I think it is difficult to consider Japan's considerable achievements, beautiful countryside and hard working people without also considering its bleak future. Japan is dying. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/worldtonight/2009/09/is_japan_a_dying_nation.html Japan is stuck in a long term deflationary slump it can't get out of. It is continuing to pile up a national debt that is frightening - and all the more so since that debt will never be repaid by an elderly population. It's turning into a cautionary tale about too much reliance on Keynesian ideas. Having said all that, our nation is hardly much better. We in the developed nations desperately need a breakthrough in regenerative medicine and free energy. I am very fearful that anything less will condemn us to a modern day Dark Age,
