[Alberta's Child]

I understand your concern, but it's worth noting that a big difference with Japan is that it has a lot of what might be called "institutional stagnation" -- i.e., no population growth, limited acceptance of immigrants, etc. -- that tends to act as an enormous anchor on their economy.

The U.S. has to cope with some of these factors, but to a far lesser extent than Japan did.

[garbanzo]

no population growth, limited acceptance of immigrants, etc. -- that tends to act as an enormous anchor on their economy.

How does this differ from what a large fraction of people on here want for this country?

[HamiltonJay]

I’m not implying the US is Japan, I’m just point out that rate cuts are limited in their impact, and the mess of the housing and credit crunch are not going to be alleviated by a rate cut.

There was a long run of good times, and now the piper will be paid. Fed can do things, but it can’t eliminate this.

At the end of the day, the bulk of the economy can be traced back to real property... and the value of that is contracting and going to continue to for quite some time. Rate Cuts won’t change that.