If you had to list the greatest threats to the world’s system of commerce and the future health of it, I’m sure you could come up with plenty of possible risks. A computer virus that destabilizes banking systems. A coordinated terrorist attack on America’s energy grid. A global pandemic that cripples the economy.
You could state any of these and no one would think they were unreasonable concerns. But these are, in fact, not even close to the greatest risk the global economy faces. No. The greatest fear, threat, and concern is something far more funny.
Japanese people won’t fuck each other.
You see, Japan is the world’s second-largest economy. And if the Japanese don’t start cranking out kids like fucking whoa, the whole shebang might topple. From the Washington Post in an article titled “Japan’s sexual apathy is endangering the global economy.”
(See, I wasn’t making this shit up).
Here’s something you are about to learn. The Japanese don’t like to fuck.
People in Japan are so averse to romantic relationships that the country’s media even has a name for it: sekkusu shinai shokogun, or “celibacy syndrome,” according to a widely circulated Guardian story on the country’s low rates of marriage, childbearing and even sex.
To like an insane degree. How many young, American men do you think, if polled, would say they “despised sex?” Negative a billion? Not so in Japan.
Extremely high numbers of Japanese do not find sex appealing… 25 percent of men, ages 16 to 24, are “not interested in or despised sexual contact.”
That’s damn cray. Women, meanwhile, don’t have much more of an interest in having children, thanks to a problematic clash of cultures.
Japanese women, for their part, often avoid romantic relationships because Japanese laws and social norms can make it extremely difficult for women to have both a family and a career … it has a European-style economy but South Asian social family mores.
So not fucking has become not weird, but normalized. Even though what I’m about to tell you is weird.
There’s an entire industry in Japan that helps men who eschew romantic lives cope with loneliness through relationship-simulating video games and even holiday retreats.
Hahaha what the fuck oh man those dudes are weird. We could all laugh at this, if it weren’t for a big, big problem.
This all has major and potentially catastrophic implications for the economy. Because Japanese people aren’t having kids … the population is shrinking.
Which wouldn’t be an issue per se, if Japan didn’t have a buncha dang worthless old folks.
This isn’t just bad because it means the Japanese economy will have fewer workers and thus be less productive. It’s setting up an economic time bomb that will go off before long. People in Japan tend to live a long time; elderly Japanese are expensive to care for because they spend so many years in retirement and because they’re accustomed to a high standard of living and medical care.
So, there won’t be enough people to pay for all people. Which would only be a Japan problem, and not a world problem, if Japan weren’t extremely leveraged right now and so intertwined with the rest of the world.
.. here’s the big problem: Japan is one of the most indebted governments in the world. Right now, Japanese public debt is 200 percent of its GDP – more even than Greece.
Quick refresher: Greece SUCKS economically. You don’t want to be compared to Greece. Now, the worry is that this spiral could spiral out of control.
… economists Peter Boone and Simon Johnson warned in The Atlantic that Japan “could face a wave of insolvencies, triggering a broader loss of confidence” and setting off a financial crisis greater than even the Euro’s. Investors could one day look at the country’s aging and shrinking tax base and decide that Japan’s public debt might not actually be such a safe investment, triggering a loss of confidence and possible insolvency.
Which would fuck just about everything.
Given that Japan owns $1.1 trillion in United States debt, a Japanese financial collapse could be very scary for us as well. Perhaps worst of all, that could endanger China’s already tenuous economic slow-down; China is Japan’s largest trading partner and the two economies are closely linked.
Now, this story was from October of 2013. Since then, it appears things have gotten worse. Per the Financial Times.
Deaths outnumbered births in Japan last year by the widest margin on record, underscoring the scale of the challenge facing the government as it tries to ensure a dwindling pool of workers can support growing ranks of pensioners.
But not fucking is too ingrained in Japanese culture to do anything about it. From Forbes:
As the Financial Times accurately noted, births in Japan have been on a long-term downward trajectory. Looking at the graph, however, gives some indication of just how relentless and remorseless this decline has been. Since 1973, Japan has not had a single year in which its fertility rate was high enough for population stability.
This lack of fucking is going to fuck us all.
So far Japan’s economy, particularly its government bond market, has been remarkably resilient in the face of all of this demographic pressure. But this can’t continue forever. At some point it will become clear to everyone that Japan has rung up debts that it has no ability to pay back other than through printing money: there simply aren’t going to be enough economically productive citizens.
So, dammit Japan. Start having unprotected sex or some shit. Unprotected sex is the best. But really, this is great. Finally proof that abstinence is bad. And Bros, if you wanna do your part, travel to Japan and fuck a bunch. Couldn’t hurt.