Japan on the Edge of the Abyss

I have to confess that I have fallen into “Japan bad news” syndrome, in that I expect bad news out of Japan and therefore did not focus enough on the details. And while I do not aspire to covering every financial news story (that’s what the MSM is for), the latest figures paint a grim picture, even by our new, desensitized standards.

It wasn’t simply that December was truly awful, but it came on top of a nearly-as-bad November. From Bloomberg:

Japanese manufacturers cut production an unprecedented 9.6 percent last month, deepening a recession that’s expected to be the worst in the postwar era.