I have always thought that Japan is over-populated for its size (especially when one considers that it has mountains and a major northern island which is very cold to live in. I do not think they need immigration at all, and letting the population fall down to say 70-80 million can only improve living standards over time. At present they have to run very hard to stand still, ie need to keep finding lots of jobs that probably do not need doing (eg various infrastructure), and earn lots of export revenue to buy food and other commodities.
Immigration would have no benefits for Japan and bring massive costs associated with integrating people with a totally different skills and perspective just so as to keep feeding their cities with people who work in service industries that can readily be downscaled. In any case it is normal for the size of a country's population to fluctuate over time - this has historically been the norm.
There is a silly immigration propaganda machine in place that claims that if you do not have it you miss out. If extra population is needed the solution is simple, give incentives to have a family - and introduce disincentives on those that do not. Cheap housing is important for family formation, and immigration makes this very expensive (especially in Australia). In addition those people who migrate have parents that they seek to bring in so the net effect on a country's supposed aging problem is zero or close to zero. In any case age discrimination is not allowed so I do not think this is a solution at all. It may well also lower the nation's skill level - it all becomes mainly a con over time (Australia's current situation is a great example of this - how many shop assistants from overseas do we need and what training do they really have?).
A lot of this propaganda comes from business which is always looking for ways to depress labour costs and seeks a market for its mindless garbage products. Business will never have labour that is cheap enough, nor is it willing to incur costs to train the labour, or in their view have a big enough domestic market (they always want to expand). The simple fact is that in a market economy labour (and other factors of production) is supposed to be enticed to move to those areas of higher economic value by reacting to price signals (higher wages). Business only likes market signals when it works in favour of their bottom line, and will use government to achieve its desired outcomes at the expense of labour (eg "workchoices"). This is much worse in the case of Australia with such a high and increasing level of foreign ownership as these firms have no interest in the social wellbeing of Australians and are very successful in lobbying our government.
One of the major reasons for Japan's declining birth rate has been the consequences of the 1980s bubble when people were left with huge loans made to purchase property and shares which deflated in value while the loan stayed in place (an observation made by a Japan expert - Andy Xie). Australia could be going in the same way, and the absurdly high population transfer we are having is simply making things much worse for us. I like the US system of people walking away from their loans - makes the lender more careful with their loans so long as they know the govt will not bail them out.
It needs to be noted that in the case of Australia's recent supposed success in avoiding a recession, the actual GDP per capita has fallen over the last year - but total outlays has risen because we are feeding, clothing and housing all the new arrivals (and selling our assets to overseas interests to do this).
So, what has all this got to do with gold one may well ask? The answer is obvious (to me). When our government has sold off the country and we are just tenants here, gold and gold equities will save the owners.
