"NPR discussion about Japan slipping into recession posted:

Well, Japan is a very rich country with some very big problems. It's an aging society with a population that has been shrinking since 2004. And it's projected to shrink by another one-third over the next 50 years. So that means a couple of things. One is you have a lot of retired people who need to be supported by taxpayers, and they're running out of taxpayers. And secondly, any economy grows only as fast as its workforce grows. Plus, the increase in productivity in Japan hasn't done very well on either one...