Japan’s Economic Sun May Rise Again Thanks to Anti-Aging Medicine

When the supply of new workers stagnated, Japan’s economic growth rate fell by more than half. Spending did not go down. Debt increased. And the Lost Decade (or Generation) began.

by Patrick Cox
September 12, 2017

The Japanese people are well-educated and industrious. In the 1960s, Japan’s economic growth rate was often over 10%, rising to an astounding 13%. By the 1980s, pundits and economists were telling us that the US should be copying Japanese economic policies. I knew people who studied Japanese because they were convinced that it would be the international language of business.

In 1989, Sony paid nearly $7 billion in current dollars for Columbia Pictures. Shortly afterward, Mitsubishi Estate Company of Tokyo bought Rockefeller Center. That includes Radio City Music Hall and 19 high-rise office buildings in the heart of America’s most prestigious section of real estate.

Japan appeared to be an economic juggernaut. At the time, the total price of Tokyo’s real estate was valued on paper higher than the entire land mass of the United States.

Behind the scenes, however, something was changing. About 18 years before Mitsubishi bought the heart of Manhattan, Japanes…