Fighting credit risk demons

The banks are in a muddle, the life insurers are collapsing, most of the Nikkei 225 companies are insolvent and the government’s credit rating is sliding. Japan’s credit risk problems are now so complex, a simple solution is impossible. By Ellen Leander

The credit risk situation in Japan is much like the many-headed Hydra of Greek mythology – when Hercules tried to slay the monster by cutting off one of its dozens of heads, two would spring back in its place. So too in Japan, the credit risk situation has reached such critical proportions – the crisis has now spread through nearly all sectors of the economy – that to attempt to solve one problem would create dozens of new ones.

Indeed, if Japan were not still one of the wealthiest nations on