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Then why not the US?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfingleton/2013/02/06/paul-krugman-says-it-again-japans-stagnation-is-a-myth/


And why is this?  What does Japan have that the US (no longer) has?  A closed system.  Strict immigration controls.  Trade protectionism.

It turns out that responsible monetary policy actually leads to economic improvement under those conditions.  Who knew.


Yet more empirical evidence that Keynesianism only makes sense under the un-physical fantasy-land assumption of infinite growth.

Loyalty is a very valuable thing and a nation that is not loyal to its own citizens deserves neither respect or loyalty.

Anyone who ignores basic mathematics like Paul Krugman and his friends do shouldn't be allowed to make economic decisions beyond what type of milk and bread he wants to buy for the week, I don't think that was an admission but it was close lol :P

Strict immigration controls and trade protectionism are never a good thing, regardless of whether in a deflationary or inflationary system. The rest, sure.

The article doesn't actually say that the effects were due to deflation, I don't think. At most, that Japan isn't going that bad, despite deflation.

Excuse my crude oafness, but why should deflation/inflation have any effect on the economy?

because corporations, large land owners, banks and insurances rather get bailed out before they'd even think of lowering nominal wages, rents, interest rates and fees.

You're being cynical and sarcastic, right?

I would say only Japanese people themselves could judge if the two "lost decades" are good not not.

+1

Their export is very strong, when import/export involved, it is difficult to judge the net effect of national economy, they could always transfer some problem to the world outside

In a debt driven economy, one man's earning is another one's debt, so if Japan and China is earning a lot, it means US are getting more debt, it is impossible for every country in the world to have a surplus in today's financial system, at least not in dollar's form

probably doesnt even know the price of milk. . .

Here is an excellent article on deflation:

Deflation and Liberty
Jörg Guido Hülsmann December 13, 2008

http://mises.org/daily/3231

Make sure you click through to the actual Krugman piece, rather than taking Eamonn Fingleton's word for what Krugman is saying.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/the-japan-story/

Fingleton has a slightly odd take on this stuff. His big argument way back when was that Japan's economic stagnation was a cunning and devious trick to allow them to keep putting up trade barriers while the US took down theirs. This theory was quite popular in the US at the time, because it gave people a good conspiracy / external threat story to justify protectionist measures to keep out Japanese products.

He wrote this book "Blindside: Why Japan Is Still on Track to Overtake the U.S. By the Year 2000", which was based on a prediction about Japanese GDP beating US GDP.
http://www.amazon.com/Blindside-Japan-Still-Track-Overtake/dp/0395633168

This obviously failed to happen, but instead of figuring he must have gone wrong somewhere he doubled down, and started coming up with amazing theories about why Japan really was beating the US, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

What Krugman actually says about Japanese deflation is:

This is what he's always saying about deflation killing growth.

I tend to believe a certain nobel prize winning economist than the rest of the unwashed masses who post here.

1. Argument from Authority (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority)
2. Appeal to Tradition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition)
3. There is no Nobel Prize in Economics (http://www.alternet.org/economy/there-no-nobel-prize-economics)
4. Don't bite the hand that feeds you.