Japanese billionaires?

This view is a completely uneducated one, but could it have something to do with WW2? How many fortunes do you think were completely destroyed during the early 20th century in Japan?

Also I think it may inevitably have something to do with the culture. The pursuit of individual wealth is neither advocated, nor are the appropriate systems in place to allow any one individual to do that. Many of of the 30 or so Japanese billionaires are billionaires by virtue of being the latest patriarchs of a family business.

Good question though... perhaps a Japanese monkey can further thorize on this.

Generally it stems from a more even distribution of wealth at all levels of society. E.g. Sure there are differences between a nurse and a doctor OR flight attendant and a pilot in status etc... but the income gap between them as compared to other developed/developing countries is very much narrower. Hence with higher income equality, it offers more chances for people to subsequently make it good in life.

Usually I wouldn't comment, but this is too irritating. Correlation vs. causation, BigChest?!

To paraphrase you: "The fact that Japan has fewer per capita billionaires than other similarly developed countries generally stems from a more even distribution of wealth at all levels of society."

Wow

it does not have something to do with WW2...japan has since risen to become the worlds 2nd largest economy (in absolute terms).

more relevantly, i'm not sure i'd agree with your primary assertion that japan doesn't have that many.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_the_number_of_billiona...

...30 is about as many as the uk has.

Yes, but Japan has 125,000,000 people...twice as many as the UK and four times as many as Canada. Furthermore, none of them are "exceedingly" wealthy (hard to say that with a straight face, but the richest is at $5.5bn).

It might have to do with the fact that Japan has been in a deflationary spiral for about the last 15 years. The Nikkei was at an all time high of ~38,000 in '89 and now it's around 13,800. The BOJ has kept the overnight rate at 0 until recently when it tightened 25bps and it's been waiting 2 years to raise rates again.

I'm sure there was a larger percentage of Japanese Billionaires/Rich People in Forbes' list when the Imperial Palace was worth the same amount as the state of California.

thank you wikipedia.

if you knew how hard it was to become a billionaire, you probably wouldn't bother.

Side note, I think Israel and Hong Kong (which really is not a country, don't know why that hasn't been updated) are the only places on the list up there that has a better ratio than 1 billionaire for every 1,000,000 people. Some countries are close though.

Hmm, I know one thing that was pointed out over and over again by a professor of mine (I forgot which class) is that Japan made a living off of improving already created devices. I believe his analysis stemmed from the fact they hold so few patents for products as compared to other countries. As the professor stated, Japan made its name from taking other people's ideas and re-engineering them, in some cases, and just plainly producing them at a cheaper, more efficient rate.

Obviously owning the patent rights to a product don't make you rich necessarily, but a lot of money is made when new, novel ideas come to market. Think about $15,000 plasmas you can get for $1,500 now. Things like that.

Any comments or ideas regarding that perspective?

Regards,

Chris

so his perspective is flawed.

Japan has the the 2nd highest number of patents in the world, after the United States.

I think it has to do with taxation, sharing of wealth amongst families who control large corporate enterprises, and a culture that discourages ostentatious accumulation and display of wealth.

wow, its a good thing i don't actually listen to any of them, lol. it is def. flawed and i found that out after doing 8 seconds of research.

anyways, my next point is that there might not actually be anything wrong with japan's system, could it simply be the fact that there are far greater opportunities available in the west, being the US and Europe? Obviously if there was a general consensus among Japanese citizens that being crazy wealthy isn't good, that could be the main reason, there just simply isn't the drive required to become a billionaire. but additionally, i am pretty sure if i could live anywhere it would be here in the US, so given the opportunities available to these wealthy individuals, there doesn't seem to be much reason for them not to continue to concentrate in areas where equally wealthy individuals live.

and as curiousmonkey pointed out i think their sense of family and pride would preclude anyone individual to become extremely wealthy while any other individual in the family didnt thrive at the same level. so i think they tend to spread the money around a little more.

good day.