The After World War II

As the primary government agency in charge of formulating and executing industrial policy, MITI played an important role in creating the economic miracle by shifting resource to specific industries at the right time. Before the capital liberalization of the late 1960s and 1970s, neither importation of foreign technology nor joint venture was approved without MITI and its various advisory committees’ consensus. Even the time of importation of technology was also strictly controlled in the hand of MITI in order to ensure that the technology was nurturing to the industry and consequently boost the economy. Furthermore, the government-controlled financial institutions like the Japanese Development Bank and the government-run postal savings system also played an important role in the economic miracle by the means of controlling the capital investment to the strategic industries in accordance with government plans. Thus, it is no doubt that Japan’s government, especially through MITI, had exercised a considerable degree of state intervention and protection on its economy to achieve the national goals and therefore lead to the economic

Helga Arthur was born January 16,1943 right in the middle of the second World War II in Berlin Germany. When I was interviewing Helga she discussed how her parents were originally from Estonia and had lost everything which lead them to fled to Germany. But then Germany became unsafe when her father hear the communist were moving in and that there was the potential for Germany to be divided between the U.S , Britain and Russian. So Helga’s father got them forged german red cross papers and they escaped in the middle of the night through farm lands and keep going in the directions of where the Americans were. There was a tremendous amount of hunger along the way and the farmers that didn 't really want to help the people escaping the city because they did not want to get in trouble but Helga informed me that they could not say no to a hunger child so her parents and her got sheltering along their journey. After a perilous trip they mange to get themselves to Hesse Germany where there was a big American base. Helga mentioned at this time that her parents were both university educated and spoke multiple languages which was very good because her father ended up going to work for the American army and they hired him because he spoke English, Russian, Estonian, German, and a little bit of French which allowed him to support his family. The American soldiers were also extremely good to Helga’s family in terms of her father was able to bring home extra food at night which

Many events had led to the U.S turning away from international affairs after World War One, this making them an isolationist nation. Isolationism is the policy of remaining apart from affairs and otr interests of other groups, political affairs of other countries.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a result of several events associated with Japan’s mission to dominate Eastern Asia and the South Pacific. Before the 1930’s, Japan had one the world’s most prosperous economies due to the British economic slump in the 1920’s. The Japanese overtook the markets the British had previously dominated. This economic growth only lasted for ten years. In the early 1930’s, Japan suffered its largest economic downturn as a result of the World Great Depression. During this time, many countries stopped trading with Japan, leading to a 50% drop in their exported goods. The Japanese government believed if they moved away from a Western-style free market economy, they would recover from their economic crisis.

Its actions have helped initiate new industries, cushion the effects of economic depression, create a sound economic infrastructure, and protect the living standards of the citizenry. Indeed, so pervasive has government influence in the economy seemed that many foreign observers have popularized the term "Japan Inc." to describe its alliance of business and government interests. Whether Japan in the mid-1990s fit this picture seems questionable, but there is little doubt that government agencies continue to influence the economy through a variety of policies. Not only did the American press use the same terms as the federal government, but in doing so it also helped lay the framework of the Japanese- American internment in a completely inaccurate way (Lau, 2014).

To view a window into the future, take a look at Japan, where their population, who is advancing in age has brought the country’s once amazing economy to a standstill to the point where it will likely never truly recover.

to occur. Some of these major changes helped shape what the U.S. is today and include the Baby

World War II was one of the costliest wars in the twentieth century. Prior to the war, the world suffered a major economic crisis, and on the verge of political instability. The time between the two wars greatly affected the stability of Europe and Asia. Most countries were too involved in their own domestic affairs to recognize international problems, which created a weak global community. New alliances and treaties attempted to further quell a potential war. However, the actions of these nations only created a superficial peace. The events from the signing of the Treaty of Versailles to the end of World War II, and the sentiments of the people world-wide show that World War II was inevitable due to the harsh post-war policies of World War I, the global indifference to foreign affairs, and the increase of treaties and alliance systems.

The Great Recession of 2007-2012, of which several countries are still recovering, including the United States and United Kingdom, shows great similarity to the Japanese Recession of the 1990s. However, by taking a closer look and identifying the causes of both we become aware of the differences that make them not so similar after all. The Great Recession had a domino effect beginning in the United States with the fault of subprime mortgages creating a housing bubble. Whereas Japan’s fault lies with the increasing land prices due to investment, in which created a land bubble that eventually would burst. With the United States and Japan holding high ranks on the Top 10 Exporters in 2014, United States 2nd and Japan 4th, a recession shows

In September 1945, Japan had nearly 3 million war dead and the loss of a quarter of the national wealth. Post war Japanese economic take off was due to a variety of factors that had to do with American policies towards Japan, the international market, social mobilization, existent industrial capacities and experience, and government policies and expertise, among other things.

Shortly after World War II most of the European powers that had once held dominion over vast colonies across the globe found their grips on these territories lessened. Even before the end of the war, some of these colonies decided to begin preparations to seize their own destinies from the hands of their masters, and become sovereign entities. One of these colonies was the Dutch East Indies, which was under Dutch control for more than 150 years. The nation that would form from this freed colony would be Indonesia, and on August 17th 1945 the Indonesian people declared their sovereignty and independence from Dutch rule.

In post-World War II Japan, elected legislators were on a mission to revitalize Japan’s war-ravaged economy. With the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, demand for production of military equipment skyrocketed, which ignited an early manufacturing boom in Japan. The US, which had already been aiding Japan, allowed Japan to assume a role as a major site of manufacturing for the military equipment it required for its war efforts in East Asia. In turn, Japanese exports increased by 26% (Carpenter 2015, p.47). Even after the Korean War ended, the US continued to give its demand for military equipments to Japan, to the extent that it “had spent $7.2 billion in offshore procurements and other military expenditures in Japan” (Lim 2014, p.71). It was tremendously important for Japan’s relationship with the US to remain intact, as it played an essential role in Japan’s economic growth, and enabled Japan to reestablish its “regional economic dominance” (Lim 2014, p.71). For this reason, businesses in Japan, which had been enjoying such an unprecedented

Since the Second World War, the Japanese economy had experienced remarkable growth, transforming from a developing to an advanced developed economy in a single generation. However, on the edge of a three-decade long “Economic Miracle,” in the late 1980s, Japan faced its regrettable “bubble economy” in which asset prices rapidly soared, money supply and credit underwent sizable increase, and economic activity overheated for a prolonged period (Okina p.396). At the bubble’s peak in 1989, the Japanese stock market obtained a value of around $4 trillion, reaching the benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average of ¥38,915 (four times the level they had been in 1983) (Siebert p.9). This was approximately 44 percent of the world’s equity market capitalization (Stone p.149). At around similar time frame, Japan also saw a spectacular surge in land prices with the land values five times that of the United States (Stone p.149). Hence, during this time, the economy relished an investment and consumption boom to the extent that Japan rapidly became known as the world’s largest creditor country. However, such record growth fell drastically with the burst of the bubble: the stock market plummeted by over 60 percent from its peak in 1989 to 1992 while speculative land prices fell over 50 percent and essential land prices declined by about 15 to 20 percent (Okina p.397). Overall, the bursting of the bubble resulted in a detrimental decline in asset prices, the accumulation of enormous

When it comes to Japan’s financial environment one of the first things to note is the vast pile of debt that Japan has accumulated over the years. Japan’s gross debt-to-GDP ratio stands above 240 percent, which is the highest of all OECD countries (The Economist, 2014). In contrast, in 2010 the ratio was ‘only’ 178.4 percent. The reason for this huge debt pile is that Japan has had twenty-two consecutive budget deficits (OECD, 2015). And in recent years these deficits were often over 8 percent of GDP. The main reasons for the rising budget deficits are that government revenues have been stable as a percentage of GDP, whereas government expenditures have increased steadily (The Economist, 2014). For now, the burden the debt due to interest payments is limited due to the low interest rates at which Japan is able to borrow. However, an ageing population will make repaying debt in the future ever harder (OECD, 2015).

Japan ranks as the third largest economy in the world as of 2010. The GDP at current prices in US dollars in Japan was reported at 5068.06 billion in 2009, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Japan’s resurgence after World War II has however reached an inflection point in yearly 1989 after the burst of Japan’s asset price and real estate bubbles. As can be seen from the graph below, Japan’s GDP has hovered around the same level through more than 20 years of economic stagnation. The GDP’s slow growth has been exacerbated by the world financial crisis of 2008. A major landmark of Japan’s stagnation has been the BOJ’s fight against deflation.