>(1) Japan, recession or no, has continued to invest in its
>economic base (29% of GDP, compared with 18% of GDP in the US and 21% in
>the EU). This bodes ill for the US in the long-term.
How do you know that this isn't a symptom of overaccumulation - of profitless investment, of capacity-building for its own sake - rather than strength? Even in the late 1980s, new capital investment in Japan had a return of close to zero or even less than that, yet they've continued to invest.
>(3) In the wonderful world of late capitalism, there's no upper limit to
>how much debt you can take on, so long as new debts are available to roll
>over old debts. As good little radicals, we might want to think seriously
>about a sustained program of *expanding* the public debt -- while soaking
>the hell out of large-scale capital along the way. Let there be one, two,
>many Finlands!
When you run up the debt, your creditors get more political power. That hasn't been a problem for Japan, with its large stock of domestic savings, but as a general strategy, it may lack promise.
Doug