I found this article very interesting on Japan, I had no idea. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=asGHc_c3.BOY&refer=japan Japan is falling off a cliff, GDP is expected to fall at 10% annualized in the 4th quarter, industrial output has already fallen by 10%, unemployment is rising fastest in 40 years. And this was from an "advanced" society. This is what happens when a country stays brain dead for 10 years following their 1989 crisis, you sink into 3rd world sweat shop status.
The US with China close behind. But keep in mind that one third of Japan's workforce earn less than welfare, have no unemployment benefits, live in company housing, no social security, these people will never break out of the poverty trap. Forget opportunity. A permanent slave class to be used. A lot of them when losing their jobs kill themselves too, politicians must love them. All this in a 1st world country. I'm going out for a while, won't respond..
I have had my eye on Japan for the past 6 months. I know Germany and the U.S.A. (the other economic powers). Indeed. What I find even more interesting is that Japan's solution to it's '89 crisis has contributed to the current crisis (due to low interest rates and high liquidity). Even if Greenspan had never cut rates to 1%, investors could have always incurred currency risk (and they did) and simply borrow from Japan (which they did) and buy higher yielding asset classes (mortage securities, gold, stocks, bonds, etc).