Japan no longer a first-class economy

according to Economic and Fiscal Policy Minister Hiroko Ota recently. Ever wonder why the country which views non-Japanese investment as a danger and passes laws willy-nilly to avoid that? The country in which after an Australian firm acquired 20% of Hanada airport changed its laws to prevent non-Japanese from owning more than a magical 15%. The country which loves foreign money as long as there is no foreign control or competition connected to the money,. The country which sees no hypocrisy in selling its products overseas and expecting no barriers, but which whines, complains, plays the victim, and resists every step of the way when overseas companies try to do the same here.

Japan Economy and News Blog has a post: Japan’s leadership searching for excuses for the Nikkei’s drop, and waiting for instructions concerning some of the possible reasons for Japan's economic problems with the outside world including the loss of interest in Japan by foreign investors and how the problems are much more of Japan's own making than as a result of the US sub-prime crisis. It also gives you and idea of how the never-never land that the elites in the government live in. Perhaps if things continue this way, (with Koizumi's limited reforms being undone and Japan continuing its old tradition of being in the world, but not of it) the Neo-bushidoist, quasi-Hobbesian Fujiwara Masahiko will get his retro-fantasy partially fulfilled.