In this column last month, I talked about the nightmarish possibility of a global financial crash. Well, a month is a long time in economics, and the nightmare has well and truly become reality. Share prices have fallen dramatically everywhere and show every sign ...

Looking back at what I wrote in this space this time last year, I find that I was dreaming of a Japan of the United States, in which the regions become city states unto their own and make Japan a generally more interesting place. ...

‘W rath of Gods” is the title of an award-winning documentary directed by Jon Gustafsson, the Iceland-born filmmaker. It could equally be the title of a documentary about the state of the global economy as it stands in November 2008. There are at present ...

When Adam Smith wrote “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” in 1776, the industrial revolution had entered its second decade and the relationship between nations and their wealth was still relatively straightforward. Wealthy nations built empires. Empire-building nations ...

Atitle in the Financial Times’ Lex Column caught my eye Wednesday. The item, “Japan’s Zombies,” turned out to be a very readable story about large Japanese electronics companies. But until I got down to actually reading the piece, I was totally convinced it was ...

Japanese retailers like to offer “fukubukuro” (lucky bags) to customers as an added attraction. The bags, sold at a fixed price, are filled with an assortment of goods that are supposed to be worth more than what you paid for the bag. But you ...

It is 10 years since the Asian currency crisis. Currency crises are like earthquakes. I hesitate to use this analogy when lives have been lost and people continue to suffer as a result of the quake last week in the Chuetsu area of Niigata ...

Spas are for healing, nursing homes are for caring, language schools are for communicating, amusement parks are for amusing and pensions are for carefree retirement. This is how things ought to be. It is not how things are in modern-day Japan. Spas kill people. ...

Members of the Bank of Japan’s Policy Board are said to be at odds about where the rate of inflation ought to be over the medium to longer term. In a scheduled meeting in late April, the nine member board reviewed what the BOJ ...

Proposals establishing the procedure for a referendum on constitutional reform were rushed through parliament last week. While both politics and legal procedures preclude the actual tabling of reform proposals before 2010, the stage is being set with no-holds-barred determination by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ...

The Japanese economy is now a fully signed-up member of the global jungle. This was not the case whilst it was suffering from the deflation malaise. During that time, the Japanese economy had no business making its way into such a ferocious place. It ...

Keeping mum has never been a strong point of politicians. Hakuo Yanagisawa, the beleaguered health, labor and welfare minister, seems especially bad at keeping mum on the subject of mums. In his world, mums are machines. Their sole function is to breed. Having established ...