In 2010, Japan’s GDP stood at roughly ¥550 trillion, while the United States was at ¥750 trillion. Fifteen years later, the gap has widened to more than sixfold. This essay exposes the critical facts ignored by Japanese media and traces the roots of Japan’s economic decline.

From GDP parity to a sixfold gap: how Japan’s economic stagnation and media silence reshaped global power—and why exchange rates, productivity, and political decisions since 2010 matter for the future of democracy and capitalism.

2025-09-30
When I emerged as “The Turntable of Civilization” in 2010, Japan’s GDP was approximately 550 trillion yen, while that of the United States was about 750 trillion yen.
If the United States were to completely forget this fact, and Japan were to be entirely dominated by self-abasing masochists, the world itself—in other words, humanity—would not exist.
November 15, 2016
As readers are aware, I have written about then President-elect Donald Trump in an extremely restrained manner.
The primary reason, as already stated, was that he was highly likely to become the next President of the United States, that is, he was the candidate ultimately selected by the Republican Party.
Regarding his provocative remarks, readers also know that I wrote that he instantly destroyed the lie known as the “anti-nuclear myth” that had covered Japan for seventy postwar years, and that he was, rather, the greatest trickster of the postwar era.
Nearly ten years earlier, when I realized that the time for writing The Turntable of Civilization had long since arrived, I nevertheless concluded that I still had to write it, and at that time I noticed that I had not conducted any examination whatsoever of the stock market, which is the very foundation of capitalism.
Therefore, for several years I analyzed the stock market, and only after that did I complete The Turntable of Civilization, as readers know.
That is why, at the time, I asserted matters that not a single person had yet mentioned.
One of those assertions was that the proper exchange rate between the dollar and the yen was 111 to 112 yen per dollar.
At present, U.S. GDP is nearly four times what it was then, while Japan’s remains unchanged, so by simple calculation even 111 yen multiplied by three—around 333 yen—could be said, at the very least, to be the proper rate.
After returning home from dental treatment, I searched to verify this and was astonished.
It was not “nearly four times” at all.
It was 6.36 times!
When I emerged as “The Turntable of Civilization” in 2010, Japan’s GDP was 550 trillion yen, and that of the United States was 750 trillion yen.
In other words, the U.S. GDP was only 1.36 times that of Japan.
And yet—astonishingly—it has now become 6.36 times larger.
Japan’s media did not report this fact at all.
The only thing they reported was that Japan had fallen to fourth place after being overtaken by Germany.
In other words, they had no choice but to conceal the fact that they themselves had continued to astronomically damage Japan’s economy, national strength, and national wealth.