The Little Train That Couldn’t

Abstract

The Japanese economy is a very dynamic one, racing ahead like the high-speed “bullet” train, passing every other train on the tracks and always getting there first. This, at least, is the appearance. And, over a decade ago, I purposely compared the economy to the shinkansen. But I warned readers not to look only at the sleek and shiny locomotive but the cumbersome passenger and freight cars it had to pull along. They might then find it distinctly less impressive. While this image caught on, to judge by the number of times it has been quoted since, I am not sure that enough observers are viewing the whole train even now.