Predictions About the Future

UR: Coronavirus Missives from Japan and the US by Linh Dinh

One of his readers reports from Japan:

Max von Schuler-Kobayashi is an American who has lived in Japan for 45 years. Writing in Japanese and English, he is the author of six books on military history and present society.

We in Japan are much better off than the US or Great Britain. I put this to the extreme cleanliness of Japanese people in general.

For example, Japanese people always remove their shoes when returning home. And bathe every day. A Japanese home is always kept very clean.

Also Japan has a very competent health care system. We have National Health insurance, based on income.

It means that all people have access to the same general care. I checked this morning, some 11,200 active cases.

A good number of these are foreigners, such as from cruise ships. But the number of recovered people per day is beginning to outnumber the number of new cases per day. Perhaps we have reached plateau.

Personally, since my work involves speaking in front of many people, so I am unemployed.

In Japan, we have a unique situation. Our constitution was written and forced upon us post WWII by Americans. So it severely limits Executive powers. Our Prime Minister cannot simply order a lockdown.

What has happened is the political leadership has asked for voluntary lockdown, well a partial one.

Bars and restaurants can be open until 8pm. Last order is at 7pm. Schools are closed. Movie theaters closed.

But this is all voluntary. If a bar wants to remain open until late at night, the government cannot send police.

My guess is that some 80% of the Japanese population is complying with these guidelines. For a while, pinball gambling establishments would not comply, but public shaming did the trick. There is a vibrant sex industry in Japan. Since most cases of Corona virus are male, it is estimated that some 40% of new cases in Japan come from the sex industry. However, they are now closed also.

The Japanese government has to decided finally to send relief payments of ¥100,000 yen per person to people unemployed by Corona, sex workers will be included. I think I qualify. In the future, I think world trade will shrink. I think the Global economy is over. The future Japanese economy will be much more local.

I don’t think Corona will disappear, but will be with us for a long time, as a seasonal epidemic.

I think Japan is better prepared to handle the transition to a more local economy.

This is not from any prescient government planning. The government is mostly 2nd and 3rd generation idiots who grew up with a sliver spoon.

I don’t think the present Japanese government will remain.

Rather, it is the native ability of the Japanese people to persevere and weather a crisis. It will be hard, and there will be some people who simply will not survive, say someone from an elite university, being involved in foreign trade, suddenly moving to the countryside to become a farmer. But most people will adapt.

I think war on the Korean peninsula very possible, and perhaps in China. The Chinese have been very dishonest about the state of Corona Virus in their country. They never did get it under any kind of control, they just pretended to for business reasons. Now it is in Beijing. They too are facing collapse of present society.

The American Empire certainly over, I see civil war in America, and eventual breakup, into at least 5 entities. I don’t see massed armies like the Blue and Grey of 150 years ago, but rather a guerrilla war. I think the cities will depopulate, most city people will not survive rural life. The future transport system of the US will be by river, some rail, and horse. Most car and truck transport will disappear for lack of fuel. I don’t see a national electric grid as maintainable.

Western Europe will be similar.

The two countries that will still resemble present life the most will be Japan and Russia.