There's plenty to talk about but, sadly, not with Japan

Here, in what many consider the centre of the capitalised world, it is not what people in business are talking about that is interesting, it is what they are not saying. There's plenty of chatter about troubles in the US economy, Europe's stock slide and Latin America's financial woes. China's rise often comes up, as does Indonesia's continuing implosion. Asia's attempt to stay out of recession also gets attention. What doesn't come up much is Japan, the world's second-biggest economy. Asians have known for some time that Japan, their traditional engine of growth, is less of a factor in...