Turning Japanese? More like Japanese turning American?

Or at least trying to?

Some might be familiar with an old rock, pop song from the 1980's called Turning Japanese, a choice of words that increasingly has been used in economic circles to describe what may become of the Western economic experience if we are not careful. That experience is one of low growth, lower asset price valuations and little inflation bordering on deflation with dreaded doses of deleaveraging.

Essentially the Japanese experience since the heady days of asset bubbles being almost everywhere, 39000 on the Nikkei and property valuations that would have taken several lifetimes of mortgage repayments to justify them being just two, has been one of economic struggle. It's not as if Japan has been a total economic basket case, it's just that they have struggled to find that one thing so loved by Western financiers and Governments - inflation.

Don't let the politicians in the West kid you that inflation is a nasty thing that should be fought against at all cost, because for most of them it is what they actually want, or at least a little bit of inflation  The last UK politician to promise a fight against inflation was Margaret Thatcher and the cost was several million unemployed, not that the millions out of work should all be put down to her economic policies, but in order to fight the price inflation that was running wild across the UK economy, drastic measures were undertaken. It is unlikely that politicians today would ever take such measures when "printing" money is so simple.

The one thing that has been missing from the economic fallout of the financial crisis of 2008 onwards has been the hyperinflation that many were so convinced was inevitable following the "money printing" of Central Banks as the answer to the crisis. It hasn't happened, probably because that money printing has been kept out of the grubby hands of the masses, there have been no helicopter drops for them (for those not familiar with this, do a search on Ben Bernanke, Helicopter), it has largely been parked in the vaults of the financial elite.