Having begun its rise alongside the American economy, Japan's marketplace rebound is looking robust:
Japan's economy appears to be recovering strongly after more than a decade of decline and a series of spluttering attempts to bounce back, a top U.S. economic official said Thursday....While U.S. officials in the past have criticized Tokyo for not doing enough to contribute to global growth, [U.S. Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, John B.] Taylor said he was fully supportive of the measures taken by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's administration. "I have a great deal of confidence in the leadership" to steer the Japanese economy toward a sustainable expansion, he said. The central bank has maintained short-term interest rates near zero and has flooded the financial markets with cash to curb deflation. The government has also forced banks to begin shedding a mountain of non-performing loans they were left with after the end of the bubble economy in the early 1990s. Japan is beginning to see the benefits of those policies, Taylor said.
The Wall Street Journal has been one of several voices hammering the need for Tokyo's loosening of the reins on Japan's market while putting paid to zombie banks and bad loans. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has maintained a commitment to economic reform, and according to other comments made by Taylor, Koizumi's promise is earnest. According to an undated report from the Yomiuri Shimbun and this analysis from the Heritage Foundation, Japan's sprawling public pension system is in as sorry a state as our own Social Security. Heritage notes that nearly half of Japanese citizens able to decline entering the system are doing so, a circumvention of lumbering, New Deal welfare colossi many Americans my age would love to do.
Japan's back in business. Here's to its staying there.