The Japanese experience offers valuable lessons for the US and Europe. A loose monetary policy can stabilize a recession for the short term, but a persistent flood of cheap money paralyzes productivity gains and growth.
In Japan, huge social security expenditures have been simply monetized by the Bank of Japan at the expense of the overall welfare and the economic prospects of Japan’s youth.
James Tift Champlin (1811–82) was born in Colchester, Connecticut. He enrolled at Brown University in 1830, where the president, Francis Wayland, greatly impressed him.
One of the standard criticisms of the free market point of view is that it treats individuals as isolated atoms who view other people only as means to the pursuit of their selfish ends.
The highly regulated, protectionist Japanese economy, and an overall collectivist culture, leaves little room for flexibility in executive pay. This makes Japanese businesses less competitive, and work life more miserable.
Whatever happens with the virus, the real story, the real historical change, is probably economic. Abenomics—Japan's ultra-Keynesian experiment—seems to be dead.
