[josephlord]

This chart tells a very different story.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/japan/gdp-growth

Japan has been suffering from low inflation and at times deflation. This means that debts do not shrink with inflation. I think the stockmarket and property markets have been pretty flat too over the period. What growth there has been has been assisted by "extraordinary" (well they were before 2008) monetary measures and growth in government debt to 230% of GDP.

[fspeech]

Japan's working age population peaked in the 80s https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan so I don't know why anyone should expect robust aggregate growth, considering that it has been a maturely developed economy for decades.