According to the Economist, Japan’s economy is officially back in recession. I don’t fully understand these things, but I do find them interesting, so here’s my attempt at an explanation. They’re in a deflationary spiral, which means prices are falling, and people aren’t spending money because they expect prices to keep falling. It makes sense – if you want to buy something, and you expect it to be cheaper next week than it is this week, you will wait. It’s hard for an economy to grow under these circumstances. The government combats this by printing massive amounts of money and loaning it to itself, which it can then spend. Normally that would create massive inflation, but it doesn’t because no matter how much they print, everybody just sits on it and won’t spend it. If you think about it too much, you can’t help wondering whether money actually has any value or meaning under these conditions. It’s best if people don’t sit around wondering about that too much.