Hmm.

So, for a while now I've figured that Japan is doomed(tm) in the medium-to-long term thanks to demographic issues; but I've also assumed that after 20 years and counting of recession, at some point in the not-too-distant future there will be at least a dead cat bounce when things perk up for a while.

Consider eg. the previous anecdote about Japanese food factories all being 20+ years old: not upgrading your factories is a sensible short-term measure for cutting expenditures, but at some point those old factories will fall apart, and they'll do so before the Japanese stop eating. So somebody at some point will have to invest in new tooling, and if enough of this happens at the same time, the economy rebounds. And sure enough, at least before 3/11, there were occasional blips in the media saying that 20 years of belt-tightening has paid for Japanese companies, which are leaner and much less leveraged than they used to be, and the rebound point where investment starts again was just on the horizon.

But I'm starting to be less sure -- maybe business confidence remains so low that they'll just import everything from China instead and let Japan's rust belt rust. Thoughts?