Japan: Messed up. Us, too, di ba?

Gee, the world at large has finally jumped on the bandwagon I started rolling in this column a few years (yes, YEARS) ago. Namely: Japan’s financial floorboards are so rotten that its entire economic house might just collapse.

True to form, American media wonks can’t pull their piggy little snouts out of details that are heaped in front of them at their daily feeding time. Never mind today’s details about Japan (the latest being concerns about the sliding value in banking assets). The details are mere symptoms.

The underlying disease is this: Japan has been eaten by the rot of heavy handed government. The disease has progressed too far to relent.

The economy, one way or another, is controlled by crusty, entrenched bureaucrats. The nation hasn’t reformed, can’t reform, and ain’t gonna’ reform. With a push from a little more bad luck, Japan’s economy will go the way of England’s. And so, too, will Japan’s regional standing. I don’t know who can fill that vacuum, geopolitically speaking…and I really don’t care, come to think of it.

But I do care about economics, so I’ll note that Japan is in the major league debtor’s dungeon, having racked up national debt that weighs in at 130 percent of its yearly national output. They pulled a third world gig, floating debt for public works projects to fork over to crooked cronies in certain industries. Which was great for the old boyz network, but didn’t do much for an economy that has been zapped by…er…the old boyz network.

If–or I think we can say “when”–Japan falls to the per person income level of rotten old England, worry not. The Commonwealth can still, in theory, address their tourism market, if we can become cheaper than competing destinations. To draw an analogy, when consumers are getting poorer, you want to be selling hot dogs, not steaks.

Of course, we seem to have a learning disability when it comes to tourism policy, so if we want to whine like retards about the Japanese market and do nothing intelligent about it, we can continue along that same old sorry road. Hindi ba?

As regards Japan, and our economy as a whole, The Saipan Tribune has been the one note of lucidity in the whole, shameful mess, you’ll note.

Which means that we’ll be keeping you posted, as always.

In the meantime, things here are going to get worse. Maybe a little worse. Maybe a lot worse. The problem with these kinds of situations is that they can break like economic dams from all the pent-up pressures. I take Japan’s major fall as foregone–on that note, I’m alone. I’m beginning to think that our fall is forgone as well. And on that point, I’m in good company.

Ed Stephens, Jr. is an economist and columnist for the Saipan Tribune. “Ed4Saipan@yahoo.com”