That should be cause for cheer. Instead, anxiety about the economy has been replaced by a growing sense of unease about the nation's fiscal health. The worries center on possible implications for citizens' comfort and security in old age, and the added burdens their children may have to assume as a result. In a nutshell, Japan is living beyond its means. The reasons behind the debt problem are no mystery.
Revenues are down because of the recession.
Many were construction bonds aimed at creating jobs through the building of bridges, concert halls and other public works. Debt servicing, which consumes a fifth of the budget, now equals social spending. When the rail system was privatized and split up in the mid-1980s, it was assumed that the debts could be discharged through sales of land for redevelopment. The JNR has some prime holdings, including the Shiodome marshaling yard near the Ginza, once the priciest real estate on earth. A public corporation called the JNR Settlement Co. took over the debt in 1987 from the newly privatized railway lines and was given a decade to repay it.