Can Japan compete?

The myth of the Japanese economic super-model has long been dispelled but how can the Japanese dragon be among the first to take flight again after the crisis of 2008?

The post-second-world-war recovery of the Japanese economy is well-documented as one of the economic miracles of the last 100 years. By the late 1980s, the Japanese economy was flying, and with it the increases in the prices of 'real' assets. This bubble in Japanese asset prices culminated with the claim that the value of the Imperial Palace Gardens in central Tokyo exceeded the total real estate value of California! That comparison may be consigned to fable, but it is a fact that the Nikkei 225 (a price weighted average index of 225 top-rated Japanese companies) closed at 38,915 at the e...