Japan's Lost Decade and the USA

People, including Obama, keep talking about “Japan’s lost decade” and warning that the same could happen here if we don’t act boldly and swiftly enough on the economy. Japan experienced a deep recession in the 90’s and because the government was too cautious in the beginning, Japan had ten years of “no growth”.

I have two problems with this analysis:
1) Why do we assume that we always have to have growth? That is not sustainable in the long run – we’ve already begun to see that.
2) The United States has already had a “lost” quarter century. When you compare the average Joe’s wages today to the wages in the 70’s, they have not changed in real buying power! Even though we’ve experienced “amazing growth” in the last 25 years the benefits have mostly gone to the very few at the top. So a “lost decade” might not be so bad. Maybe it would slow people down a bit and make them more community-oriented and less greedy.


I am not against Obama’s plan to stimulate the economy, but I hope there will be a serious shift in our priorities after this crisis.
--- T