> It's also worth remembering that Japan never had a problem with private
> sector debt, which dropped from about 105% of GDP in 1990 to a little
> above 90% today.
>
Wha? Yes they did. Japan's corporate financial deficit reached 12% of GDP in 1990. In the US it's never even reached 4% in all of recorded history. Granted, these are flows, not stocks - I don't have the stock numbers on hand, but the debt numbers for Japan's corporate sector were undoubtedly enormous by 1990. That's the whole reason they had a 15-year recession.
SA