The Japanese economy is healthy relative to the rest of the world but it's true that Japanese people are too poor and are not getting better fast enough. But this is mostly because "sacrificing and hardworking" was a dumb thing to set up the country to be. They were worried about people having too much free time so set up a super unproductive structure where every man was in the office 12 hours a day, gets micromanaged, and barely does any real work.

Of course, that's an old picture of the country; ~10 years ago when everyone though of Tokyo as a place where kids hung out on the street in cool fashion all day, that's because those kids were unemployed because they weren't willing to become salarymen. And there has been real reform towards productivity since then.

Also, Japan’s Phillips Curve looks like Japan.

http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/japan.pdf

> The Japanese economy is healthy relative to the rest of the world

It is frozen at the exact size and breadth that US wanted to freeze it. Its a literal economic colony.

> But this is mostly because "sacrificing and hardworking" was a dumb thing to set up the country to be

It worked until 1991.

I very much recommedn reading about the Plaza Accords.

Impressive you think the US can influence other countries that long. We can't even stop Saudi Arabia from raising gas prices whenever they want to annoy us.

> Impressive you think the US can influence other countries that long

Up until recently, it was a given. In the case of Japan, there is some kind of feudal behavior of 'loyalty' that comes from the Zaibatsu culture. Which in itself descended from postwar Yakuza.

> We can't even stop Saudi Arabia from raising gas prices whenever they want to annoy us.

You used to. Until Russia & China built up enough defense industry and also started helping any country against US coups and color revolutions by providing intelligence.