Poverty and Economy

Poverty and Economy
Kiyoshi is Japanese and has been homeless for six years. He and hundreds of others in Tokyo live on the street and earn less than 10 dollars per day. Due to the financial collapse that occurred in the 1990s, many people lost their jobs and live in parks or tents in the middle of the city. Japans situation is an important example of how financial crisis can destroy a country and how difficult it is to recover from it.
The loose lending that occurred in 1990 was followed by collapse of property and shared prices. The banks started to go bust and only the 400 dollars that were spend on a governmental bail-out helped the economy to stabilize in 2003. Although the economy started to recover, the situation in Japan had changed. The income inequality increased, the long term jobs were replaced by part time jobs and the street crime spread. In the year of 2003, 25,000 homeless were counted, and although the government tried to build temporary houses, this only caused more problems. Today, Japan is in a better economic situation, but Kyoshi is still homeless, and so are many others.
Melissa John
The legacy of depression
L-shaped poverty lines
Oct 16th 2008 TOKYO
From The Economist print edition

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