The public debt mountain in Japan is paralleled by a growing private debt mountain in the United States. Japan's debt mountain has public and private sector components. The public sector is talked about most, but as David Asher has recently highlighted, private sector business debt is critically important, maybe more important. The US debt mountain also consists of public and private components. The key is household net worth.
Japanese households have huge savings.
Their net financial worth totaled 884 trillion yen in 1998. US households are net debtors. Their net position was a negative 3.8 trillion dollars in 1998. Japan's debt problem is in its government and business sectors. The US difficulty is concentrated in the business and household sectors.