http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/feb2009/gb20090216_659920.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_news+%2B+analysisForward to 1.02 on video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1p3X-NVM2Iapan's Leaders Powerless as Economy Plunges
A YouTube video of Japanese Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa is highlighting the government's impotence in dealing with collapsing exports and the rising yen
By Ian Rowley
A slurring, muddled performance by Japanese Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa at the Group of Seven meeting in Rome over the weekend is attracting plenty of attention in Japan. At a news conference on Feb. 14, the minister, an ally of Prime Minister Taro Aso, appeared to be drunk: He misunderstood questions, his speech was unclear, and at one point he even appeared to almost drift off to sleep. A day later, back in Tokyo, Nakagawa explained that he had been suffering from a cold and reacted badly to medicine. "I wouldn't drink before a G7 meeting," he told reporters outside his home, sniffling.Explaining away Japan's dreadful economic performance is likely to prove rather more challenging. Stung by collapsing exports, a surging Japanese yen, and ineffective government, Japan's Cabinet Office today announced that Japan's gross domestic product slumped at an astonishing annualized rate of 12.7% between October and December. The fall is more than most Tokyo economists expected and marked the biggest quarterly slump since 1974. "There's no doubt that the economy is in its worst state in the postwar period," Economic and Fiscal Policy Minister Kaoru Yosano said in Tokyo.
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