HONG KONG — Belatedly, Japan's leading politicians are waking from their coma and realizing that the country's economy is in a massive mess hit by a triple whammy of low growth, heavy debts and an increasingly aging population.

Talk in the runup to Sunday's Upper House elections is when and by how much to raise the 5-percent consumption tax. The good news is that there is a sort of Japanese-style consensus about the inevitability of doubling the tax. The bad news is that 10 percent is not going to be sufficient to close the government deficit or get on top of the debts.

The worse news is that the tax will have to go to at least 20 percent and maybe as high as 37 percent if Japan wants to escape the debt trap, according to economists who have looked closely at the government's own figures.