Off the Cuff: Will We Learn from Japan’s Missteps In Time?

In this week's Off the Cuff with Mish & Chris podcast, Mish and Chris discuss:

• Japan's Kamikaze Monetary Policy
  • The yen may be poised for destruction
• Denial is a river in Germany, Greece, and Spain
  • Poor decisions being made in all three countries
• Fiscal Cliff: Deal or No Deal?
  • What's most likely at this point

In this Thanksgiving edition of Off the Cuff, Chris and Mish are grateful for Japan. Why? Because Japan will likely collapse under its unsustainable monetary and fiscal policies before the U.S. does.

Much of the structural rot that ails the U.S. has been festering for much longer in Japan. With signs growing that the Japanese economy is nearing its predictable endgame, its implosion might be shocking enough to cause our leaders to think seriously that fate could be ours if we don't take radically different actions immediately.

Obviously, neither Chris nor Mish wants this for Japan, but the course pursued by its leaders – particularly the next likely Japanese PM – have put the country on a crash course with currency destruction.

If that indeed happens, hopefully EU and U.S. leaders will take note and use the Japanese lesson as their air-cover for bold new action – perhaps helping to cut through the red tape and political evasion involved in taking the inevitable losses on sovereign debt, or resolving the structural breakages responsible for the fiscal cliff.