In a year of economic surprises, mostly good ones, Japan is right up there.
The decades since the country's asset bubble burst in the early 1990s have seen many false dawns, so no one was rushing to call this a new day. But it's time.
A fair number of economists are now forecasting that the Bank of Japan will begin formally withdrawing from the huge stimulus deployed to combat first deflation and, more recently, too-low inflation. A stealth taper has already occurred: Asset purchases under the BOJ's quantitative easing program totaled about ¥60 trillion in the year through November, short of the annual target of ¥80 trillion.