Indeed!  In the 80s it looked like Japan WAS the island that would own the world, or at least large parts of the USA.  I suspect it is hardly an accident that "globalization" and "The New World Order", originating from the US and orchestrated by Wall Street, worked to the advantage of the US financial corporations and to the disadvantage of Japan.  Would it not be logical that once the USA's chief military and ideological rival, the USSR, dissolved and began to adopt capitalist modes that somehow things would turn to the disadvantage of the world's high riding 2nd largest economy?  That was the time when the total valuation of Tokyo real estate exceeded the value of all of the real estate in California.

Our Wall Street elites and their D.C. political agents certainly are not going to have more concern for the welfare of Japan than they have for the welfare of the USA.  For fifteen years General Electric and others rolled in profits from "the Japan Carry Trade."  Those were the years during which Japan had a Zero Rate Interest Policy.  Borrowing money was free and provision of very low interest rate money was one of the services Japan provided to the US financial sector.  Unfortunately, Japan was undergoing the unwind of their own massive real estate bubble, so the average Japanese citizen did not benefit. The Bank of Japan pioneered this policy of "all money to the banks" that the USA has now adopted.  Both are capitalist societies, so the institutions of capital are "protected" at all costs, costs which are borne by all but the banks.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."