The bulldozers started up with a rumble this year in this bucolic corner of southern Japan, unleashing a construction frenzy — and a sinking feeling of déjà vu.
The traffic cones and “under construction” signs alongside Saga’s roads and waterways are about the only visible change brought about by “Abenomics,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s much-lauded plan to put Japan back on the path to growth. Residents here say the building boom is a throwback to Japan’s troubled 1990s, when far-flung regions across the country tried to build their way back to prosperity.
And they worry that, like previous attempts, growth will not last.
“How long before all this winds down again? That’s what everyone’s worried about,” said Masataka Matsuo, a construction worker reinforcing an irrigation ditch several miles away from the city center.
Japan has been the world’s surprising growth story this year, largely outpacing other major industrialized countries with a bold set of policies that are lifting its economy after years of deflation. So far, it has been Mr. Abe’s bid to pump the nation’s banks with money — together with his promises of wide-ranging market reforms — that have garnered much of the investor spotlight.
But some economists say that Japan’s recovery has become dangerously dependent on large-scale public works spending, remembered here for adding to Japan’s debt burden, fueling pork-barrel politics and riddling the country with little-used roads, bridges and dams.
On Thursday, the government announced new stimulus spending of 5.5 trillion yen, much of it for public works, in a bid to offset any negative public reaction to a coming increase in a national sales tax.
Still, pouring money into infrastructure projects will do little to lift Japan’s growth potential in the long term, some economists warn. And with limited evidence that monetary easing is in fact lifting the real economy, growth “risks falling off a cliff” when government outlays sputter, said Chotaro Morita, chief strategist at SMBC Nikko Securities in Tokyo.
Recent figures seem to support this view. In the three months through September, consumer spending grew a mere 0.2 percent from the last quarter and capital investment was flat, despite the easy money available under Japan’s ultra-loose monetary policy. Net exports fell 0.6 percent.
Even the rise of the stock market — up almost 50 percent since the start of the year largely because exporters’ earnings are higher — has not helped average people spend more.
Instead, it has been government spending on public works that has lifted growth, expanding at a rapid clip of 6.5 percent from the previous quarter, the latest numbers show. Overall, growth for the quarter was revised to just 0.3 percent from the previous three months, down from an initial reading of 0.5 percent.
“Japan’s growth engine has been massive government spending,” Ryutaro Kono, economist for BNP Paribas, said in a recent note...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/09/busin ... ecade.html
Does this mean you'll be moving it to the J-Babe Appreciation topic? 
