
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 21, 1992                   TAG: 9203230194
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

JAPAN TROUBLED

WALL STREET shuddered in sympathy the other day when the Tokyo stock market dropped sharply. The steepness of the fall was unusual; the direction was not. While the U.S. stock market has, in general, been headed upward, Tokyo's has been in decline for more than two years. The value of its stocks is down by nearly 50 percent for the period.

That's one sign of trouble in an economy that has been known for strength and resilience. The Economist of London reports that a recession is taking hold in Japan: "Output is falling, monetary growth has virtually ceased, investment plans are being slashed."

The Japanese are feeling the backlash from a period (1987-90) of rapid growth, widespread speculation and blue-sky investments. The day of reckoning has come.

It's an old story, quite familiar to Americans - not least because corruption has been exposed within Japan's financial community, too. Greed knows no nationality; neither do other human failings. Japan and its economy are quite fallible. Yet in the United States, politicians, industrialists and labor leaders talk as if our own economic troubles owe to battling a giant who doesn't play fair.

The giant is stumbling. Our own economy, in contrast, seems to be recovering, albeit ever so slowly. Among bright spots are the rising productiveness of U.S. workers, and a trade deficit that has shrunk from a peak of $160 billion in 1987 to $8.6 billion last year.

There still are obstacles, including staggering federal deficits, pandering public officials and protectionist sentiment. But those are our own problems, our responsibility to solve. Bashing the Japanese is an unhelpful distraction.

by CNB