New York Times (January 27)
Standard & Poor’s downgraded Japan’s debt from AA to AA-. No one is expecting an immediate crisis. Most of Japan’s debt is held domestically. Still the amount of debt is stupefying and there are troubling fundamentals. The Times writes, “The Japanese economy was tipped into a painful recession by the global financial crisis, and has only managed a very feeble recovery.” Deflation is jeopardizing this, as is “a rapidly aging population.” Japan’s greying population is also “raising the likelihood of ever-increasing social security and pension obligations.”
Standard & Poor’s downgraded Japan’s debt from AA to AA-. No one is expecting an immediate crisis. Most of Japan’s debt is held domestically. Still the amount of debt is stupefying and there are troubling fundamentals. The Times writes, “The Japanese economy was tipped into a painful recession by the global financial crisis, and has only managed a very feeble recovery.” Deflation is jeopardizing this, as is “a rapidly aging population.” Japan’s greying populaiton is also “raising the likelihood of ever-increasing social security and pension obligations.”
