It’s very hard to be optimistic about Japan. I’ve even referred to the country as a basket case.
But my concern is not that the country has been mired in stagnation for the past 25 years. Instead, I’m much more worried about the future. The main problem is that Japan has the usual misguided entitlement programs that are found in most developed nations, 
but has far-worse-than-usual demographics. That’s not a good long-term combination.
As I repeatedly point out in my speeches and elsewhere, a modest-sized welfare state can be sustained in a nation with a population pyramid. But even a small welfare state is a challenge for a country with a population cylinder. And it’s a crisis for a jurisdiction such as Japan that will soon have an upside-down pyramid.
To make matters worse, Japanese politicians don’t seem overly interested in genuine entitlement reform. Instead, most of the…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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