``We've had two resignations so far with more pending,'' said Jeff Kingston, a professor of political science at Temple University in Tokyo. ``Given that Abe's already losing his popularity, Yanagisawa's comment doesn't help. It was stupid.''

Abe's approval rating fell six percentage points from last month to 40 percent, the Mainichi newspaper said today. The Nikkei newspaper's poll showed his support at 48 percent, down 3 percent from December. Neither paper provided a margin of error. Abe's approval rating, according to the Mainichi, was 67 percent after he took office in September.

Abe's having a rough time of it, somewhat predictably, though not for the reasons I expected.

As for Yanagisawa, yeah, it was a retarded thing to say, but at the same time, i believe Japan is facing a pretty serious demographic crisis in the coming years, largely based on the fact that they're not really having kids anymore. He chose the stupidest possible way to phrase it, but the idea is probably right, unless the nation would rather enter population decline.

Bloomberg.com: Japan