Japan, noted Tokyo Stock Exchange head Atsushi Saito in a speech in early July, has 3, 000 companies that have been around for more than 200 years, as many as the rest of the world combined.

FORBES: Beer And Bailouts

As local and international investors have fled Japan's stock market, some 40% of the 1, 500 companies that are the bluest chips of Japan (the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange) trade below breakup value (a price-to-book value of less than one).

FORBES: Gaijin grave dancers

The Tokyo Stock Exchange has begun merging with Japan's tiny regional exchanges, such as those in Niigata and Hiroshima.

ECONOMIST: Slow financial starvation