Japan's Golden Recession By Daniel Bogler, Financial Times Just ahead of our recent trip to Japan, I saw a newspaper headline warning tourists that the country's recession was causing rising poverty and consequently, rising crime. But strolling around Ginza, Tokyo's elite shopping district, it seemed to me that a visitor's biggest danger still consists of being run over by a Mercedes-Benz or suffering palpitations over the price of a cup of coffee. Granted, salaries have fallen over the past decade and unemployment has risen, particularly in rural areas. But by and large this is still an enormously wealthy country with a very stable society.
Personal incomes are among the highest in the world.
If Japan is in the midst of a recession, then it is certainly a golden one. And that, of course, is precisely the problem. Ironically, most of the senior politicians, bureaucrats and company executives that we met during our week in Tokyo have an excellent grasp of Japan's problems. Many of these very same people even have some very clever solutions. Most advocate further deregulation.