>> The Japanese cronyist credit system
>> vastly over-extended its capacity to create credit
>> reliably.
Question for the economically-enabled:
Seemsed like 10 or 15 years ago the journals (HBR). books and papers(NYT) were awash with news and views on the japanese miracle, and how US companies' and industrial productivity was falling behind. and the tenor of these articles always seemed on be that there was something fundamentally __right__ going on in japan.
now, i listen to the mainstream thunking-heads, and all i hear is japan cant do this, japan wont do that. and then C. Bodhisvahha speaks of japanese cronyism.
so my question is: did you folks know right from the start that japan was not the miracle it was being presented as? and were the hip-capitalists -- the ones who worry enough about return on investment and all that -- were they hip enough back then that some had any inkling of the structural problems in japan? or was everbody blind back then?
just curious. cause i get the sense that the japanese cronyist credit system wasnt constructed over-nite.
les schaffer