Quote:

Why wouldn't they go where the standard of living is better, like Australia and Japan.



Beacuse those countries have very restrictive immigration policies and getting a decent job as an immigrant/foreigner there is much more difficult than it is here. This is particularly true in Japan.

Not entirely disagreeing with your overall point, just this particular statement.

"Quality of life" is a very difficuly to quantify thing. Just beacuse the average Japanese citizen might live "better" doesn't mean I'd want their tax rate, their inflation rate, their highly fluctuative economy, their overall cost of living, their general population density, or those wonderful "Generational Mortgages".

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