I suppose because of the Japanese cars that hit the US market at about the time I reached the car buying stage.
My first car was a used 1969 Toyota Corolla. My second car was a 1979 Datsun 300ZX (pre corporate name change to Nissan). The improvement in build quality over that ten years should have absolutely terrified Detroit.
I was in college in the early 1970s when Japanese brands became serious contenders in high-end audio equipment.
Consumer video recording put an end to the belief that while Japanese companies could copy American and European engineering, they couldn't innovate.
2025-10-02 00:18:30
I am not an economist (although I've taken a few graduate classes) so take the following with a grain of salt...
1) It strikes me that if Japan is selling large amounts of debt, and it's almost all being bought domestically, they have a problem with their tax structure. Selling interest-bearing bonds seems like a very inefficient way to do income redistribution.
2) As I recall the basic welfare theorems that justify the use of prices to match supply and demand, they say "There exists some initial distribution of wealth and set of prices that maximizes utility." Soon after, the initial distribution of wealth assumption disappeared from the discussion. This seemed a shame, since to paraphrase someone, the US government is primarily an income/wealth redistribution system with a very large military tacked on.
3) The answer to all of the problems the experts claim shrinking populations or shrinking worker-to-retiree ratios will cause is productivity: getting more out of the available resources (labor, electricity, land, water, etc).
4) Can't speak to Japan, but one of my long-standing complaints about the US is that forcing the elderly back into employment doesn't work if "employment" means eight hours plus commuting time five days a week, 50 weeks per year.
5) With respect to #3 and #4, I have been known to complain bitterly that US business management has gotten incredibly lazy and cheap, unwilling to be flexible or invest in education and productivity tools.
2025-10-01 16:50:13
USA Fencing (the national governing body for sport fencing in the US) starts Veteran categories at age 40. They keep adding higher age categories, recognizing that 60-year-olds can't generally keep up with 40-year-olds. At this year's national tournament, there was a Vet-80 category. There are online videos of the finals bouts in Vet-80. Some of the age-related health problems -- eg, many forms of cancer -- just come with the territory as things wear out at the cell level. More of the elderly health care problems are related to people just going sedentary at some point.
I recall visiting a club where one of the members was an 84-year-old who won a silver in epee at the Olympics in the 1950s. All of the local members seemed to be ignoring him despite his being dressed out, so I made a point of asking him to fence. He couldn't move and fence both, so he stayed in one place. But his eye was sharp, his wrist was quick and strong, and if you left any sort of opening on your weapon arm, he hit it. The club owner thanked me later for taking the time. I never did find out how an 84-year-old Eastern European fencer ended up living in Lincoln, NE.
For some reason, there are no fencing clubs within a reasonable driving distance of Fort Collins. This strikes me as particularly odd since it's a university town. I miss it.
I suppose because of the Japanese cars that hit the US market at about the time I reached the car buying stage.
My first car was a used 1969 Toyota Corolla. My second car was a 1979 Datsun 300ZX (pre corporate name change to Nissan). The improvement in build quality over that ten years should have absolutely terrified Detroit.
I was in college in the early 1970s when Japanese brands became serious contenders in high-end audio equipment.
Consumer video recording put an end to the belief that while Japanese companies could copy American and European engineering, they couldn't innovate.
I am not an economist (although I've taken a few graduate classes) so take the following with a grain of salt...
1) It strikes me that if Japan is selling large amounts of debt, and it's almost all being bought domestically, they have a problem with their tax structure. Selling interest-bearing bonds seems like a very inefficient way to do income redistribution.
2) As I recall the basic welfare theorems that justify the use of prices to match supply and demand, they say "There exists some initial distribution of wealth and set of prices that maximizes utility." Soon after, the initial distribution of wealth assumption disappeared from the discussion. This seemed a shame, since to paraphrase someone, the US government is primarily an income/wealth redistribution system with a very large military tacked on.
3) The answer to all of the problems the experts claim shrinking populations or shrinking worker-to-retiree ratios will cause is productivity: getting more out of the available resources (labor, electricity, land, water, etc).
4) Can't speak to Japan, but one of my long-standing complaints about the US is that forcing the elderly back into employment doesn't work if "employment" means eight hours plus commuting time five days a week, 50 weeks per year.
5) With respect to #3 and #4, I have been known to complain bitterly that US business management has gotten incredibly lazy and cheap, unwilling to be flexible or invest in education and productivity tools.
USA Fencing (the national governing body for sport fencing in the US) starts Veteran categories at age 40. They keep adding higher age categories, recognizing that 60-year-olds can't generally keep up with 40-year-olds. At this year's national tournament, there was a Vet-80 category. There are online videos of the finals bouts in Vet-80. Some of the age-related health problems -- eg, many forms of cancer -- just come with the territory as things wear out at the cell level. More of the elderly health care problems are related to people just going sedentary at some point.
I recall visiting a club where one of the members was an 84-year-old who won a silver in epee at the Olympics in the 1950s. All of the local members seemed to be ignoring him despite his being dressed out, so I made a point of asking him to fence. He couldn't move and fence both, so he stayed in one place. But his eye was sharp, his wrist was quick and strong, and if you left any sort of opening on your weapon arm, he hit it. The club owner thanked me later for taking the time. I never did find out how an 84-year-old Eastern European fencer ended up living in Lincoln, NE.
For some reason, there are no fencing clubs within a reasonable driving distance of Fort Collins. This strikes me as particularly odd since it's a university town. I miss it.