About the economy itself, many Japanese seem almost as gloomy.
With unemployment creeping up to 5.4 percent, the highest rate since World War II, a late November poll of 1,791 Japanese adults found 87 percent saying that they worried about their job security and 94 percent pessimistic about the economy, according to Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Japan's leading business daily.
More than 1 million Japanese lost their jobs this year because of bankruptcies or restructurings, and the number of plant closings is jumping.
So far this year, 46 factories in the electronics and information sector have closed, up from only two last year. As Chinese imports eat into Japanese manufacturing, factory job offers here are down by a third from last year.
"Every economic measure you can look at -- disposable income, GDP, household spending, deflation -- are all bad," said Mark Fields, president of Mazda Motor, in which Ford Motor owns a controlling stake. "The only way Japan looks good is if you turn the charts upside down."
Nihon Keizai Shimbun surveyed 1,790 of Japan's largest publicly listed companies and calculated that net profits will be down 74 percent for the year to March.
"I have talked to several important business leaders and they are scared," said Robert Grondine, a longtime lawyer here who steps down this month as president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan. "They don't see the bottom."
Japanese executives, traumatized by real estate and stock collapses that began around 1990, are devoted to reducing debt, not borrowing for future expansion.
"You have shell-shocked executives saying they will never borrow again," Richard Koo, senior economist for Nomura Research Institute, recently said.
"But with all companies minimizing debt, you have an invisible hand pushing toward depression," he said
Many of Japan's problems are self-induced. A chummy financial system, where banks served as cash conduits to affiliated conglomerates, has bad corporate debts of almost US$2 trillion, according to Goldman, Sachs. The kind of big US bankruptcies seen this fall -- including Bethlehem Steel and Enron -- are rare here.
More bad loans
In recent weeks, Japan's four largest banking groups set aside US$44 billion to cover bad loans. Their combined earnings of US$366 million last year are forecast to plummet this year into losses of US$20 billion.
Japan's long-suffering taxpayers, having seen few bankers lose their jobs and none go to jail after a major bank bailout in 1997, are expected to resist a new rescue. Telegraphing a lack of confidence in some banks, Japanese savers are quietly moving out of time deposits into more liquid savings, according to Bank of Japan statistics.
"By March, there's a danger Japan's economy could face a major crash, if no reforms are pushed through," Yukio Hatoyama, an opposition politician, said.
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