For two decades, the Japanese economy has been dead as a doornail – in spite of hefty Japanese consumer savings. Why?

Field Reporter: Are they slow-moving, chief?
Sheriff McClelland: Yeah, they’re dead. They’re all messed up.
– Night of the Living Dead (1968)

In B-grade horror movie lore, Tokyo has to fend off attacks from rampaging monsters like Mothra and Godzilla. If the cinema were more true-to-life, however, Japan would be less worried about overgrown fire-breathing lizards… and more terrified of zombies instead.

In response to a recent Taipan Daily asking what brought us out of the Great Depression, a number of you responded with a good question. “What about Japan?” Or rather, “What about Japan’s extraordinary rate of consumer savings – and why hasn’t it helped?”

After putting in a massive blowoff top to cap a truly insane 1980s bull market, Japanese stocks proceeded to head lower… for the next twenty years. The Nikkei is …

For two decades, the Japanese economy has been dead as a doornail – in spite of hefty Japanese consumer savings. Why?

Field Reporter: Are they slow-moving, chief? Sheriff McClelland: Yeah, they’re dead. They’re all messed up. – Night of the Living Dead (1968)

In B-grade horror movie lore, Tokyo has to fend off attacks from rampaging monsters like Mothra and Godzilla. If the cinema were more true-to-life, however, Japan would be less worried about overgrown fire-breathing lizards… and more terrified of zombies instead.

In response to a recent Taipan Daily asking what brought us out of the Great Depression, a number of you responded with a good question. “What about Japan?” Or rather, “What about Japan’s extraordinary rate of consumer savings – and why hasn’t it helped?”

The weekend news from every corner of the globe [especially Europe and Britain] was absolutely wretched…and gold and silver did exactly what one would expect the moment that trading began in the Far East on Monday morning…they took off to the upside. However, for some strange reason, gold couldn’t make it above $960…and shortly after London opened…the gold price was under pressure once again. Then, at precisely 9:00 a.m. in trading on the Comex in New York…the rug, once again, got pulled out from under the price. The gold price began to rally again the moment that London closed for the day, but got stopped dead in its tracks at half past lunchtime in New York.

Gold made a new low for the move in after-hours electronic trading, and never recovered.

The assault on silver was