As I wind up, post exam session, for some serious economic analysis it is to an economic landscape which is increasingly looking like a surreal mixture between Kafka and Dali. Having been paying only scant attention to the data stream the last 5 months, I have been adequately awake to note that the incoming barrage of data from the real economy has been absolutely horrendous. And this, incidentally, is not only the case for Japan. Clearly, we will get to the other side since such is our nature, but the amount of bodies we will leave in our wake may turn out to be quite substantial. In my opinion, this is exactly the main challenge which confronts at the present time; to identify the cases where the risk for a serious fallout is largest, and then to act. One of those places may well be Japan and although she will still be one of the world's largest economies tomorrow and the day after tomorrow the data is still screaming, I think, that Japan
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