Wednesday, February 18, 2009

The slow economic demise of Japan

For Japan, a Long, Slow Slide - washingtonpost.com
"Japan is still the world's second-largest economy, as measured by gross size, although the island nation has been surpassed by China in purchasing power. In coming decades, the economies of China and India will dwarf Japan's, according to many projections. By 2050, Japan's economy will be about the size of Indonesia's or Brazil's, according to a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers."

An interesting comment I saw while reading the article when it debuted on social media sites is that Japan has relied heavily on the advice of one Ben Bernanke, whose address at a meeting of the Japan Society of Monetary Economics was cited as a reference. Obviously his advice has not yielded results. Incidentally, the same plays an influential role in the current US economy as a member of the Financial Stability Oversight Board.. Although this may sound as speculation, it does make one wonder about the future of their Troubled Assets Relief Program, the success or lack thereof will play a key role in how long the current global downturn will last.