From Godzilla to Impotent Herbivores: Keynesian Japan
I know you're already on my side on this one, but you can wave this article wildly in front of friends who still need persuading. The New York Times just ran quite an important piece about the ominous example of Japan, which is about as close as you can get to a knock-down argument against performing any more Keynesian experiments on our economy:
Few nations in recent history have seen such a striking reversal of economic fortune as Japan. The original Asian success story, Japan rode one of the great speculative stock and property bubbles of all time in the 1980s to become the first Asian country to challenge the long dominance of the West.
But the bubbles popped in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and Japan fell into a slow but relentless decline that neither enormous budget deficits nor a flood of easy money has reversed. For nearly a generation now, the nation has been trapped in low growth and a corrosive downward spiral of prices, known as deflation, in the process shriveling from an economic Godzilla to little more than an afterthought in the global economy.
Now, as the United States and other Western nations struggle to recover from a debt and property bubble of their own, a growing number of economists are pointing to Japan as a dark vision of the future. Even as the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, prepares a fresh round of unconventional measures to stimulate the economy, there are growing fears that the United States and many European economies could face a prolonged period of slow growth or even, in the worst case, deflation, something not seen on a sustained basis outside Japan since the Great Depression.
The Times has of course been pretty cheerful about the application of precisely these policies to our own economy, but this was definitely written by an internal dissenter:
The decline has been painful for the Japanese, with companies and individuals like Masato having lost the equivalent of trillions of dollars in the stock market, which is now just a quarter of its value in 1989, and in real estate, where the average price of a home is the same as it was in 1983. And the future looks even bleaker, as Japan faces the world’s largest government debt — around 200 percent of gross domestic product — a shrinking population and rising rates of poverty and suicide.
But perhaps the most noticeable impact here has been Japan’s crisis of confidence. Just two decades ago, this was a vibrant nation filled with energy and ambition, proud to the point of arrogance and eager to create a new economic order in Asia based on the yen. Today, those high-flying ambitions have been shelved, replaced by weariness and fear of the future, and an almost stifling air of resignation. Japan seems to have pulled into a shell, content to accept its slow fade from the global stage.
Indeed, notes the author, these policies have literally left Japan impotent:
Japan’s loss of gumption is most visible among its young men, who are widely derided as “herbivores” for lacking their elders’ willingness to toil for endless hours at the office, or even to succeed in romance, which many here blame, only half jokingly, for their country’s shrinking birthrate.
Contest now open: Condense that last part of the lesson to a memorable soundbite without violating Ricochet's Code of Conduct. I've submitted my entry already, obviously.
- Comment (24)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (1)
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
Comments :
May '10
Re: From Godzilla to Impotent Herbivores: Keynesian Japan
That headline alone deserves its own illustration.
Jul '10
Re: From Godzilla to Impotent Herbivores: Keynesian Japan
Everything Paul Krugman writes is wrong.
Oct '10
Re: From Godzilla to Impotent Herbivores: Keynesian Japan
Keynsian policies have, in fact, deflated more than just Japanese prices...
Aug '10
Re: From Godzilla to Impotent Herbivores: Keynesian Japan
Wonderful! But is there a reason you have dinosaur toys and Viagra just lying around?
May '10
Re: From Godzilla to Impotent Herbivores: Keynesian Japan
Ironically, Japan's screwed. (I'm sure that's toeing the line.)
I would be much more optimistic about Japan were it not for the government's ossified politics and its rugged determination to make the same mistakes over and over again. I had some hope during the Koizumi years but to put the issue in Claire's terms, he may have been a mini-Thatcher: briefly arresting the decline but not turning things around. The Japan I know is a very inventive society but capital is locked up in an oligarchical structure. Suffice to say, there are very few George Savages in Japan.
Oct '10
Re: From Godzilla to Impotent Herbivores: Keynesian Japan
Young Japanase males should revive their fathers' diet of raw oysters and whale testicles.
Re: From Godzilla to Impotent Herbivores: Keynesian Japan
We'll keep the contest open for a few more hours before declaring you the winner, but that's pretty much a formality after this.
May '10
Re: From Godzilla to Impotent Herbivores: Keynesian Japan
The wife will tell you there's no need for either. But some days when all four of the kids have exhibited "special" moments, I don't particularly care for the way she looks at the paring knife and then glances at me and then back to the knife....
May '10
Re: From Godzilla to Impotent Herbivores: Keynesian Japan
I need to put up a graphic request form and start charging. Things like this need to be taken care of...
Jun '10
Re: From Godzilla to Impotent Herbivores: Keynesian Japan
No longer the Land of Rising Sons, Japan's flaccid economy stalls, stock prices soft.
Jul '10
Re: From Godzilla to Impotent Herbivores: Keynesian Japan
With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound
He pulls the spitting high Finances down, Kaynezilla!
Helpless people on subway trains
Scream BUG-EYED as their jobs disapear, Kaynezilla!
He picks up a business and he throws it back down
As he wades through the banks toward the center of town, Kaynezilla
Oh no, they say it has got to go
Go go Kaynezilla, yeah
Oh no, there goes Tokyo
Go go Kaynezilla, yeah
Aug '10
Re: From Godzilla to Impotent Herbivores: Keynesian Japan
I can't improve on Claire's headline, but I can make it rhyme a little:
From T-rex to "can't do sex": Keynesian Japan
Edited on Oct 18, 2010 at 12:14pmRe: From Godzilla to Impotent Herbivores: Keynesian Japan
Jaydee_007: With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound
He pulls the spitting high Finances down, Kaynezilla!
Helpless people on subway trains
Scream BUG-EYED as their jobs disapear, Kaynezilla!
He picks up a business and he throws it back down
As he wades through the banks toward the center of town, Kaynezilla
Oh no, they say it has got to go
Go go Kaynezilla, yeah
Oh no, there goes Tokyo
Go go Kaynezilla, yeah · Oct 18 at 7:29am
We need a production of this. Where's Jonathan Gilbert?
Jun '10
Re: From Godzilla to Impotent Herbivores: Keynesian Japan
Japanese T-Rex Fossils are Flaccid?
Jul '10
Re: From Godzilla to Impotent Herbivores: Keynesian Japan
That dinosaur looks like Barney Frank.
Jun '10
Re: From Godzilla to Impotent Herbivores: Keynesian Japan
Japanese over-stimulation causes shrinkage - the cold shower of Keynesianism
Edited on Oct 18, 2010 at 8:45amJul '10
Re: From Godzilla to Impotent Herbivores: Keynesian Japan
The theatrical union laws will require me to pay for two viola players and a child-wrangler, so we might as well see if we can add them to the script...Ironically, I spent time this weekend with a young man directly descended from both Keynes and Charles Darwin. We went to IKEA, which I kept thinking was sort of like watching evolution and the effects of Keynesian economics on a culture happen right in front of you, but I was the only person who was amused by this. Sadly, he's a bit pink. On many levels.
For the contest, I've got nothing that beats that image. Reading this, though, it makes sense to me now how Japan's suicide rate is surpassing Sweden's...
Oct '10
Re: From Godzilla to Impotent Herbivores: Keynesian Japan
Japan: the land in which you can no longer sit and watch the bamboo grow.
Re: From Godzilla to Impotent Herbivores: Keynesian Japan
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
Recalling ancient tradition, Japanese commit ritual herbicide.
May '10
Re: From Godzilla to Impotent Herbivores: Keynesian Japan
Somewhat OT, I've heard that the turtle called Gamera is friend to children.