Word: japanization
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...country that experienced some of the world's fastest economic growth from 1949 to 1991, the land where "better, faster, cooler" products are a national obsession. But frankly, the Japanese are not enjoying the financial ride they are on at this moment. Since the start of the year, Japan's Nikkei index has gone up nearly 30%. (In the U.S., the Dow has risen 19%.) The country's economy, which had been given up for dead by most of the world's leading economists, astonished analysts with a first-quarter annualized growth rate--nearly 8%--that is almost three times...
...Paul milling plant. You know your job is probably not the most secure in the world. You know you need to get some new skills. And then one day you win the lottery. Life is suddenly a whole lot better. Money, it seems, cures everything. The problem in Japan is that even though having the new Nikkei riches may seem like winning the lottery, it's not. In fact, the money could disappear tomorrow, leaving Japan with a still troubled economy. A rising Nikkei may seem to tell the world that Japan is back, but the Japanese--and some wary...
Despite the 7.9% annual GDP growth rate during the first quarter, Japan's economy remains a bloated, uncertain thing. Insiders say the spring growth blip was a one-time phenomenon--possibly even a result of inaccurate accounting--fueled by high government spending. The primary problem is that Japan's financial structure--everything from the way companies are managed to the amount of government debt--remains badly out of sync. Many Japanese companies are still chugging along as if it were 1981, complete with overweight overheads, inefficient manufacturing systems and "jobs for life." Japan's banks, long loaded with bad debt...
...there are plenty of new views about Japan. The most popular is that the country finally has the kind of policy guidance it needs to get turned around. That leadership takes a variety of forms. The Bank of Japan, for instance, has been telegraphing with very un-Greenspan-like candor that it intends to keep short-term interest rates near zero. At the same time, an encouraging amount of "micro-reform" is under way in Japan--tiny revolutions in entrepreneurial companies that may forge a Japan built for the Internet age. As some Japanese like to observe, they spent...
...Inside Japan, business leaders who believe the economy is snapping back propose a kind of pincer movement for national regeneration. According to this theory, the government--led by economics friendly Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi--spends lavishly to stimulate a small amount of economic growth. By putting trillions of yen in the hands of consumers, Obuchi's program saves the economy (to say nothing of his political career) and gets consumers to finally start spending. In time, that growth encourages Japan's out-of-date manufacturing firms to begin a difficult restructuring. The result is a top-down, bottom-up postindustrial...