We have not seen deficits like these since pre-Civil War and colonial days. When a nation runs a trade deficit, it owes the money not to itself but to foreigners. Poor people, who already knew little comfort, have been pushed deeper into poverty, malnutrition and disease. But in Japan, the effects on people are different. Rather than a sudden storm, Japan's prolonged recession has been more like eight years of drizzle, which has left people depressed and feeling that the sky might never be bright again.
Children are healthy and in well-equipped schools.
But more than 100 interviews with ordinary Japanese made it clear that people are not immune to the economic trouble. Far from it. After decades of believing that their government would always deliver an improving life, many said they no longer trusted it. There is a debilitating feeling that Japan's prosperous heyday is over, gone forever. In Japan, where people have the latest electronic gadgets, there is a feeling of decline.