Yes, all talk about “stagnation” and “malaise” to the contrary, Japan’s surplus is up more than five-fold since 1990. And, yes, far from falling against the dollar, the Japanese yen has actually boasted the strongest rise of any major currency in the last two decades… I find it hard to avoid the conclusion that the story of Japan’s stagnation is a media myth. Certainly anyone who visits Japan these days is struck by the obvious affluence even among average citizens. The cars on the roads, for instance, are generally much larger and better equipped than in the 1980s (indeed state of the art navigation devices, for instance, are more or less standard on many models)
via The Myth of Japan’s ‘Lost Decades’ – James Fallows – International – The Atlantic.
A few weeks ago I linked to an article about China’s Han majority and their potential for resurgent, ethnic jingoistic policy. The gist of my thinking then was that there is a weird niche market for ethnic/economic scaremongering literature, wherein journalists pick an economically ascendant ethnic group to get everyone freaked out about. In the eighties it was Japan, today its China, tomorrow it will be Russia or India. But never fear, people of Japan – your economic boogeyman status is safe and secure, thanks in part to the folks at the Atlantic. They assert that Japan’s leadership has been engaged in a grand conspiracy for 20 years to carefully manage the perception of Japan’s economic malaise – cooking their national books to make them look terrible – to create a sympathetic market for their exports. Um, wow. Really?
Forget about Afghanistan or healthcare or employment – the Japanese drive bigger cars than us and have nav systems.
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