I think you touch one of the saddest parts of it. The Japanese are, as you say avid savers. Over the last twenty years the Japanese have chosen to invest the vast bilk of those savings in government bonds. It has meant that until now the Japanese despite their vast 200% of GDP debt have hardly had to sell any of it outside Japan. The Japanese people have bought it, their pension funds have bought it and the company pension funds have bought it.

All that money, all those hopes for the future, that the Japanese saved has already been spent by their government bailing out a debt riddled financial system.

Should the Japanese debt ever collapse it will wipe away every last vestige of their post war endeavour and wealth. It is all sunk in the same pit.

Part of why the Ratings agencies are now warning Japan about its debt is because that aquifer of savings has now run dry. Japan now does have to start selling its debt on the open market.

The fear is that once Japan has to start selling its debt on the open market then suddenly its 200% debt to GDP will matter and the rate they will have to pay will start to go up. If it does then the almost zero percent interest rates Japan has used to keep its never ending stimulus going will be unsustainable.

I have wondered for a time if Japan might be a wild card that people are not looking at.

Would you consider writing to let us know what you think of Taleb's book?

Where to now? Is gold a good idea? Will my savings evaporate? Did that happen in Japan? This is a multi-dimensional problem. I am reading 'Fooled by Randomness' by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, some good observations in there.