You may think I'm wrong in this, but I think that we live in an age when our lives are regularly punctuated by career crises, by moments when what we thought we knew, about our lives, about our careers, comes into contact with a threatening sort of reality.

But his government is dealing without question as best it can in the face of four simultaneous crises, its efforts encumbered by huge logistical problems that no post World War II Japanese government has ever faced before.

Opponents of central bank intervention are right about one thing monetary financing carries serious risks.