But there is no doubt in my mind that, working together, we can meet it. In the process, we can set an important example for the new Japan, and contribute in a meaningful way to the restoration of Japan to its rightful place of leadership in the global economy. Longtime watchers of Japan's slow-motion meltdown could be forgiven for asking what the Merrill Lynch chief was on. After seven years in a sticky slump, the nation once held up as a paragon of financial prowess is sinking into recession. Its banks groan under the weight of bad loans, its financial markets are flaccid with little hope of recovery, its consumers shudder at the threat of job losses, its policy makers wallow in impotence.
Pessimism is the order of the day, inside and outside Japan.
Critics have dismissed Prime Minister Hashimoto Ryutaro's new mammoth package of spending and tax cuts as too little too late. That could lead Japan to pull in hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign assets, jacking up interest rates worldwide and exporting the slump not just to already-hurting Asia, but around the globe. Indeed, there are signs that, after crippling its economy in a super-speculative blowout and then drifting aimlessly in a financial Bermuda Triangle, Japan is finally starting to learn to paddle. Even more telling, some foreign institutions and enterprises are actually investing in the OECD economy from hell. Merrill Lynch's Tokyo launching is but the latest and most high-profile gaijin foray into Japan.