Love, a liberal Canadian bent on destroying freedom, liberty, capitalism, and all things good.
That's not strictly true. There are other countries who harbor economists possessed of half a brain and theory describing the basic principles of how quasi-rational actors behave in various situations. They just usually don't get listened to. :)
Promising free lunches for everyone is much more popular and gets you elected! :D
So I'm depressed, not Japan. :)
While it is incredibly complex, the fact that their population has been static, trending towards declining, has played a significant part of it.
In many countries, economic growth is just a side effect of population growth -- every number gets bigger, but the actual wealth of each individual person is static or in decline.
So they're actually going through with this, when the economy has been depressed for over a decade...?