Japan slips into recession, becoming the 4th-largest economy, behind the US, China and now Germany.
Japan’s economy is now the world’s fourth-largest after it contracted in the last quarter of 2023 and fell behind Germany.
The government reported the economy shrank at an annual rate of 0.4% in October to December, according to Cabinet Office data on real GDP, though it grew 1.9% for all of 2023.
It contracted 2.9% in July-September. Two straight quarters of contraction are considered an indicator an economy is in a technical recession.
Japan’s economy was the second largest until 2010, when it was overtaken by China’s. Japan’s nominal GDP totaled $4.2 trillion last year, while Germany’s was $4.4 trillion, or $4.5 trillion, depending on the currency conversion.
That’s actually a really tough call between US and JP. I lived out of my car in the US for a while. I’ve not been homeless in Japan, but they do tend to have it rather rough from what I’ve seen.
In Japan you should not be seen if you’re homeless
There’s a reason their streets look so clean and part of that is forcing the homeless away
Damn, I didn’t know that. That’s fucked up for sure.
There are some that sleep basically in cardboard boxes not far from the Scientology building in Shinjuku. I walked there many times and they never gave me any trouble. Sometimes they would all be gone which is maybe to do with law enforcement or something, but I don’t know.
There are whole camps, apparently, in some areas on the edges of cities. I forget which youtuber did something on that. Maybe Life Where I’m From (or whatever it’s called).