JAPAN: Approaching Desperation

During the Korean war, U.S. money (in the form of war orders, servicemen's pay, etc.) poured into Japan at the rate of $800 million to $900 million a year. On a nation struggling up from the ashes of defeat and destruction in World War II. the effect was something like that of a lottery windfall on a poor and unstable clerk. It was fine, it was riotous, while it lasted; it was terrible when it stopped. The Japanese spent too much for luxuries, not enough on modernizing their industry and otherwise bracing their economy against the inevitable end of...