Our Very Own Monster
Remember when everyone was afraid that the Japanese were going to buy the entire United States of America, back in the late 80s, because they were making just that much money? You want to know why that never happened? Because they're economy was artificially inflated due to a massive speculative market for investors who made investments in places that didn't have sound financial fundamentals but sounded REALLY cool. In other words, they had a bubble economy. And, like all bubbles, it burst back in the early 90's, plunging Japan into an economic recession that has not ended to this day, despite the efforts of their government and their central banking authorities.

You do realize, of course, that the technology boom in the American economy of the mid to late 90's was also, in fact, a bubble economy that burst at the end of 2000. This article from CNNfn.com talks about why we may be in the same mess that the Japanese are in, and that there may be nothing the government or the Federal Reserve Bank can do about it.