Word: interests
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Japan's ability to meet these challenges is of more than local interest. The nation is the world's second largest economy and the U.S.'s key ally in Asia. And given Japan's recent economic history, the way in which it copes with the current crisis could provide some insights into how the rest of the world can get through it as well...
...Early, Act Often After the bubble burst, Japan's powerful bureaucrats, who had earned a reputation for brilliance in the 1980s, dithered for years. In the face of slumping demand and price deflation, they cut interest rates too slowly, delayed a fiscal stimulus and failed to restructure so-called zombie banks, whose bad loans made them dead in all but name...
...criticize the details of the U.S. response to the collapse of credit markets, but in comparison to Tokyo, Washington has acted at warp speed. As Japan watcher Richard Katz points out in the latest Foreign Affairs, it took the Bank of Japan nine years to bring the interest rate that banks pay on overnight money to 0%; the U.S. Fed managed that in 16 months following the beginning of the credit crisis in the summer of 2007. Japan - in desperate denial about the plight of proud companies - long delayed using public money to recapitalize banks. The U.S. starting doing...
...Google Maps and a chalk dispenser, Mosher drew a single chalk line through parks and public streets in the city along a 10-foot-high contour that marks the potential height of floodwaters by 2050. The project, which took six months and was completed in May 2007, piqued the interest of city-dwellers and passers-by. Mosher said that she welcomed the opportunity to talk to curious strangers about climate change. “When people encounter something in an unexpected manner, their minds fire more quickly so they are more receptive to new ideas,” she said...
...growing interest in eastern European gastronomic culture, and the premium attached to anything produced by artisanal methods, have been very good news for Tokaj (or Tokay) - the enormously sweet, complex wine produced only in Hungary's northeastern Tokaji region. Made from individually picked grapes that have shriveled and botrytized - a oenological term for the "noble rot" mold infection that intensely concentrates the fruit's sugars - Tokaj suffered from cost-cutting production methods during Hungary's communist era, but fresh investment (some of it foreign) is rectifying the situation. (See 10 things to do in Moscow...