A popular pun in Japanese is to take the word kaikaku (reform, or change for the better) and turn it into kaiaku (to change for the worse.)
Certainly kaiaku best describes former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's promises of kaikaku for the economy. He came to office in 2001 promising structural reforms that would cut government debt, then put at 700 trillion yen, and invigorate the economy. Now five years later government debt has ballooned by as much 187 trillion yen according to the careful calculations by Stephen Church of Japan Invest. And an economy now heavily reliant on the vibrant U.S. and Chinese economies has just managed to struggle back roughly to where it was before.
Fortunately we could be seeing a major change under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. He has gone out of their way to assuage the Koizumi faithful by repeating the mantras of "structural reform."