Which is why we need your help Americans. Please send us your firearms and fast food franchises. I suppose we could open up our borders and raise the retirement age, but that would basically amount to applying a bandage on a severed limb.
You guys need to stop spending time buying panties from a vending machine, and start spending time trying to get into a pair that are actually on a woman.
In Japan, everyone below the age of 35 lives in Tokyo (small exaggeration) - where the average, and still very expensive apartment, is the size of a shoe box (no exaggeration at all). I can't imagine raising a kid (or two) in such cramped quarters, but regardless, we'll be apartment hunting over there this February. With our two y.o. son and my Japanese wife expecting again, Japan can expect a small population spike very soon.
Itai! Chi-chi to ha-ha, with two kodomo gunjin in tow, will NOT find an apartment in anywhere in Tokyo outside Taito-ku for any reasonable size for any reasonable amount. Not in this life. Gomen nasai. Hopefully ha-ha knows and has family there already.
The apartment sticker shock will be bad but I'm hoping we luck out and find something - won't be city center though, perhaps we'll look even as far as Yokohama where she has family. Anyway, we'll be seasoned vets of the NYC market, which may be just as insane.