Google is your friend.<p>And there are plenty of Japanese news papers with English editions so you have no excuse.<p>The author is stupid because he considers as &quot;minor&quot; what is the <i>major</i> cause of poverty in Japan: low wages and no social coverage whatsoever directly caused by Koizumi&#x27;s lift on irregular jobs contracts, and a huge increase in such low paid jobs as a replacement for a normally paid and work force (I wrote 40%, that&#x27;s the current figure).<p>The author is also stupid because he equates poverty to delinquency, but he does not check simple facts like: suicide rate, domestic violence, child abuse, sexual abuse and other social issues. Here again the rates have been on the increase for the last 2 decades.<p>And I&#x27;ve been in Japan for close to 20 years, I have three kids here and I happen to read the news in Japanese because I&#x27;m a translator.<p>The author does not know anything about Japan and had no idea what he is writing about.