| Headline: Japan, the public versus the private Source: Euromoney Date: March 2000 Author: David Roche
Throughout the 1990s, the Japanese economy was like a jellyfish. It rose and fell with the deep-sea swell of the world economy, but ultimately went nowhere. But now things are beginning to change. For Japan's government and private sector are like two of the country's famous bullet trains on the same track, but heading full tilt in opposite directions. The government keeps pumping in huge fiscal injections to revive the economy. But if fiscal packages could save Japan, the job would have been done long ago. Every unsustainable increase in government spending produces an offsetting jump in household savings. |