JK is a little bit worried that Britain might be turning Japanese. No, I don't mean we're going to eat more raw fish, have elaborate hot drink ceremonies, read dodgy cartoon porn or digitally record every waking moment of our entire lives. It's the economy stupid; it's turning Japanese. Back in the eighties, the land of the Rising Sun was the nation which produced the Walkman, the compact disc, the Honda Civc and of course everyone's favourite karate grandfather figure Mr Miyagi. There were even those Benihana restaurants (not strictly Japanese, but as close as the Americans could manage), where the chefs juggled knives at your table, which was also a metal cooking plate. Amazing!
Being Japanese was cool; they were the future, even if Hello Kitty was and still is, deeply weird. They were also the richest nation on Earth and we decided to forgive them for the genocidal war they launched a mere generation ago, on account of Nintendo's Super Mario being so much fun.
No one wants to be Japanese any more. Over the last twenty years, Japan has experienced no net growth whatsoever and by some measures they are worse off. They had a massive property boom, followed by a huge slump, banking bailouts and wholescale state intervention in the markets, leaving Japan with a whopping 200% sovereign debt. Politician after politcian has ducked the difficult choices, sound familiar?
The recent fiasco with the American Debt Ceiling, which despite it's name is nothing to do with DIY or loft extensions, is only a taste of what's to come. Notice the UK latest's growth figures, which were zero in all but name. Now apparently there were lots of exceptional factors: the Royal Wedding, warm weather, wet weather, the price of fish. This, to use a technical economics term, is a load of bollocks. We're hosing down the country with money, borrowing £165 billion a year, and interest rates mean that with inflation, money is virtually free. Yet the growth figure we managed is... wait for it...0.2% - a rounding error, the sort of money the Chancellor might find down the back of the metaphorical Treasury sofa. The lousy growth figures do not necessarily mean we should scrap the the austerity plan. Like the new boy in the prison showers, surrounded by a group of burly, tattooed men, we are screwed whichever way we turn.
There was no way we could start trying to reverse the largest credit boom in human history and not expect a little pain re-adjusting. Going cold-turkey off a debt binge is going to produce some scary side effects, the economic equivalent of the dead baby on the ceiling when Renton kicks smack in Trainspotting.
But one habit we should definitely quit is the childish whining that it's all our politicians fault. It isn't. We chose to pay too much for houses, again - remember the other housing bust and the one before that? We bought things we couldn't afford, we preferred cheap credit and cheap mortgages to responsible behaviour. As nations, the British and Americans behaved like a drunk teenager given access to dad's credit card.
If we want to avoid wasted decades like Japan experienced, then perhaps we should take a little responsibility for own actions which means allowing politicians to talk openly about the problems, instead of the pantomimes which currently pass for TV interviews. Note to Newsnight producers and presenters, finding small inconsistencies in what one government politician said relative to another is not investigative journalism, unless your aim is to achieve Stalinist orthodoxy in all organs of government.
Here's another thought, why not try electing someone on the basis of their abilities rather than how good they look on camera. You must have noticed that David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Milliband are basically the same person and not even an interesting one - just a vapid, focus group's idea of what politicians should look like: the margherita pizza of leadership candidates. Perhaps the reason Cameron kept inviting Rebekah Brooks round for dinner is he was short of guests, because unless you wanted a government contract or a tax break, you wouldn't want to spend three hours with the man, a waxwork has more personality.
The first step in beating an addiction is to admit you have a problem. We're debt junkies, time to face facts. Or we could bury our heads in the sand and blame our politicians. As The Vapors sang in 1980, 'I'm turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese'
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