http://www.marketwatch.com/story/jap...-24?link=kiosk

Japan's economy has been a slow-motion train wreck for the past 20 years. The bursting of the country's 1980s credit, stock market and real estate bubble would have wreaked more than enough havoc on any economy. But on top of the normal debt deflation that would follow the bursting of a financial bubble, Japan adds the worst demographics of any developed country. Japan is aging rapidly, and its population is shrinking.
Japan is dying, and in more ways that one. The aging population and it's resultant problem is something both the U.S. and China will face in coming years.

And then there is this:
Two things have kept Japan's economy afloat all these years: its healthy trade surpluses and its government's ability to borrow large sums of money at ridiculously low interest rates to fund enormous budget deficits. The high price of the yen and prolonged weakness in the United States and Europe are doing a fine job of denting exports. And soon, the low interest rates may be under attack.
The article ends by recommending that you keep your ear to the ground and listen for the rumbling of the "short of a lifetime". That's what Soros did. I know everyone says he made so-and-so many billions in one day or one week, but that's not true. He doubled and tripled his positions once he saw he was right, that all.