by James Rickards
Daily Reckoning
In the early 2000s, the phrase “lost decade” began to be applied to Japan’s economic performance over the course of the 1990s. The lost decade started with the popping of one of the greatest stock market bubbles in history.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index hit an all-time high of 38,916 in December 1989, and then began a sickening 80% crash to a low of 7,831 in April 2003.
But the lost decade included more than just stock market losses. Japan also saw crashing property values, falling interest rates, rising unemployment, declining and stagnant GDP, and the worst demographic profile of any major economy. In short, Japan exhibited all of the hallmarks of a depression of the kind not seen since the 1930s.