How good the bad times are
Japan’s economy has some problems. WSJ:
Japan’s inflation rate climbed at its fastest rate in a decade in February and the jobless rate worsened to 3.9% under data released Friday, raising concerns about the health of the world’s second-largest economy. The core consumer price index, which excludes volatile fresh food prices, rose 1.0% in February from a year ago — the fastest reading since March 1998, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said.
For all the talk about China’s fabulous growth in GDP, we sometimes forget that Japan still possesses the number two economy in the world — $4.4 trillion — by the traditional measure of GDP (exchange rates, not PPP). Little Japan’s GDP is almost a third of that of the USA. Very impressive.
It is one measure of how good much of the world has it these days that 3.9% unemployment and inflation of 1% are numbers that “raise concern” about the health of an economy. How trivial are some of the problems of today compared with those of other times or those of the still beleaguered areas of the world.
March 31st, 2008 at 11:56 am
Japan’s real problem is its aging population, slow growth, and a debt-to-GDP ratio that makes the US look stellar. I wish them well, but Japan will be a shadow of its current self in my grandchildren’s lifetime. Demography is destiny.