Biggest natural decline in Japan's population ever ...

From JapanToday, Number of citizens residing in Japan rises for 2nd straight year:

The total number of citizens residing in Japan now stands at 127,076,183, up 10,005 from a year earlier, when calculated based on the number of citizens listed on basic resident registers nationwide, the ministry’s data showed. Japan saw more deaths than births, translating into a net drop of 45,914, but the decline was offset by factors including an increase in the number of Japanese people returning from overseas.

Of course, the front page of the Nikkei Shimbun today had a different headline, it read something like "Biggest natural decline in Japan's population ever ....."

A population drop purely in and of itself is not necessarily a problem for any economy. However, in the case where you have several government programs that are totally underfunded and dependent on the future collection of taxes, combined with an increasingly old society, you begin to have a serious problem. This could be an argument for all kinds of things:

1. Balanced budgets

2. No government pension funds (a bit late for that ... but maybe in the future?)

3. The need for immigration.

My personal feelings are that allowing immigrants into your country so they can pay for your older citizens pension funds via tax collection is a bit ... I don't know ... it doesn't really seem right to me, and I question whether that really works to solve the problem.

Anyway, I'd like to see more immigrants in Japan, that's for sure. The more there are the less lonely I feel. I say let them in because there's work to do, and people who want to pay them to do it. (Of course, right now the situation might not be exactly that good, but nevertheless the point is the same.)