Iniziate a preoccuparvi del Giappone

Dimenticatevi la crisi dell'eurozona e il fiscal cliff americano.
La vera bomba finanziaria si avvicina dall'oriente.

Dall'ormai insostenibile debito giapponese, alle incertezze politiche di una probabile vittoria della destra alle legislative di dicembre. Dal saldo negativo della popolazione alla corruzione dilagante per arrivare alla discutibile politica monetaria di Tokyo.

Japan's public debt is running at 230 per cent to its gross domestic product, a figure that makes Greece look almost thrifty. According to Bloomberg, Japan's debt works out at about $93,000 for every man, woman and child while the same figure for the US and Greece is about $33,000. Tokyo budgets to borrow more than it raises in taxes.

About a quarter of Japan's population is already aged 65-plus and the country has a negative birth rate. With a xenophobic culture, there is virtually no migration, meaning the country is about to start shrinking quiet dramatically. There will be some 25 per cent fewer Japanese by 2050 than there are today – about 30 million fewer people, depending on which estimates you want to use. The dependency ratio – the proportion of working-age people to the those not of working age – has already crashed to just 2.4, which makes raising taxes to pay for an aging nation all the harder.