Given that the mid-2000s flurry of debt- and speculation-fueled “growth” really wasn’t sustainable growth at all, I’d say we’re more like 10 years in to a lost decade. For what that distinction is worth (which I admit is not much).
As for this article, it just makes me laugh that the Japan scenario is presented as the most dire possible outcome (literally: “should the most dire forecasts come to pass” — from the article).
I think we’ll be really lucky if it ends up playing out the way it did in Japan. Japan has (or at least had, in the case of the latter) a huge current account surplus and high savings rate. It was never in the situation that we are, which is that we are utterly dependent on foreign lending. Should our creditors pull the plug, that will be a lot more economically painful than the mild deflation and stagnant growth that took place in Japan.
