The echoes of the boom are still fresh: lavish compensation packages, 40-million-yen seats, and the non-stop ringing of headhunters’ phones.
Yet, beneath this frantic energy, I hear a different sound—a low, rhythmic thud. It is the sound of an approaching crisis, a heavy sigh emanating from the depths of Japan’s “megabanks” and the regional lenders that serve as the backbone of the local economy.
For years, foreign investors have feasted on the “sweet nectar” of currency and interest rate distortions.
Now, as they prepare to depart, they leave behind a landscape primed for disaster: a deluge of “unrealized losses” triggered by the relentless tide of rising interest rates.
