Here: lousy. There…lousy, too.

Why ruin a perfectly nice Friday by looking at our economic situation? Let’s put that grim task off until next week.

Turning attention to our friends overseas, I doubt the Japanese are very enthusiastic about tainting their Friday with economic introspection either. Shortly put: Japan’s economy is still messed up.

No news, this, to our tourism industry, which saw Japanese arrivals drop a whopping 19 percent in December (compared to December of the prior year).

Behind this number and Japan’s messed up economy–lurking in the smoldering ruins of the Godzilla economy–is political gridlock. Nobody seems capable of fixing what needs fixing in Japan. And if anyone was capable, it doesn’t look likely that anyone could push the fix through Japan’s crusty ranks of government bureaucracy.

What’s passed for a quick fix lately was the old “public works” trick. This fiscal bonzai charge involved borrowing more money, getting the government even deeper into debt, in order to pour fund into projects of one stripe or another. The idea was to prime the economic pump and get money flowing through the economy. The idea didn’t work. Now Japan has the dubious honor of joining Brazil as the only developed nation to have a national debt that exceeds one year’s worth of economic production.

Well…at least there’s no inflation (unlike Brazil). In fact, there’s so little spending going on that prices are falling. Falling prices sound like a pretty good deal, but consumer incomes are falling as well, and if these factors keep sliding we’ll hear more talk about a “deflationary cycle.” Deflationary cycles can spell another “D”-word: Depression.

Could the mighty Japan, Inc. really slide into a depression? Everyone except me thinks that this unthinkable thought is, er, unthinkable. After all, “Japan” and “depression” don’t go together anymore than sushi and peanut butter do.

On the other hand, I’ve proclaimed 1999 the Year of the Weird, and it is possible for some goofy economic genies to come uncorked as the year unwinds. Not even I, however, am weird enough to predict a “Depression of 1999” for Japan. On the other hand, I’m not walking around with a lotus-eater’s grin jabbering about Japan “turning the corner.” Bottom line: it is possible– possible– that Japan could fall of an economic cliff, but I don’t know how possible that is.

Meanwhile, the little fellows with the thick eyeglasses and slick computers are busy issuing warnings about the continued deterioration in Japan’s banking sector. New (lousy) loans are being added to the heap of old (lousy) loans, which cranks up the worry-meter amongst the financial pros.

Whatever happens in Japan will have the usual whiplash effect down here–for better or for worse–and there’s nothing we can do about it. Japan remains our major target market for tourism, and its woes don’t change that a bit. We have to slog along as best we can. One consolation: Misery loves company, so we can indulge in looking at Japan’s problems when we can’t bear to think about ours.