The Unbelievable Story of Japan’s Economic Downfall

By the time the United States was done retaliating for what Japan did to Pearl Harbor, Japan had lost 93% of its steel industry, over 30% of its industrial machinery, a quarter of all its national buildings and structures, and over 80% of all its ships. Not only that, all of Japan’s major cities were in ruins, Gross National Product had crumbled, the yen was useless for all intents and purposes, and Japanese citizens were poor. But that didn’t even matter anymore because famine was at the door and so there wasn’t going to be food to buy anyway, whether you had money or not. But miracle of miracles, a mere ten years after this devastation, Japan had fully recovered from the war. And just twenty years after, it had begun to give the United States, not just a run, but a hot pursuit for its money, economically. Japan was now the world’s largest economy, second only to the United States. Needless to say, this was giving America sleepless nights. Economists now refer to that period of rapid sustained economic growth between 1953 to 1971 as Japan’s post-war economic miracle because, really, nothing else describes what happened. Fast forward to about 30 years later, though, and Japan’s economy has now become a shadow of itself. What led to this? Well, stick around as we go over the gripping story of how Japan nearly became the world power and then lost its throne due to a series of unbelievable mistakes. How South Korea Got So Insanely Rich 👉 Thumbnail Inspiration: