Fast ageing Japanese customers may mean that the elderly will draw down on their savings and require new borrowing offshore according to analysts

Picture: Japanese customers enjoy bento lunch boxes with white rice and black sesame seed and umeboshi pickled plums and tsukemono (pickled vegetables)

" A fast ageing population also means elderly Japanese will draw on their savings. Without savers to buy government debt, the treasury will seek support from outside investors, which will raise borrowing costs and in a few years time force Japan into the same over-reliance on international money as Europe markets" page 17

Comment: This might come true in the future. From where we sit . Many elderly Japanese who still work full time who have reached retirement age,  collect a pay check, a pension & have accumulated leave. Their children still live at home (they work & pay board & rent), the house is paid off. The car in the driveway is not getting updated but sold. As taxis are cheaper than buying, keeping, maintaining & receiving monthly calls from your local dealer trying to get you to come in for a service or yearly shaken. Rental  cars from convenience stores are new, cheap and easy to rent. Few household appliances are being updated except for example: high end rice cookers which provide a superior taste or innovative time saving devices or health appliances. Digital televisions where the last major upgrade but many still have not upgraded as they are waiting for even lower set prices. Japanese elderly are very conservative with their money and rightly so, they grew up in an difficult era. So they are often more fiscally responsible than the younger generation. 

Source: Japanese hit by trade deficit

Phillip Inman

London, The Guardian

World Section, page 17

Australian Financial Review,

Friday January 27th, 2011