The Downward Spiral

The image that they used in the article. The web address can be located here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/02/AR2008020200913.html?referrer=digg

So the article for which I am posting about is out of The Washington Post. The article’s name is For Japan, a Long, Slow Slide, and it refers to Japans slow economic spiral downward. To summerize this article talks about how even though currently Japan holds second in terms of economy, it slowly is falling in a decline due to multiple reasons, including a decreasing population. The predictions put Japan’s population decline by the year 2050 in direct connection to it’s zero economic growth. This prediction is based on the prediction that by that time seventy percent of the labor force will no longer exist. Something that is brought up that I believe is most relevant to our studies is the fact that the higher ups in Japan refuse to believe that they are in a state of decline. This is not completely due to a lack of work on the Japanese part as it is the development of other Asian nations, such as China. In a quote from Oki Matsumoto “The current leadership of Japan came of age during the incredible success after World War II. They think that what worked then will work forever.”