[Marxism] Japan on the brink

[Charles Brown <cdb1003@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

) 



http://www.japanfocus.org/_Andrew_DeWit-Japan_on_the_Brink_of_Abyss___Updated_
Japan Focus

Japan on the Brink of the Abyss? [Updated]
Andrew DeWit

The economic outlook in Japan is very grim, as these brief overviews 
(links below) indicate. Right now, Japan has the worst growth outlook in 
Asia. That is a surprising fact, if one recalls that this is a country 
presumably dusting itself off from the collapse of its own bubble nearly 
two decades ago. After such a long period of economic crisis, Japan 
should be renovated and ready to thrive. 
^^^^^
CB; Hey, maybe the wall _will_ fall
without anybody pushing it (smile)
 
^^^^^
 
But instead, it may be in worse 
shape than even the US (though clearly not Iceland and much of Eastern 
Europe). Japanese financial institutions were not big players in the 
CDOs, CDSs and the other toxic assets that have ravaged the capital 
bases of banks in the US and much of Europe. Rather, Japan's key policy 
failure would appear to be over-reliance on exports as the engine of 
growth, while hoping that the fruits of this growth would trickle down 
into the rest of the economy and bolster demand. But in the rest of the 
economy, deregulation of labour and other markets had seen firms 
shifting to insecure employment (especially part-time and contractual 
staff) and rolling back pay, thus crimping the level of demand. And that 
weak domestic demand was of course blunting domestic-oriented 
businesses' incentives to invest (cf. export-oriented businesses' 
incentives to invest).
 
^^^^^^
CB: Oh no, no, no, It wasn't weak demand. It
was falling rates of profit.
 
^^^^^^
 
 
 With the startling 35% drop in exports in 
December 2008, it's as if someone kicked the chair away from a man who 
was standing on one to test out what it felt like to have a noose around 
his neck.

________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: 
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40archives.econ.utah.edu