Japanese companies spent $70 billion on acquisitions overseas in 2011—a record. Armed with a ferociously strong yen, they’re going overseas to escape the pressures at home where electricity rationing has become part of corporate life, along with a stagnant economy and a dwindling working-age population. But they’re doing it just when Japan can least afford it.

The cabinet approved a doozie of a budget with a horrid deficit. Yet it relies on accounting shenanigans. In reality, the government will borrow a disastrous 56.2% of every yen it spends. The vaunted trade surplus has become a trade deficit, the working population is declining, the savings rate plummets…. But the government has a solution: a miracle.

Plunging approval ratings of Prime Minister Noda follow tradition. Public approval is high at the start when voters still have hope. As reality sets in, approval skitters down a steep slope for 8 to 15 months. Then a new guy is installed. But bureaucrats and corporate interests stay in place, public debt turns into a mushroom cloud, and the endgame continues.

“Japan’s economy is likely to continue to face a severe situation for the time being, especially with respect to exports,” said the Governor of the Bank of Japan. He blamed the European debt crisis and the strong yen. But his bland central-banker language marked the end of an era.

Yakuza just can’t catch a break. Now it’s life insurance companies that are tightening the noose. Organized crime is big business in Japan. Extortion, built on a culture of shame, is phenomenally successful. But…. In 1963, there were 184,000 yakuza. In 2009, they were 80,900. And new laws disrupt the ambiguous relationship between them and society.

Tokyo’s organized crime exclusionary laws went into effect in October—and are wreaking havoc. Now doing business with the yakuza is a crime. In an ingenious twist, paying off the yakuza is also a crime. Even victims of blackmail—hush money is an outright industry in Japan—commit a crime if they pay.