Japan, China, Greece and Geithner Inbox X

"The bankruptcy filing of the Japanese -formerly national- airline JAL gets surprisingly little press beyond a litany of numbers. This may not be so wise, since the fact that the Japanese government lets the carrier go down is not exactly without meaning. Tokyo sends a message. And while that can vary from a strong message (we won't pay anymore) to a weak one (we can't pay anymore), there can be little doubt that the intended signal is that Japanese industries, even those too big or too beautiful to fail, may find themselves all alone when they get into trouble. And that is not what they've gotten used to over the past 20 years."