Word: nationally
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...country has been captained by a series of leaders who seemed content to reluctantly repair the economy so that it doesn't outright sink, but not enough for it to return to the high-flying days of yesteryear. What I find most baffling about Japan is how a nation can be in such a protracted period of malaise and never seem to muster the will or ability to do very much about...
...keep people employed without fundamentally changing the economy. The result is government debt approaching 200% of GDP. Overly protected at home, Japan Inc. has missed out on the globalization game; its companies, unable to adapt to a changing world, are losing global market share to more nimble competitors. The nation that once led the way toward prosperity in Asia is sitting by while its influence is being usurped by China. (See pictures of Japan and the world...
...Sendai, looking warily across the Pacific toward my home country, I shuddered to think America was heading Japan's way. Everyone in Washington knows what problems the nation faces, but there is a Japan-like inability to take the necessary action. The broken U.S. health care system is an embarrassment, yet efforts to change it have been stymied for almost as long as moves to revive Japan's economy. The government's finances are deteriorating as politicians refuse to make the hard decisions on what the country does and does not need. The education system requires far more attention...
...rich nation like the U.S., it's easy to be fooled into thinking there's always more time for problems to get solved. So it has been in Japan. The Japanese are wealthy enough that they don't suffer too much from the prolonged period of stunted growth. But Japan also stands as a warning to those who think tough decisions can be delayed indefinitely. Japan's public finally seems ready for something new. Voters last year tossed out the Liberal Democrats, who had governed almost uninterrupted since 1955. The new sheriff in town is Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama...
...demanding that the U.S. recognize the continent's growing economic and geopolitical clout. Many feel that Obama, despite his personal ties to Asia, isn't giving the region the respect it feels it merits. An editorial in the Bangkok Post - the leading English-language daily in Thailand, a nation that is usually dependably pro-American - summed up the prevailing sentiment: "Mr. Obama's promises about restoring U.S. interest in Asia ... have proved so far to be more talk than substance...