Market interventions, intervention spirals and, above all, the manipulation of the price of money downwards have their price. Japan's economy is suffering from a massive zombification of its companies. According to current figures, around 17% of Japan's private-sector companies are unable to service their debts under normal interest conditions. This is the result of decades of downward manipulation of interest rates, which served exclusively to finance ever-increasing government deficits. In the course of the bubble economy, we have forgotten how to tolerate short-term socio-economic pain in the form of small, sharp recessions.