While thumbing through long-term futures, the chart of the Nikkei caught my eye, since it seems like a very well-formed and quite gargantuan top.

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What’s tricky, though, and makes this less alluring, is that Japan’s central bank has managed for decades to stave off the inevitable by printing up quadrillions (literally) of yen, creating a simulacrum of prosperity. The market has topped out many times, but more often than not, it just shrugs it off.

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One way to trade this, the EWJ, seems to lay out the same story. Japan just keeps trudging higher along that trendline. This is a long way to go to say that I’m not doing anything about it, but it’s interesting, nonetheless.

Looking at Slope’s absolutely fantastic Global Economic Charts, the data portrays a country which is literally and figuratively dying:

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debt as a percentage of GDP

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fertility rate (under 2.0 means shrinkage, because, ya know, 2 parents will die eventually)

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current GDP

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population “growth”

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total population

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