Japan: a warning from history

ruggedtoast

Spiv wrote: »

Sorry - how can they have mortgage multiples greater than the UK and be considered to be "less indebted".? Pointless having tons of savings if you have tons of debt! Mortgaes are debt.

I think he means unsecured debt?

Spiv_2

ruggedtoast wrote: »

I think he means unsecured debt?

So a person in the UK with £5k on a credit card and rents a flat, is worse off than a Japanese person with a 60 year mortgage on a shed/flat - that he gets to bequeath to his family -simply because the Japanese person doesn't have any credit card debt and has a some savings under his mattress, well according to CFs logic anyway:rolleyes:

ruggedtoast

Spiv wrote: »

So a person in the UK with £5k on a credit card and rents a flat, is worse off than a Japanese person with a 60 year mortgage on a shed/flat - that he gets to bequeath to his family -simply because the Japanese person doesn't have any credit card debt and has a some savings under his mattress, well according to CFs logic anyway:rolleyes:

Well its a moot point I reckon.

I read a detailed article about this in an American newspaper once; comparing a Japanese family who saved for decades and spent a fortune on a tiny apartment, with an American family who lived like credit was going out of fashion and relied on rising house prices and debt to fund their life styles.

It concluded that the Americans were better off in practically every way (apart from having no savings and tonnes of debt), and that the American system was actually more socially responsible as everyone getting into debt fuelled everyone elses businesses and house prices etc. Rather than selfishly stashing their cash under the bed and never putting it to work.

Of course that was in about 2005 and some weaknesses to that model have since been exposed.

purch

Japan: a warning from history

What ? Are they going to invade Burma again ??

Radsteral

Someone once posted on this board about young Japanese couples on good incomes who bought flats near the top of the boom. They were still living in them a decade later and raising their family in cramped conditions because they couldn't afford to move.

Pretty easy to see that happening in the UK.''


i ready yesterday somewhere the japanese houses dont last more than 15 years,,, after 15 years they worthless so they have to be demolished .

Guy_Montag

Radsteral wrote: »

i ready yesterday somewhere the japanese houses dont last more than 15 years,,, after 15 years they worthless so they have to be demolished .

I read that the Japanese have generational mortgages with terms up to 100 years! Seems weird to have one of those for a building that only lasts 15 years.

ruggedtoast

Guy_Montag wrote: »

I read that the Japanese have generational mortgages with terms up to 100 years! Seems weird to have one of those for a building that only lasts 15 years.

Its a strange country.