My favorite (well…actually least favorite…) examples of wasteful construction in Japan are tetrapods, the eye sores that line every beach in Japan.  Supposedly they prevent erosion, but I’m not sure if that’s true or not.

Japan has many chronically underfunded needs and problems.  For example, their is not enough affordable day care for working mothers.  This is one of serveral reasons why Japan has such a low birth rate, and as a result, women are choosing to have fewer children and having them later in life.  If Japan spent more money on day care,  it would provide direct economic stimulus by employing  more people in the child-care industry while providing further benefits from the  increased productivity of women in the workforce and helping to ease Japan’s demographic problems.

Unfortunately, Japan’s unelected, unaccountable, and very powerful bureaucrats, along with their political benefactors decided to throw money at a $250 million dollar airports that now has two flights a day and bridges that no one uses.