If it does, then, like Japan, it is likely to suffer a lost decade.

ECONOMIST: The credit crunch

Some are now talking openly of a Lost Decade, much like Japan's lost years after its great property crash at the end of the 1980s.

BBC: Economy: bonds, austerity, debt and the Age of Plenty

And, alas, a stable giant that could be playing a supportive role, Japan, appears to be suffocating itself with more of the lame governance that lost it the decade of the 1990s.

FORBES: Spelling Relief?