Frequent comparisons are made these days between the plight of the British economy and the state of the Japanese economy. But in reality the two situations are very different.
Japan's colossal public debt is financed by internal savings. So in effect Japan owes its debts to itself. By contrast, at least half the United Kingdom's debt is held by world investors who could take their money away at any moment, or demand much larger returns for lending it.
Behind this difference is a deeper one — Japanese people have saved massively but the British have not. It is true that British savings rates have been picking up slightly in recent times but there is still no comparison with the accumulated personal savings of the Japanese, estimated to be more than ¥1,500 trillion — an almost unimaginably large figure, and far in excess of all the government bonds issued by the authorities.