If only it were that simple. For starters, the parallels between crises in the two economies are striking. Both suffered from the bursting of two major bubbles – property and equity in the case of Japan, and property and credit in the US. Both had broken financial systems stemming from egregious risk management blunders. Both were victimised by a reckless lack of oversight – regulatory failures, misdirected rating agencies, and central banks that ignored asset bubbles. And the twin bubbles ended up infecting the real side of both economies – the corporate sector in Japan and the consumer sector in the US.
可惜事情沒有那麼簡單。首先，兩個經濟體的危機存在驚人的相似之處。兩者都遭受了兩種主要泡沫的破裂——日本是房地產和股市泡沫，美國是房地產和信貸泡沫。兩者都因重大的風險管理錯誤而導致金融體系崩潰。兩者都成了監督失察的受害者——監管失靈、評級機構誤導、央行忽視資產泡沫。此外，雙重泡沫最終都影響到兩個經濟體的實體方面——日本是企業部門，美國是消費者部門。