The Lost Decade: What We Should Have Learned From Japan

So, it seems that our situation is nothing new: Japan went through nearly the exact same economic problems that we are having now; problems that were created the same way as our own. 1) An asset bubble emerged. 2) The bubble popped. 3) The financial sector completely failed, causing a serious recession. Does this sound familiar? I sure hope it does, because the exact same thing just happened to us.

They even attempted to fix their economy the same way our current government is attempting to fix ours (the key word here being "attempt"). The Japanese government spent insanely large amounts of money in corporate bail-outs and stimulus plans, but the recession still lasted for over 10 years. Japan has still never fully recovered from their "Lost Decade."

All of this raises some very interesting questions. Why does our government ignore the mistakes of the past? Are they just ignorant or are they (warning: conspiracy theory incoming) doing it to purposely destroy the USA? That last bit might seem a bit "out there" but hang with me until I get around to explaining ACORN.

Here's an interesting video and article from Reason.com, the website for Reason Magazine. Take a look. Lost Decade article and video.