A number of writers and commenters on Seeking Alpha frequently predict that the US is about to go the way of Japan. They expect that the US will enter a long period of economic stagnation, marked by low inflation (if not deflation) and low economic growth, despite massive expansion of the monetary base.
This article is my second on Japan, laying out why I disagree with these people. The specific focus of the previous article was on the banking system as an illustration of cultural differences. I concluded that the Japanese culture results in long delays in accepting and responding to negative developments, which will always make them slow to address misallocations of capital.
