Im Alter dahinsiechen, eingesperrt in ein Haus ohne Wert … Ryo Tane: „Japans Untergang: Egal wie hart man arbeitet, man bleibt arm“

Interesting to see Picketty’s work („popularized“ in his book, Capital in the 21st Century) being quoted here:

>所得のちがいはわずかでも、それを複利で運用していけば、20年、30年後には大きな差になるはずです。こうして資産格差がとめどもなく拡大していくと論じたのがフランスの経済学者トマ・ピケティで、「r＞g（資本収益率が経済成長率を上回る）」という不等式によって、資本をもつ者の富が加速度的に増えていくことを示しました。

This is kind of an aside, but the article once again underscored to me why we need heavy wealth taxes on the super rich. If you own a home, you already pay a wealth tax on that home in the form of property taxes, and if you are poor and in Japan, that’s pretty laughable given that your home isn’t expected to rise in value to offset the amount you must pay yearly. The notion that wealth taxes are communist redistributive policies is exploded when viewed through this lens.

It’s difficult when you’re underpaid, overworked and unappreciated in your job.

And on top of it you marry, start a family, have children and then work even harder just to make ends meet much less to start saving for retirement.

Pensions alone are never enough with rising inflation and your nest is empty with your child now moved out and may or may not help you in your latter year.

This is why it is so important for people to work on their finances as soon as they can. You don’t want to be old and depending on the kindness of bureacrats.

When you live in Japan, retirement almost doesn’t exist if you still carry financial burden especially higher taxes and lower salaries. FIRE is difficult here.