The Guardian In normal circumstances, a warning from the new president of Harvard that America today looks suspiciously like Japan 10 years ago would barely be worthy of mention.
Academics often say controversial things just to be noticed.
This was no ordinary president of Harvard, either, but Larry Summers, who until the middle of January was treasury secretary of the United States and rated as one of the most brilliant economists of his generation. Mr Summers has thought a lot about Japan, regularly lecturing hapless Japanese officials at international gatherings about their failure to take the measures necessary to restore health to Asia's first and most successful tiger economy. Speculative bubbles On the face of it, this seems laughable. The US economy is still growing, albeit at a slower pace, after its longest period of expansion since records began in the 1850s. Unemployment is historically low and American companies are world leaders in the new technologies.