Japan and the US have somewhat similar economies, featuring high technology, some similar institutions, an aging demographic, and so on. Economic stimulus in general didn’t work well there in the nineties (according to the link below on the Japanese economy – see the section on the bubble economy); recovery was slow.
Upshot is that there are some similarities, but there are no simple “compare and contrast” talking points.
Quote One from the above article follows: – – – – –
It seems politicians’ big idea is that since they couldn’t protect us from predatory lenders, outsourcing manufacturers, the crashing dollar and energy speculators, they can at least numb the pain by mailing us $20 bills to rub on our wounds.
– – – End Quote One – – – –
Quote Two from the above article follows: – – –
A pair of economists have written a great paper for the Brookings Institution that lays out an analytical framework for understanding what has worked in the past, and though that institution has served as a think tank for Democrats and will therefore be dismissed out of hand by the GOP, I hope all sides will take the paper’s findings to heart. The paper by Douglas W. Elmendorf and Jason Furman says effective stimulus must be timely, targeted and temporary, and that a combination of tax rebates and direct government spending on anything but infrastructure (because it takes too long) has the most immediate boost to the economy.
Closing by thanking The Professor (Rich) for such a profound and useful forum. I especially love his charts and graphs which which very high on the “information-to-ink” ratio.
[“SunnyJim” comes from my longtime interst in solar energy and an optimistic outlook, NOT on any bright prospects for property values in Southern California.]
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