Why the sun is rising over Britain, not Japan
By Anatole Kaletsky (THE TIMES, 09/11/06):
THIS WEEK I had a strange and enlightening experience. At a conference in Tokyo organised by The Times and Japan’s biggest paper, the Yomiuri Shimbun, I was asked how Japan could improve its economic performance. What was strange, at least for someone born in the 1950s, was that the country running the world’s most successful economy for most of my lifetime was now seeking advice from the country that had done worst.
What was enlightening was the theme that united the replies of the three British panellists. Richard Lambert, of the CBI, and Ed Balls, of the Treasury, focused mostly on Britain’s experience, while I spoke about global conditions, but our comments had an important theme in common: the world has changed so much since the postwar heyday of Japan’s successes — or indeed of the economic miracles in Germany, France and other European countries — that the ideas of that period are worse than useless as a guide to economic policy today.… Seguir leyendo »