credit-crunch-japans-lessons-for-the-us

Credit crunch: JapanÆs lessons for the US

JapanÆs experience in the 1990s shows that a credit crunch can destroy wealth and dampen growth in the real economy for years. The US won't be immune.

By Dan Slater

March 09, 2008

There has been a great deal of speculation in the Western press about what lessons the US can learn from JapanÆs credit crisis in the 1990s. Generally, the comparison ends on a note of self-congratulation, with the author pointing out the speed at which US firms have moved to reveal losses, re-capitalising via sovereign wealth funds in some cases, and how quickly the Federal Reserve has cut interest rates.

By contrast, it took many years before the Japanese, under the radical leadership of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, finally forced the banks to recognise their losses and recapitalised the system under the 2003 Takenaka Plan - 13 years after the Nikkei started its collapse.

But tackling...

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