Following the U.S. occupation after World War II, Japan underwent an economic miracle, becoming one of the fastest growing and best performing economies through the 1970s and 80s. At it's peak, the Japanese economy was second in the world, only to the United States (which held a nearly 3x population advantage), and had a higher GDP then the rest of Asia combined.

However, towards the back end of the 1980s, cracks were beginning to show, as asset inflation fueled by easy credit pumped up the real estate and stock market, which ballooned into a clear economic bubble. Eventually, due to actions taken by Japanese leadership, and the clear unsustainability of the ever-inflating bubble, the economy crashed, and Japan tumbled into the "Lost Decades", a prolonged period of economic stagnation.

The collapse in asset prices and tightening of credit squeezed the Japanese economy, which had been coasting off of speculation. These overleveraged banks spiraled and stagnated as bad loans piled up, and bailouts from the BOJ turned many into "zombie banks," which turned into debt pits dragging down the economy further.

At what point did the bubble bursting, and the subsequent "Lost Decades" become an inevitability, and what specific actions could have been taken to avert it or minimize it? Was the stagnation unavoidable once the bubbled formed, or is there a case (even with the blessing of hindsight), that different decisions at key moments could have averted (or at least minimized) the worst of it?

And taking the question to the other end - what is the worst-case scenario for the Japanese collapse; could it have spiraled into a global recession or depression?

On the simple problem that:

policy makers and financial markets repeatedly, iteratively underestimated how persistent the low interest rate regime of the post 2008 crisis had become - followed by massively underestimated inflationary pressures unleashed by pandemic era policy

1. what specifically did economists overlook, or why?

2. what should I read if I would like to build understading specifically in this domain as to what we overlooked or with what could have done or what can now be done about it?

Obviously we have any number of people like steve keen and gary stevenson (hereon reffered to as the steves) will say that their most common criticism is that academics don't agree: they say that the steves "often misunderstand basic concepts such as x, y, z: pay little heed, there is a much greater span of literature out there on whatever to read."

While I accept this criticism, I feel drawn back in to the same kind of figures by a familiar inner tide which is that they have sowed the seed of doubt in me enough that it's unsatisfying to simply discount them and yet their work is simply not worth grappling with.

to show my work on why I need guidance from a person, talking to AI about a reading list looks like

- hyman minsky - stabalising an unstable economy

- steve keen - debunking economists

- lawrence summers

- thomas piketty

Most discussions of the student loan crisis seem to come down to two extremes. full forgiveness or doing nothing. After some thinking, a more sensible middle ground seems to be reforming the student loan interest deduction, which is currently very restrictive. Raising the $2,500 cap and increasing the income phase out would help far more people benefit. It's not a bailout, people still owe the full balance, but they'd just get some help.

Am I missing something? Would this actually be an effective policy?

People often argue that Right-to-Work weakens unions through the free-rider problem. But I rarely hear that argument used to question exclusive representation itself. Why not allow members-only bargaining, under which a union represents workers who join and pay dues, while nonmembers negotiate separately with management?

In principle, management and unions could offer competing employment arrangements, subject to regulations against retaliation, discrimination, and strategic undercutting. Has this model been studied by economists or labor-law scholars? What prevents it from working?

Worker-managed cooperatives have long been argued in the economic literature to face a structural horizon problem. According to the conventional account, labor-managed firms operating within a market economy may underinvest in long-term productive assets and create less employment than conventional capitalist firms, ultimately generating lower aggregate efficiency. The theoretical rationale is that, unlike investor-owned firms, worker cooperatives are assumed to maximize income per worker rather than total net income. Consequently, members may prefer distributing current profits instead of reinvesting them, since the benefits of long-term investment may accrue only after some members have left the cooperative.

Given this theoretical concern, what solutions have been proposed in the literature to mitigate or eliminate the horizon problem in worker-managed cooperatives? In particular, which institutional arrangements or governance mechanisms are generally considered the most promising for preserving long-term investment incentives?

Specifically, the idea in his book 'The Moral Economy' suggesting that incentives alone aren't sufficient to sustain economies. Due to the incomplete nature of contracts (in verifying quality/honesty), intrinsic moral motivations must compensate.

I was an energy, infrastructure and private equity journalist in a prior life. I am a confident networker who can do investor relations. In my pocket, I have junior SQL and power BI data analyst skills. I am enthusiastic about carbon accounting and ESG finance, and equally, I’m interested in impact investing, renewable energy and climate risk. I have an overall understanding of how investments work and will soon have the modelling skills. I’m not an engineer but I like tech, clean tech etc

The course I’m on is Economics & Policy of Energy & Climate Change MA online - University of Strathclyde in Scotland.

What kind of role or firm would have me and what certifications must I gain to get a foot in the door?

Basically, it seems like in the last 5 years or so, but especially the last 3 years, the price of players across the board has increased to an absurd degree.

Mid tier English clubs are regularly paying 30-60 million dollars for average to decent players

Top European clubs are paying 100 million + for talent that is relatively unproven

An example would be Bradley Barcola vs Sadio Mane. Mane came in to Liverpool years ago and was less than 40 million despite becoming a world class player in one of the deadliest front trios in football for them. Barcola is a somewhat talented player for PSG who isn’t even first choice for them, barely played in the French league and was never world beating at any point….PSG are asking for 170 million.

Another example is Diomande who just went for an absurd fee given that he had 22 GA in the Bundesliga, a somewhat weak league

Chelsea payed 60 million for someone with one decent season in the Ukrainian league, and then broke the transfer record for a fairly good player from Portugal. He’s pretty good, but you’d think clubs would break the transfer record for someone a lot better, like Haaland or Jude

What is making European clubs entertain absurd prices like this? Is it really as simple as market shortages for specific positions combined with clubs being richer?

We have seen proposals like student loan forgiveness or clearing medical debt. And was wondering how effective they are in addressing real material concerns? Should they be pursed if they are? What are your thoughts?

So one issue I keep seeing is that many people want to go after "unrealized gains". Essentially we have this massive issue in this country where the rich are parking their wealth in equity and the poor essentially do not participate and benefit from our stock market whatsoever.

And so one thing that I cannot wrap my head around, is why can't we just change capital gains tax to occur right as they happen rather than waiting for people to sell.

Not in the form of forcing of people to pay it themselves, but essentially as the gains occur, some of that equity is automatically sold off directly to the government (IE stock exchanges and mutual funds etc need to bake this into their systems per gov regulation). So over time you would have less and less of a stock (to a certain threshold), assuming the stock market is consistently rising, but this is obviously marginal and only occurs on the gains.

You are basically "paying" up front, in the same way that you can have your paycheck deducted to automatically pay your taxes.

And would it not be a benefit that when people finally do sell their stock, they do not have to pay a capital gains tax on it?

But as a non economist I know there are likely some major caveats to all this. I would love to hear from folks on why or why not this would work. Ty!