Japan reformers give up the ghost

In politics, it is said, a week can be a lifetime. Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi is learning the same is true with economics. Last month, Japan was merely in its third recession in a decade. Now, markets are buzzing about a full-blown financial crisis in the world's second-biggest economy. The Nikkei 225 stock average is even below the Dow Jones Industrial Average for the first time in 44 years. Things have disintegrated so quickly that Koizumi can't go an hour without reassuring someone that Japan isn't about to crash. His controversial sacking of foreign minister Makiko Ta...