Well, the big difference is that debt is much harder (impossible?) to walk away from in Japan. There is really no concept of bankruptcy or foreclosure. The japanese FB’er just shuts all the windows and fires up the charcoal grill.
Its kinda funny, but I think its better for an economy to have lenient debt forgiveness!
If you screw the borrower, they are forced into a life of debt slavery, providing liquidity to the lender. The lender probably isn’t spending this money, more likely he’s either hoarding it or lending it out to someone else. Probably an American buying a yellow hummer with a home equity loan. No good for the local economy.
However, in America, we just toss the keys back to the bank and go back to rentin’ and spendin’!
