Word: japanize
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...drawn from the political party with a majority in the legislature, genuine independent lawmaking is a rarity. Legislative proposals are drawn up in the executive, with the assistance of permanent bureaucrats, and handed to diets, assemblies or parliaments for a ritual rubber stamp. Very occasionally, in Britain or Germany, Japan or France, a politician will make a name for what they do in national legislatures - in Britain, there was a long tradition of leaving socially controversial legislation over matters such as abortion or capital punishment to backbench MPs - but such reputations are most unusual. (See TIME's photos: Mourning...
...most plausible explanation for this happy outcome is that Japan was willing to recycle into Treasuries the dollars it earned selling us cars, TVs and stereos. That demand for U.S. debt kept interest rates low. By the early 1990s, though, the national debt - the accumulated product of those years of deficits - approached 50% of GDP, and bond investors abroad and at home seemed to shy away from Treasuries, driving interest rates up. Also, billionaire Ross Perot spent a good part of his fortune making deficits into a political issue. In response, Washington focused for a few years on getting...
...Modern Japan is not known for embracing radical change. But in elections to the lower house of Japan's parliament on Aug. 30, voters swept out of power the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which had ruled Japan for all but 11 months of the past half-century. The opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) won 308 of the 480 Diet seats at stake...
...grise, former LDP minister Ichiro Ozawa, has been a player in Japanese politics for 30 years--no fewer than 46% of its Diet members will be first-time parliamentarians. But voters were prepared to take a chance on the new team, hoping it will have fresh ideas to address Japan's protracted economic malaise and growing social ills...
Hatoyama will have to get the budget under control and help shift Japan away from the export-oriented economic growth that served it so well in its golden age of the 1970s and '80s. To accomplish that, Japan needs to boost domestic consumption. But its people will spend only if they feel economically secure, which is why thoroughgoing reform of the pension, health-care and unemployment systems is vital. Japan's current social-security programs hark back to an era of guaranteed jobs for life, which places unsustainable financial burdens on companies and individuals...