Japan Has Lost A Decade - How Long Has Stoke on Trent Lost?

According to financial commentators Japan has, for the last ten years, been in an economic 'dead zone' where it has experienced little or no growth - leading to large scale unemployment and financial instability. Japan's Central Bank has, in an attempt to 'jolt' their economy out of this deep sleep has reduced interest rates to a historic low - 0.1% or less. Low interest rates have not worked in Japan so far, it's difficult to see where Japan can go from here if this 'low interest' strategy fails.

Other commentators are predicting that the western economies could be heading for a similar Japanese style 'lost decade'.

The social and political consequences for the 'fragile' west could be quite serious if our current attempts to stave off the 'big sleep' fails. Unlike Japan the west has a number of political movements that are preparing to take full advantage of any such economic/social crisis!

And what of our dear old Stoke on Trent? If Japan is suffering after only a decade of economic morbidity then how much have the people of our fair city suffered after forty years of such a fate?