Ugh. First of all, this is what makes Japan so special, and why I want to go back, despite the doomed aura. My not so sweet home is proof of what happens when you forget what public works are about, our infrastructure is crumbling everywhere, and we're a nation of fatties because our food supply is so far from being food.

They could cut out the public works projects, sure, but with a population (even if it is 'decreasing', certainly not in any dramatic fashion) of almost 1/3rd of that of the United States in an area smaller than California, they need to continue in some fashion.

One of our greatest virtues is that we learn from our mistakes. The mechanized farm thing is one of the biggest mistakes we've ever made. With mechanized farming we've actually forgotten thousands of years of agricultural history and knowledge, and resorted to doing absolute asinine things like spraying the ground with petrol-based fertilizers. We never rotate crops and wonder why our dirt is so low quality. The US was already a force to be reckoned with before Earl Butts gave the last blow to our food supply when Nixon was president. Big pharma and medical care facilities make so much money and absorb so many more of the costs that would not exist had people were properly fed.

As for the countryside, restoration can mean many number things...if by that you mean turn it into awful factory farms I'd say no way Jose.