" compared to American homes, but I think your argument misses two things. One, the idea of owning a home isn't nearly as aspirational in Japan because homes rapidly depreciate in value. They are not investment assets in the way Americans think of them. There are no "flippers" here, nor are homes status symbols, for it isn't common to entertain, or even invite guests, into one's home on a regular basis. As a result, I think the fundamental mindset of what constitutes a good, or even acceptable, home is quite different.
-Regarding salaries and purchasing power, I wouldn't presume to argue with your numbers, but my sense is it is a lot easier to lead a fun life even on a low salary in Tokyo, particularly as a twentysomething. Many live with parents. Even the run-down sections of town are clean and safe. There are many cheap eateries and izakaya and convenience stores. There are lots of low-cost cultural events ranging from museums to otaku conventions. I do not get the sense living on a low salary is much fun in any American urban center.
-And regarding endless toil, while I again wouldn't argue with your numbers, I'd suggest that a) the quality/stress level of said work may (may!) differ from the US, and b) there are increasing numbers of young folk who are dropping out of this rat race altogether (I have an upcoming post on these “low socially conscious individuals,” as they call themselves in Japan.) So times are a'changing.
> I do not get the sense living on a low salary is much fun in any American urban center.
As a student I had no problem having fun on barely any money in the US. Probably depends on what you want to do, obviously I didn't go out to eat or drink daily, etc. There are many free activities though, especially around universities. It's probably more challenging as you get older, but that's surely just because there are fewer people that have low income at that point (esp. college grads)
"The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon."
Money is a symbol of value, not value in and of itself. It doesn't matter how much money you have; what matters is how many good/useful/helpful/enjoyable things you can buy with it.
It's all well and good to know that Americans are much wealthier than Japanese, but frankly, we as a society are doing a piss-poor job of converting all that money into actual happiness and wellbeing. Most of Americans feel the country is on the wrong track. People feel hopeless, angry, left out. On November 5, Americans had the choice between a sane, decent woman and a lawless, ranting asshole, and they chose the asshole because he was better at speaking to their alienation and anger. People cheer on the murder of the health insurance CEO and say he had it coming. Millions upon millions of Americans live precariously, don't have an emergency fund, have trouble paying for their rent/mortgage/childcare/healthcare/student loans.
I'm not saying Japan is some kind of paradise; I would love to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there for many reasons, including the conformist culture (as Noah says in this article, risk-taking and innovation are discouraged, the nail that sticks up is pounded down, etc.) and old-fashioned gender roles. And they're definitely not anywhere close to a Pareto optimum for the wealth-leisure tradeoff, seeing as they are poorer AND work harder than Americans.
But my question is: What the f*** are we doing with all our wealth and economic might? How are we getting so little bang for the greenback dollar - in happiness, in contentment, in hope for the future, in social harmony?
Maybe Noah could write a piece about that?
Anyway, happy holidays, Noah, and thank you for your Substack, which I enjoy very much. Walkable cities FTW!
The median American has an $8k emergency fund according to themselves. Americans are all doing well economically but believe /everyone else/ is doing poorly.
I do generally agree, even if I think upper-ish middle class life in Tokyo is a lot better than making a tech salary in SF. Maybe it's a skill issue in spending money, but the only expensive hobby I managed to get into when I had "unlimited" money was travel and photography, which is magically a lot cheaper when I'm on the side of the ocean that interests me more.
The emphasis on central air in the article is kinda weird? Central air is the old shitty technology, while the norm in modern Japan (due to relatively quick update cycles on buildings, and being pretty poor during the heyday of central air), ductless mini-split, is the better technology. It's significantly more efficient, gets rid of the hard to clean and maintain air ducts (which further degrade efficiency with age), and trivially provides room-by-room control over heating and cooling (which at least anecdotally, even very expensive new homes with central air in the US still typically lack, even though it is in theory possible).
The difficulty of adjusting for the quality of goods is that a lot of it is down to preferences. In Ann Arbor, I would drive an hour and pay through the nose for what is basically konbini bread in Japan, but standard bread in Japan has its fair share of mostly western haters as well. Maybe on average, all the mismatched preferences end up balancing out for standard PPP adjustment to be realistic, but I'm not sure it does.
As for "time on task" from anecdotal experience at least, time on task for office workers is very low, one of the many factors contributing to low office productivity. However time on task for food service is very high, due to the lack of tipping allowing for more efficient staff allocation, and higher seat turnover just demanding more work, though that might not be true relatively anymore with how prevalent food delivery has become in the US post-pandemic. It's hard to imagine time on task for manufacturing being much different than anywhere else in the developed world considering the worldwide spread of manufacturing processes first popularized in Japan.
> trivially provides room-by-room control over heating and cooling (which at least anecdotally, even very expensive new homes with central air in the US still typically lack
It's true, although I don't personally see much need for this. I just have my house set to the same temperature year round and with solar power it's practically free on the margin.
I would suspect that central air is more popular in the US because aesthetics of houses are much more important and we tend to have larger houses with more rooms so having 6+ ductless mini splits would be impractical.
Even just trying to maintain a consistent temperature throughout a house (especially multi-story) instead of optimizing temperature settings for energy efficiency, is typically still a challenge with central air. The lack of individual control of room temperature isn't "every room is the same temperature" it's "every room is whatever temperature it happens to be when the central thermostat is happy" which is rarely all the same, except for very small homes.
None of the central air houses I lived in the US had a consistent temperature, and some rooms, especially not on the floor with the thermostat, would be consistently hot even with the vent fully closed or cold with the vent fully open. Even when it was possible to get the desired temperature in a room it involved fiddling with thermostat settings and vent flap positions through trial and error instead of just pressing buttons and letting electronics do the rest. And even though it is in theory possible, automatic control of those vents with an in room thermostat is extremely rare even in very expensive homes.
If anything, widespread adoption of ductless mini-split systems would be more beneficial in the US than Japan. I don't really need 3 zones for my 1 bedroom apartment, but it would have been nice to have at least 3 zones (and more realistically 6+) in a 3 story house.
The ductless mini splits are good enough, allow you to control each room, are quiet and have nice functions like dehumidifiers and sweeping fans, but they really should agree on a simple standard for the remote controls, which have dozens of buttons (with sometimes a cover with hidden buttons) with confusingly labeled functions (similar to Japanese TV remotes) and the simple, heat/cool up/down adjustments are rarely obvious.
Bread in Japan I find better than in Europe or American boutique bakeries, and bread shops are all over in small neighborhoods and most train stations. Even Seven-Eleven is introducing their popular tamagosando (packaged eggs salad sandwiches) to their California stores (because of hostile takeover pressure from CoucheTarde the Circle K owner). But in LA they go for $7 as opposed to ¥300 ($2) in Japan.
Japanese bread feels like they tried American white bread and decided it needed to be even whiter. I find it hard to believe it has any nutrition at all.
Lately conbinis have this fortified Base Bread stuff and I eat it constantly on trips because otherwise I feel like I'm not getting any fiber.
While not a standardized remote they do make IR smart home hubs that control all your IR home appliances. Also, the air con remotes are relatively standard, it's the light fixture remotes that really need a manual (or an app).
1/ "Multigenerational households are more common in Japan than in the U.S., and Japan has a higher proportion of old people, meaning that people spend more time taking care of their aged parents in their off hours."
This assumes that multigenerational households don't have significant mental health benefits which I believe it does (although I can't bring myself to search for evidence.
2/ Your poverty statistics are all relative poverty. Why have you decided to use these? They inflate the number of Americans living in poverty due to the median being one of the highest in the world. Japan would look worse on a pure poverty (income below x $ per month)
"This assumes that multigenerational households don't have significant mental health benefits which I believe it does (although I can't bring myself to search for evidence." Honestly I don't think it brings any significant mental health benefit, I mean living in the same house. Maybe having your parents watching your kids because they live nearby is useful and the fact that you can spend more time with them is good, but I highly doubt having all those people living in the same house is beneficial.
One more thing to note is that this increases the probability that you (or your partner) will spend a good amount of time taking care of them when they're no more able to do it by themselves, and this usually takes a toll on your mental health, but on the negative side. And usually this kind of work is done by wives. I've seen cases where the mother of someone is taken care of mainly by his wife.
I've done a quick search: multi-generational households do have mental health benefits for young and old people, I haven't found anything about "middle aged" but tend to agree with you possibly they become the squeezed middle of the household?......
> Your poverty statistics are all relative poverty. Why have you decided to use these? They inflate the number of Americans living in poverty due to the median being one of the highest in the world. Japan would look worse on a pure poverty (income below x $ per month)
Yeah I never really understand this, it implies that we could never have "zero poverty' which isn't how most people understand the term. If we look at absolute standards then we should expect it to decrease over time, e.g. ~80% of American adults below the "poverty line" own smartphones.
“But the purpose of this post is to remind Americans how good they actually have it.”
Coming back from the Third World was often a shock. You spend some time with people who have little yet are happy. Then you experience the dissatisfaction and whining when you touch down in a U.S. airport. And you think: Really?
There might be some selection bias in your observation. Being born and raised in (former) USSR country, I find most Americans extremely positive and cheerful even after 10 years of living here. In the real world, not in social media of course.
A cynic might say that being the world's richest Third World country doesn't actually stop the United States of America from having the other problems of a Third World country. (Including a would-be banana republic dictator running the government!)
It's also in the vein of an older very smart post you did on how quality of life in most rich countries is actually very similar and the differences - while very much there - are often mostly to individual and societal choices and preferences. I feel a lot of it shines through here, even though your post is much more detailed and makes a convincing case.
However, in the spirit of doing a more detailed comparison, I would like to draw your attention to the other country mentioned up there in the original tweet: Austria.
Specifically because a lot of the things you do point out about Japan are quite a bit different there. The material gap is much smaller in PPP and smaller still if you look at it per hour worked.
The whole issue of excessive working hours and fewer vacation days is also quite reversed here - while Japanese work longer and take fewer holidays than Americans, Austrians (and most Europeans) work significantly fewer hours and take longer holidays than Americans.
For example, Austrians take about 38-40 vacation days a year, compared to Americans’ 20 (or Japanese 8.8.). Austrians work about 1,436 hours per year, which is a lot less than Americans or Japanese
The average commute time one-way is about 27 minutes both in Austria and the US, btw.
As for the cities and the square space per capita, there's lots to be said about so many different models. Japanese urban design is amazing. European urbanism has lots of wonderful places and bright spots and also quite some rundown, shoddy areas. American cities and suburbs have their own challenges. But I think it's fair to say that lots of Austrian (and European) cities do get lots of things right in urban planning. And they have mostly more square meters per capita than Japan (though not as many as the US, but that's partly due to the preference of living in dense cities instead of suburbs).
Health care is broadly available (and overall cheaper), there's public education, a welfare state, but also lots of innovative companies and hidden champions. It's also true that Austria like much of Europe struggles to incubate new digital champions of significant size (a big issue!). But at least looking at GDP per capita and productivity per hour worked, it has still mostly kept pace with the US regardless in the last few decades (other than Japan).
A similar case could be made for demographic change and aging: While it affects all.rich countries, Japan has only recently started to allow in more immigrants to tackle it. Austria - like many other European countries - has been a destination for immigrants and refugees for decades and its population keeps growing, somehow reducing the challenges of demographic change somewhat.
In fact, the age dependency ratio in both Austria and the US is virtually the same - around 54% - though skewed a bit more to the elderly in Austria, tbf. Still, a far cry from Japan's 70%.
If you look at things like the murder rate, violence, drug abuse and all of that, Austria also has very low rates and is very safe. Not quite as much as Japan, but way closer to it than any US state, let alone the country as a whole.
Life expectancy in Austria has increased by 5.5 years since 1990 and by 2.2 in the US (actually, the US was ahead in 1990 and is now behind by 2.69 years).
One more thing, before I conclude: Something American commentators often tend to gloss over but what I think is actually pretty important is also how much a country does to welcome those less fortunate from other countries which are perhaps not highly educated or the next Silicon Valley founders. Concretely, I mean refugees from war, persecution for their sexual origins, beliefs or other reasons.
In this measure, Austria is far ahead: It hosts 28 refugees per 1,000 inhabitants, impaired to 1.2 in the US and 0.18 in Japan.
And let me point out that while I am proud and happy about that, it is also logical that the economic integration of refugees is a completely different challenge than that of regular immigrants. Countries taking in many refugees such as Austria do some extra lifting that others just don't even have to content with.
All of that is to say in oh-so many words: Yes, Europe has many big challenges. But it also has success stories. Sometimes it merits to look at those too.
Best,
Ben
PS: And yes, Austria is one small country. But to varying degrees, lots of these things are applicable in many other countries, too. And anyway, also small countries can offer valuable insights and perspectives. There's no oil, gas, tax haven, Swiss bank accounts or similar stuff in Austria.
There's a lot of stuff here about per capita GDP, but not a lot about income distribution. It looks to me like these average American salaries could look good because they average out a small number of rich people with a large amount of poor people. Any response to that?
Those small studio apartments are sparse, but cheap to rent. Even in central Tokyo you can rent one near a train station for less than ¥80,000/ month which would be equivalent to a studio in Manhattan or Brooklyn near a station for under $500.
I feel like even with the experience of having lived in Asia, not Japan but Seoul and Shanghai over four years I go through incredibly mixed feelings. Moving to the states and becoming a teacher was actually a huge quality of life nosedive even though I made modestly more income if you do the conversions. I felt considerably poorer as an American entry level teacher compared to being a foreign English teacher.
But it’s also very time bound. It’s a profession that has it’s lifers but it’s mostly for young 20 somethings for whom buy experiences not things is incredible advice and oh i can talk about all my vacations and things I did and places I went forever. In a real sense life in the US is less exciting but more stable. The people who do it forever are true travelers and people who marry local and adjust to it in a much more pedestrian way.
Still I feel like there’s a huge under counted set of advantages to it all. But I’m open to the idea that it’s just a novelty effect that would wear off over time.
My friend just sent a post showing "bankruptcies from medical bills" in 17 countries. In the U.S.A. the number was 643,000. In all the other 16 (from Norway to Canada, to Japan, etc.) it was 0. Japanese live five years longer. I think that means life is better there. I lived in Australia 12 years on a salary about 2/3rds of what a similar job pays in the U.S. I always felt fine, not much difference. More public goods (health care, etc.). Less poverty. (Went out to eat last night and saw 3-4 homeless people sleeping in a doorway at 20 degrees f.). Knowing there was less poverty made me feel happier. And...the best thing was more holidays and "long service leave," three months off with full pay every few years. Wow. In a world needing de-growth for ecological reasons (i.e. for human survival) we could consider less pay andmore time off.
> Japanese live five years longer. I think that means life is better there.
It means they're doing less fentanyl is all.
But no, it doesn't even imply that. There's lots of things being rich buys you that can kill you. And calorie restriction is the best known way to make animals live longer.
When I become dictator, at the age of 21 every American will be handed a passport, a one-way ticket to anywhere of their choice outside the USA & Canada, and a stipend of $1,000/month for a year; they will also be denied re-entry for the year — something like a national Rumspringa. That should take care of all the bellyaching.
Now it is not the law, but many Kiwis do approximately this voluntarily, and once they return home they are some of the proudest of the proud for their home country, and they speak from experience.
It took me until I was about 55 years old to figure this out, but many of us obsess way too much about WHERE we live. I think it is because it is the easiest thing for us to control, especially Americans. It is relatively easy for us to pick up and move if we when we are unhappy with our circumstances. If you focus on WHY you live (purpose), WHO you live with (relationships), and HOW you live (budgeting), you can be happy wherever you are. Also, when you take that perspective you find there are a lot of great places to live.
NHK News (Japanese national broadcaster) is broadcast on PBS in America. It is eye opening. I watch both it and DW News (German) every day. I don't bother watching CBS/ABC/NBC/CNN/Fox since on the rare occasions they say something meaningful it's crammed into 90 seconds so you don't learn enough to matter.
Even in Tokyo, one of the most expensive cities in the world, the minimum wage is about $7/hr. For perspective, the minimum wage in CA is $15 and it's going up in January. While this is not a perfect metric, it's probably a fair measure of the urban working class standard of living.
Tokyo isn’t one of the most expensive cities in the world. It’s actually cheaper than almost every city in the US and Canada. It used to be one of the most expensive cities but that was 30-40 years ago. An average studio apartment in Tokyo is only $500 per month and you can eat a meal at a cheap restaurant for about $3. I spend way less money since I moved to Tokyo.
Seriously, Jeff? Wow! I'm just really out of date then. But the last time I was in Japan was 20+ years ago, so that's not surprising. Thanks. It sounds like, on a PPP basic, the wages are more comparable than I realize.
While I don’t necessarily disagree with anything in this post, I moved to Tokyo from the US and for me life is much better even with a lower salary. I don’t need a car which saves me a lot of money, and my commute is relaxing and stress-free since I don’t have to deal with traffic. My apartment is small but it has everything I need. In the US most of my house was unnecessary space. I can walk to hundreds of restaurants within 10 minutes and food is cheap enough that I can eat out for every meal if I want. I don’t have to spend time at the gym because I can stay in shape through normal daily activity here. I can walk around day or night and feel safe and never be hassled by the homeless, mentally ill, or drug addicts.
So while Japan does have problems, most things have been moving in the right direction. Working hours have been decreasing, gender equality has been increasing, etc. If the economy can get better it will be a near-perfect place to live. Whereas I feel the US has been getting worse. The politics and culture are terrible, and to get Japan-level cities and transit would require bulldozing much of the country and starting over from scratch. I’m always shocked when I visit the US at how bad the cities and infrastructure are. It definitely feels much poorer than Japan despite it being richer on paper.
The best of both worlds might be to live in Japan but somehow work remotely getting an American salary right ? The main issue I see is once you decide to start a family with children the housing seems to be sort of a challenge there. But as a young single
Person with American wealth / job jt seems nice, if perhaps a bit staid?
I work for a tech company here so my salary is pretty good by Japanese standards, though less than I could make in the US. If you can make a US salary it’s great here but you have to figure out how to get a visa in that case. I don’t really like working remotely so I never looked into that. As for being staid, I wouldn’t really call it that. I would say it’s organized and respectful, but still a very lively and exciting place to live. I would consider most of Europe to be a lot more staid than Tokyo.
Fair enough. I’ve never been to Japan so just trying to synthesize what I’m reading.
I wanted to say some things about the "dense city, walkable cities, no car cities, etc", since it is a topic of so many posts.
Of course I get what you mean when you praise denser cities, public transit, etc., but I live in one of those extremely praised "big walkable european cities blablabla", but I'm not born there, I'm from a smaller city, so I experienced both a more car centric and a more transit centric city. The transit is VERY modern and well developed (subway station every 1km that brings you anywhere in the city), buses/trams literally everywhere, etc.
One thing to note is that I own a car even in the bigger city where I live because you rapidly discover how longer trips, usually are exponentially (yeah ok, not really exponentially) faster with a car compared to public transport. If you live 100 meters away from a subway station, work 15 mins away from your house, and can use the subway to cover 90% of your trip to work using the subway then yeah, that's great, better than using the car.
But that's not the case for everyone, I know many people that have to do 1 hour or 1 and 1/2 hour trips to go to work and would do the same route in 30-40 minutes using a car (because you know, there are no intermediate stops).
If you want to go outside the city for the weekend, the advantage of the car becomes even clearer.
Yes, a 21 yo student can bear all of this and maybe he doesn't even notice certain things, but when you grow up or have a family, you notice all of this.
In fact where I live now it's damn full of cars, there is an excellent public transport (that I exclusively used for 2 years), but its FULL of cars. A ton of people have cars here.
I'm serious that you need a car anyway, even if your city has good public transport.
I would do 1/3 of the things without a car, expecially weekend trips, because it would be a nightmare relying only on public transit and trains.
In fact you can see that car ownership for major european countries is just like 10-20% less than american's, not that big of a difference considered that enormous geographical differences.
Sometime when I read this "omg paris/barcelona is literally heaven on earth" by some americans it's like you're reporting stuff from a place that doesn't exist. Even here, people dream of a good salary, a nice house and a nice car. Yes, a nice car, I mean, in many western european countries there's a huge culture and passion around cars, and in fact super-high car ownership rates, how the hell it is spreading the idea that we are somewhat anti-car here, or that it is an american thing lol.
A nice car is still a life goal for the vast majority of people here, for cultural and practical reasons.
Also, you can trust me that one thing I've never heard in my entire life is "wow, my dream is to live in a tiny shitty apartment that costs 700k in a horrible 12-storey building, in a dense walkable city where I have to use the bus at 1.30 am, along with junkies and weirdos (yeah I don't know where you got that info, but many european big cities and especially their public transit are ABSOLUTELY not safe by night)".
Nobody says that, the vast majority of people dreams of a good salary, a nice house and NOT living in a big city because of the way you're forced to live if you don't earn 10k per month (small and pricey houses, forced to use the public transit to go everywhere, etc.).
I think that there are good reasons to want to live in single houses and to have denser more walkable cities, I'm just saying it's not all pros, there are also cons to that.
I grew up in a very large, extremely walkable, kind of safe, with reliable (if old) public transit city and can confirm that many people still aspire to the big house, nice car and safe neighborhood.
But there's also tons of people that aspire to the pent house flat in the most expensive/nicest district.
The problem that Noah and other YIMBYs call attention to is that if you're in the first group it's fairly easy to find housing in the US. Whereas if you're in the 2nd group that housing is often ilegal to build, or extremely cumbersome to, so those options are not there. Even if it's a minority, it's a segment that should be addressed, and doing so has a host of related benefits.
"Of you want to go outside the city for the weekend, the advantage of the car becomes even clearer.
Yes, a 21 yo student can bear all of this and maybe he doesn't even notice certain things, but when you grow up or have a family, you notice all of this.
In fact where I live now it's damn full of cars, there is an excellent public transport (that I exclusively used for 2 years), but its FULL of cars. A ton of people have cars here.
I'm serious that you need a car anyway, even if your city has good public transport.
I would do 1/3 of the things without a car, especially weekend trips, because it would be a nightmare relying only on public transit and trains."
I tried doing the New York City thing without a car. Relying on car sharing services like Zip Car or rental car companies if you wanted to take a trip on popular weekends was always fraught and unpleasant with the question of whether there would be cars available and how high up the price would be jacked.
Even if you intellectually know that you are coming out ahead when you rent a basic car for $100+ dollars a day a few months out of the year, it's unpleasant at the time.
Agree, there are a lot of services here too to rent cars but have the same problems (costly, not convenient, don't know if there will be cars, many trips are not doable, especially longer ones, etc.).
Imho the rule of thumb is this: is your trip relatively short and mostly covered by public transit? Maybe a routine trip you have to do daily or even multiple times a day? Then go for it.
Everything else, especially longer trips? Very likely better to do this by car.
Even better, I found a house that allows me to just walk for a few minutes, so I don't have to deal with public transit (there are other things I find unpleasant, but that's more subjective).
I imagine it's a similar effect as Noah describes where tourists visit these dense cities and it's so convenient to get around without a car compared to visiting some US sprawl like Houston. And so they dream that this would be a fantastic way to live. But of course you also have difficulties shopping when you are older or have physical limitations (I've often had to help my elderly relatives, who live in a dense city and can't drive, it would have been quite hard for them without access to a vehicle).
There are pros and cons, this is a case where we need a middle ground, so dense and cheap/cheaper neighborhoods for those who want/need it, and less dense for those who like that kind of lifestyle.
Many overlook the fact that there are a lot of pros in single-family homes and so-called "suburbia", as there are cons, and the same is for denser housing.
I can tell you that both where I live now, and where I come from, richer people absolutely tend to inhabit two kinds of homes: 1) big, nice and very expensive (often "ancient") downtown apartments, often high-rise ones, 2) single family homes just outside the city or in greener/less developed areas of the city.
Nobody dreams of living their life in shitty, old small apartments in an ugly 10-storey condo with other 400 people, always depending on a crammed coach hoping there's no strike that day.
But on the other hand this allows for cheaper or FAR cheaper housing (not always, sadly) for many people that couldn't afford anything else.
I think Noah might want to tighten up the phrasing to be “a car not being required to live.” I live in the city and my car needed some recall work so they dropped off a loaner - do I “need it?” No. I can go to the gym, the doctor, the barber, the grocery store, the drug store, a restaurant, bar, coffee shop on foot and for work I can uber or take the subway.
Do we use the car for some of the other things you mentioned? Sure. But if for whatever reason the car wasn’t available, my life doesn’t come to a stop. For those in the suburbs if they suddenly didn’t have a car or couldn’t drive their lives would come to a standstill.
I agree, in fact I wouldn't live in suburbia style, I'd like, as many others in my city/ies, a single family home inside or just outside the city.
But if you live an active life it's really unlikely that everything you need/want to do is at walking distance or it takes a few minutes with the subway.
When I didn't have the car, I declined to go in some places because the idea of doing 1.15 hours (at best, if there are no delays) of subway full of people, where you need to stand up the whole time because it's so full the wagon is going to explode.
If someone invites you to a fair and 2.30 out of 8 hours involve you standing up against other 1245 people, than you lose interest. Or at least I lose it (and from personal experience, a ton more people like me).
I'm not saying that denser cities are for losers or some bs like that, I'm saying that it comes with pros and cons. And certainly I'm not endorsing ultra-isolated suburbias (although some might like that kind of lifestyle), crazy zoning laws and stuff like that.
Also, here:
"For those in the suburbs if they suddenly didn’t have a car or couldn’t drive their lives would come to a standstill."
Yes but if you don't have a car, if there's a strike (something that regularly happens in many big cities, suffice to say that where I live I think happened one day a week for 70% of the weeks in the last 2-3 months), nobody goes to work. I can walk to go to work (fortunately), and when strikes occur, I'm like the only one there.
I think it was france 1-2 years ago when they went on strike for like 3-4 weeks for the pensions' reform and in paris almost all of the public transit was shut down (entirely or with like 30 minutes per day running), and people couldn't move or go to work.
If transit prices skyrocket, you pay or you stay there. If you want to visit your family for holidays or some weekends, train/bus prices go crazy and many can't afford it.
In particular inclement weather (this depends on where you live), buses can stop for safety reasons, while a car with proper tires/chains can go almost anywhere (except really extreme weather).
Right - the goal is options. It’s a nice day so I’ll walk. It’s a crappy day so I’ll drive. There is a strike so no public transport and traffic will be a nightmare so I’ll ride my bike.
The little caveat is that at least nowadays if there is a strike people will work remotely, so you can drive easily because there's less people around because, especially in some european cities where salaries are not tech SF salaries, many can't afford to have a car, so if for some reason public transport is shut down, much less people move.
In these discussions about "walkable cities", there is much confusion between the concepts of "using a car" and "owning a car"
Great article. Wholly in agreement that the vast majority of foreign visitors, even those who live here for extended periods, do not get to see the "real" Japan. I've been living here for the last 21 years, I have a great many Japanese friends, travel widely, interact with neighbors and local community, and yet still know I live in a bubble in many ways. (I run my own company in a creative field so there isn't much overlap with the "salaryman" experience.) There are definite reasons why many of my high-school exchange buddies left Japan to live in the US. Japan was a place I could chase my dreams as an outsider, but to a local, it seems that often isn't the case.
Some thoughts on your specific points:
-Housing may indeed be "average" compared to American homes, but I think your argument misses two things. One, the idea of owning a home isn't nearly as aspirational in Japan because homes rapidly depreciate in value. They are not investment assets in the way Americans think of them. There are no "flippers" here, nor are homes status symbols, for it isn't common to entertain, or even invite guests, into one's home on a regular basis. As a result, I think the fundamental mindset of what constitutes a good, or even acceptable, home is quite different.
-Regarding salaries and purchasing power, I wouldn't presume to argue with your numbers, but my sense is it is a lot easier to lead a fun life even on a low salary in Tokyo, particularly as a twentysomething. Many live with parents. Even the run-down sections of town are clean and safe. There are many cheap eateries and izakaya and convenience stores. There are lots of low-cost cultural events ranging from museums to otaku conventions. I do not get the sense living on a low salary is much fun in any American urban center.
-And regarding endless toil, while I again wouldn't argue with your numbers, I'd suggest that a) the quality/stress level of said work may (may!) differ from the US, and b) there are increasing numbers of young folk who are dropping out of this rat race altogether (I have an upcoming post on these “low socially conscious individuals,” as they call themselves in Japan.) So times are a'changing.
> I do not get the sense living on a low salary is much fun in any American urban center.
As a student I had no problem having fun on barely any money in the US. Probably depends on what you want to do, obviously I didn't go out to eat or drink daily, etc. There are many free activities though, especially around universities. It's probably more challenging as you get older, but that's surely just because there are fewer people that have low income at that point (esp. college grads)
"The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon."
Money is a symbol of value, not value in and of itself. It doesn't matter how much money you have; what matters is how many good/useful/helpful/enjoyable things you can buy with it.
It's all well and good to know that Americans are much wealthier than Japanese, but frankly, we as a society are doing a piss-poor job of converting all that money into actual happiness and wellbeing. Most of Americans feel the country is on the wrong track. People feel hopeless, angry, left out. On November 5, Americans had the choice between a sane, decent woman and a lawless, ranting asshole, and they chose the asshole because he was better at speaking to their alienation and anger. People cheer on the murder of the health insurance CEO and say he had it coming. Millions upon millions of Americans live precariously, don't have an emergency fund, have trouble paying for their rent/mortgage/childcare/healthcare/student loans.
I'm not saying Japan is some kind of paradise; I would love to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there for many reasons, including the conformist culture (as Noah says in this article, risk-taking and innovation are discouraged, the nail that sticks up is pounded down, etc.) and old-fashioned gender roles. And they're definitely not anywhere close to a Pareto optimum for the wealth-leisure tradeoff, seeing as they are poorer AND work harder than Americans.
But my question is: What the f*** are we doing with all our wealth and economic might? How are we getting so little bang for the greenback dollar - in happiness, in contentment, in hope for the future, in social harmony?
Maybe Noah could write a piece about that?
Anyway, happy holidays, Noah, and thank you for your Substack, which I enjoy very much. Walkable cities FTW!
The median American has an $8k emergency fund according to themselves. Americans are all doing well economically but believe /everyone else/ is doing poorly.
I do generally agree, even if I think upper-ish middle class life in Tokyo is a lot better than making a tech salary in SF. Maybe it's a skill issue in spending money, but the only expensive hobby I managed to get into when I had "unlimited" money was travel and photography, which is magically a lot cheaper when I'm on the side of the ocean that interests me more.
The emphasis on central air in the article is kinda weird? Central air is the old shitty technology, while the norm in modern Japan (due to relatively quick update cycles on buildings, and being pretty poor during the heyday of central air), ductless mini-split, is the better technology. It's significantly more efficient, gets rid of the hard to clean and maintain air ducts (which further degrade efficiency with age), and trivially provides room-by-room control over heating and cooling (which at least anecdotally, even very expensive new homes with central air in the US still typically lack, even though it is in theory possible).
The difficulty of adjusting for the quality of goods is that a lot of it is down to preferences. In Ann Arbor, I would drive an hour and pay through the nose for what is basically konbini bread in Japan, but standard bread in Japan has its fair share of mostly western haters as well. Maybe on average, all the mismatched preferences end up balancing out for standard PPP adjustment to be realistic, but I'm not sure it does.
As for "time on task" from anecdotal experience at least, time on task for office workers is very low, one of the many factors contributing to low office productivity. However time on task for food service is very high, due to the lack of tipping allowing for more efficient staff allocation, and higher seat turnover just demanding more work, though that might not be true relatively anymore with how prevalent food delivery has become in the US post-pandemic. It's hard to imagine time on task for manufacturing being much different than anywhere else in the developed world considering the worldwide spread of manufacturing processes first popularized in Japan.
> trivially provides room-by-room control over heating and cooling (which at least anecdotally, even very expensive new homes with central air in the US still typically lack
It's true, although I don't personally see much need for this. I just have my house set to the same temperature year round and with solar power it's practically free on the margin.
I would suspect that central air is more popular in the US because aesthetics of houses are much more important and we tend to have larger houses with more rooms so having 6+ ductless mini splits would be impractical.
Even just trying to maintain a consistent temperature throughout a house (especially multi-story) instead of optimizing temperature settings for energy efficiency, is typically still a challenge with central air. The lack of individual control of room temperature isn't "every room is the same temperature" it's "every room is whatever temperature it happens to be when the central thermostat is happy" which is rarely all the same, except for very small homes.
None of the central air houses I lived in the US had a consistent temperature, and some rooms, especially not on the floor with the thermostat, would be consistently hot even with the vent fully closed or cold with the vent fully open. Even when it was possible to get the desired temperature in a room it involved fiddling with thermostat settings and vent flap positions through trial and error instead of just pressing buttons and letting electronics do the rest. And even though it is in theory possible, automatic control of those vents with an in room thermostat is extremely rare even in very expensive homes.
If anything, widespread adoption of ductless mini-split systems would be more beneficial in the US than Japan. I don't really need 3 zones for my 1 bedroom apartment, but it would have been nice to have at least 3 zones (and more realistically 6+) in a 3 story house.
The ductless mini splits are good enough, allow you to control each room, are quiet and have nice functions like dehumidifiers and sweeping fans, but they really should agree on a simple standard for the remote controls, which have dozens of buttons (with sometimes a cover with hidden buttons) with confusingly labeled functions (similar to Japanese TV remotes) and the simple, heat/cool up/down adjustments are rarely obvious.
Bread in Japan I find better than in Europe or American boutique bakeries, and bread shops are all over in small neighborhoods and most train stations. Even Seven-Eleven is introducing their popular tamagosando (packaged eggs salad sandwiches) to their California stores (because of hostile takeover pressure from CoucheTarde the Circle K owner). But in LA they go for $7 as opposed to ¥300 ($2) in Japan.
Japanese bread feels like they tried American white bread and decided it needed to be even whiter. I find it hard to believe it has any nutrition at all.
Lately conbinis have this fortified Base Bread stuff and I eat it constantly on trips because otherwise I feel like I'm not getting any fiber.
While not a standardized remote they do make IR smart home hubs that control all your IR home appliances. Also, the air con remotes are relatively standard, it's the light fixture remotes that really need a manual (or an app).
Two things:
1/ "Multigenerational households are more common in Japan than in the U.S., and Japan has a higher proportion of old people, meaning that people spend more time taking care of their aged parents in their off hours."
This assumes that multigenerational households don't have significant mental health benefits which I believe it does (although I can't bring myself to search for evidence.
2/ Your poverty statistics are all relative poverty. Why have you decided to use these? They inflate the number of Americans living in poverty due to the median being one of the highest in the world. Japan would look worse on a pure poverty (income below x $ per month)
"This assumes that multigenerational households don't have significant mental health benefits which I believe it does (although I can't bring myself to search for evidence." Honestly I don't think it brings any significant mental health benefit, I mean living in the same house. Maybe having your parents watching your kids because they live nearby is useful and the fact that you can spend more time with them is good, but I highly doubt having all those people living in the same house is beneficial.
One more thing to note is that this increases the probability that you (or your partner) will spend a good amount of time taking care of them when they're no more able to do it by themselves, and this usually takes a toll on your mental health, but on the negative side. And usually this kind of work is done by wives. I've seen cases where the mother of someone is taken care of mainly by his wife.
I've done a quick search: multi-generational households do have mental health benefits for young and old people, I haven't found anything about "middle aged" but tend to agree with you possibly they become the squeezed middle of the household?......
> Your poverty statistics are all relative poverty. Why have you decided to use these? They inflate the number of Americans living in poverty due to the median being one of the highest in the world. Japan would look worse on a pure poverty (income below x $ per month)
Yeah I never really understand this, it implies that we could never have "zero poverty' which isn't how most people understand the term. If we look at absolute standards then we should expect it to decrease over time, e.g. ~80% of American adults below the "poverty line" own smartphones.
“But the purpose of this post is to remind Americans how good they actually have it.”
Coming back from the Third World was often a shock. You spend some time with people who have little yet are happy. Then you experience the dissatisfaction and whining when you touch down in a U.S. airport. And you think: Really?
There might be some selection bias in your observation. Being born and raised in (former) USSR country, I find most Americans extremely positive and cheerful even after 10 years of living here. In the real world, not in social media of course.
A cynic might say that being the world's richest Third World country doesn't actually stop the United States of America from having the other problems of a Third World country. (Including a would-be banana republic dictator running the government!)
Edit: Wow, I got to make the first comment!
Hey Noah,
Great post, much of which I agree with!
It's also in the vein of an older very smart post you did on how quality of life in most rich countries is actually very similar and the differences - while very much there - are often mostly to individual and societal choices and preferences. I feel a lot of it shines through here, even though your post is much more detailed and makes a convincing case.
However, in the spirit of doing a more detailed comparison, I would like to draw your attention to the other country mentioned up there in the original tweet: Austria.
Specifically because a lot of the things you do point out about Japan are quite a bit different there. The material gap is much smaller in PPP and smaller still if you look at it per hour worked.
The whole issue of excessive working hours and fewer vacation days is also quite reversed here - while Japanese work longer and take fewer holidays than Americans, Austrians (and most Europeans) work significantly fewer hours and take longer holidays than Americans.
For example, Austrians take about 38-40 vacation days a year, compared to Americans’ 20 (or Japanese 8.8.). Austrians work about 1,436 hours per year, which is a lot less than Americans or Japanese
The average commute time one-way is about 27 minutes both in Austria and the US, btw.
As for the cities and the square space per capita, there's lots to be said about so many different models. Japanese urban design is amazing. European urbanism has lots of wonderful places and bright spots and also quite some rundown, shoddy areas. American cities and suburbs have their own challenges. But I think it's fair to say that lots of Austrian (and European) cities do get lots of things right in urban planning. And they have mostly more square meters per capita than Japan (though not as many as the US, but that's partly due to the preference of living in dense cities instead of suburbs).
Health care is broadly available (and overall cheaper), there's public education, a welfare state, but also lots of innovative companies and hidden champions. It's also true that Austria like much of Europe struggles to incubate new digital champions of significant size (a big issue!). But at least looking at GDP per capita and productivity per hour worked, it has still mostly kept pace with the US regardless in the last few decades (other than Japan).
A similar case could be made for demographic change and aging: While it affects all.rich countries, Japan has only recently started to allow in more immigrants to tackle it. Austria - like many other European countries - has been a destination for immigrants and refugees for decades and its population keeps growing, somehow reducing the challenges of demographic change somewhat.
In fact, the age dependency ratio in both Austria and the US is virtually the same - around 54% - though skewed a bit more to the elderly in Austria, tbf. Still, a far cry from Japan's 70%.
If you look at things like the murder rate, violence, drug abuse and all of that, Austria also has very low rates and is very safe. Not quite as much as Japan, but way closer to it than any US state, let alone the country as a whole.
Life expectancy in Austria has increased by 5.5 years since 1990 and by 2.2 in the US (actually, the US was ahead in 1990 and is now behind by 2.69 years).
One more thing, before I conclude: Something American commentators often tend to gloss over but what I think is actually pretty important is also how much a country does to welcome those less fortunate from other countries which are perhaps not highly educated or the next Silicon Valley founders. Concretely, I mean refugees from war, persecution for their sexual origins, beliefs or other reasons.
In this measure, Austria is far ahead: It hosts 28 refugees per 1,000 inhabitants, impaired to 1.2 in the US and 0.18 in Japan.
And let me point out that while I am proud and happy about that, it is also logical that the economic integration of refugees is a completely different challenge than that of regular immigrants. Countries taking in many refugees such as Austria do some extra lifting that others just don't even have to content with.
All of that is to say in oh-so many words: Yes, Europe has many big challenges. But it also has success stories. Sometimes it merits to look at those too.
Best,
Ben
PS: And yes, Austria is one small country. But to varying degrees, lots of these things are applicable in many other countries, too. And anyway, also small countries can offer valuable insights and perspectives. There's no oil, gas, tax haven, Swiss bank accounts or similar stuff in Austria.
There's a lot of stuff here about per capita GDP, but not a lot about income distribution. It looks to me like these average American salaries could look good because they average out a small number of rich people with a large amount of poor people. Any response to that?
Those small studio apartments are sparse, but cheap to rent. Even in central Tokyo you can rent one near a train station for less than ¥80,000/ month which would be equivalent to a studio in Manhattan or Brooklyn near a station for under $500.
https://www.chintai.net/list/?b=1&b=2&b=3&ue=000000063&prefKey=tokyo&jks=&sf=0&m=0&j=&jl=0&k=1&h=99&urlType=dynamic&ct=0&mode=1&jk=0&rt=51&st=0&cf=0
I feel like even with the experience of having lived in Asia, not Japan but Seoul and Shanghai over four years I go through incredibly mixed feelings. Moving to the states and becoming a teacher was actually a huge quality of life nosedive even though I made modestly more income if you do the conversions. I felt considerably poorer as an American entry level teacher compared to being a foreign English teacher.
But it’s also very time bound. It’s a profession that has it’s lifers but it’s mostly for young 20 somethings for whom buy experiences not things is incredible advice and oh i can talk about all my vacations and things I did and places I went forever. In a real sense life in the US is less exciting but more stable. The people who do it forever are true travelers and people who marry local and adjust to it in a much more pedestrian way.
Still I feel like there’s a huge under counted set of advantages to it all. But I’m open to the idea that it’s just a novelty effect that would wear off over time.
My friend just sent a post showing "bankruptcies from medical bills" in 17 countries. In the U.S.A. the number was 643,000. In all the other 16 (from Norway to Canada, to Japan, etc.) it was 0. Japanese live five years longer. I think that means life is better there. I lived in Australia 12 years on a salary about 2/3rds of what a similar job pays in the U.S. I always felt fine, not much difference. More public goods (health care, etc.). Less poverty. (Went out to eat last night and saw 3-4 homeless people sleeping in a doorway at 20 degrees f.). Knowing there was less poverty made me feel happier. And...the best thing was more holidays and "long service leave," three months off with full pay every few years. Wow. In a world needing de-growth for ecological reasons (i.e. for human survival) we could consider less pay andmore time off.
> Japanese live five years longer. I think that means life is better there.
It means they're doing less fentanyl is all.
But no, it doesn't even imply that. There's lots of things being rich buys you that can kill you. And calorie restriction is the best known way to make animals live longer.
When I become dictator, at the age of 21 every American will be handed a passport, a one-way ticket to anywhere of their choice outside the USA & Canada, and a stipend of $1,000/month for a year; they will also be denied re-entry for the year — something like a national Rumspringa. That should take care of all the bellyaching.
Now it is not the law, but many Kiwis do approximately this voluntarily, and once they return home they are some of the proudest of the proud for their home country, and they speak from experience.
It took me until I was about 55 years old to figure this out, but many of us obsess way too much about WHERE we live. I think it is because it is the easiest thing for us to control, especially Americans. It is relatively easy for us to pick up and move if we when we are unhappy with our circumstances. If you focus on WHY you live (purpose), WHO you live with (relationships), and HOW you live (budgeting), you can be happy wherever you are. Also, when you take that perspective you find there are a lot of great places to live.
NHK News (Japanese national broadcaster) is broadcast on PBS in America. It is eye opening. I watch both it and DW News (German) every day. I don't bother watching CBS/ABC/NBC/CNN/Fox since on the rare occasions they say something meaningful it's crammed into 90 seconds so you don't learn enough to matter.
Even in Tokyo, one of the most expensive cities in the world, the minimum wage is about $7/hr. For perspective, the minimum wage in CA is $15 and it's going up in January. While this is not a perfect metric, it's probably a fair measure of the urban working class standard of living.
Tokyo isn’t one of the most expensive cities in the world. It’s actually cheaper than almost every city in the US and Canada. It used to be one of the most expensive cities but that was 30-40 years ago. An average studio apartment in Tokyo is only $500 per month and you can eat a meal at a cheap restaurant for about $3. I spend way less money since I moved to Tokyo.
Seriously, Jeff? Wow! I'm just really out of date then. But the last time I was in Japan was 20+ years ago, so that's not surprising. Thanks. It sounds like, on a PPP basic, the wages are more comparable than I realize.