Japan is not so different after all. After contracting 0.1 per cent in the third quarter, the world’s second biggest economy has now joined the eurozone in keiki koutai, or economic recession. That brings the country’s longest post-war expansion to a juddering halt. Consumers of all stripes are on strike. Household consumption rose 0.3 per cent on the quarter, but perhaps due only to boosts from TV sales during the Olympics and other one-offs. Capital investment fell 1.7 per cent, the third decline in a row, while overseas buyers bought fewer Japanese goods.

Better news lies outside the GDP numbers. Unemployment, at 4.1 per cent on Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development projections, is comfortably below that of the eurozone and the US. But since corporate profits are diving and bankruptcies soaring, unemployment will inevitably rise, increasing the temptation to save rather than spend. Japan’s savers, already some of the world’s thriftiest, are squirreling away ever more money: term deposits have risen every month this year.