Japan sinks deeper into recession (BBC) {"worse than expected" is our new watchword}

[eppur_se_muova]

By Duncan Bartlett
BBC News, Tokyo



Japan is the world's second-largest economy
Japan has sunk deeper into recession in the three months to September than had been expected, new figures indicate.

The economy, the second largest in the world after the US, shrank by 0.5%, for an annualised rate of 1.8%, significantly greater than expected.

Japanese firms are closing factories and laying off staff in the face of declining demand and a rising yen.

Prime Minister Taro Aso has promised public spending to soften the impact of the recession.

There has been an almost constant stream of bad news from Japanese companies over the past few weeks, so it does not come as a great surprise that the recession in Japan is deepening.
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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7772545.stm

[Mike 03]

1. Upsetting. The past ten years Japan has been through the wringer.

They have tried damn near everything to recover. Their failure to fight off recession does not bode well for the U.S.

Sad.

[idlisambar]

2. Save your pity for us, Japan has been doing fairly well

in the last 5 years or so, even according to official GDP statistics.

On the larger point, the similarities between Japan's experience in the 90's and ours now are really only skin deep anyway. The U.S. is in uncharted waters.

[leftofthedial]

3. there is no longer an American middle class

to buy the stuff the Japanese have manufactured in China

or something like that