With the looming privatization of its postal savings bank (and let's have it be a real privatization, with open competition for savings), this is Japan's moment.

FORBES: Ebb and Flow

To which we can add government-run entities that compete with or have effectively crowded out private sector competitors (most egregiously the state-run postal savings bank and insurance entities), and the direct spending on public works.

FORBES: Small Company Financing and Government Dependency

Even Germany's postal-savings bank is making noises about becoming an Internet-finance leader.

ECONOMIST: Online stockbroking

" Postal Savings in Japan and Mortgage Markets in the US", by Thomas Cargill and Hall Scott, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Economic Letter March 2006.

ECONOMIST: Sources and acknowledgements

It would be able to borrow money, with a government guarantee, either from the Bank of Japan or from the finance ministry's trust-fund bureau, which manages postal-savings money.

ECONOMIST: Japan��s financial crisis