There's nothing like a good financial meltdown to straighten out your priorities. When it happened in Greece more than a month ago, the Japanese press went over to see whether or not the country's situation had anything to teach Japan. After all, Japan's public debt is much worse than Greece's. In fact, it's the worst in the world.
At first, all they found was bad behavior that seemed to indicate Japan wouldn't likely go through the same crisis, at least not in the same way. TV Asahi's "Super Morning" news show ran a report from Athens in the middle of April, before the rioting started in earnest. Its sub-headline was "The future of Japan is here." The reporter outlined the issues surrounding Greece's crisis: the development of hyper-inflation ("20 percent in just a short period"); the fact that since 2004 the government has hired 100,000 new civil servants; the startling fact that 20 percent of the population works in the public sector and earns an average of 70 percent more than those in the private sector; the fact that bribery, tax evasion and political corruption are rampant; the untaxed "underground" economy which represents 30 percent of Greece's total economy; and that, in any case, even the rich chronically under-report their income.
Dire stuff, but somehow reassuring to the commentators in the studio. "Japan is nothing like that," said the announcer, implying that Japanese are hard-working and pay their taxes, and that, in any case, Japan is suffering from deflation at the moment. The reporter elaborated on the differences between Greece's debt problem and Japan's, which was mainly caused by wasteful public works projects and the outlays necessary for the various government insurance programs.