Okane wa doko ni itteshimattanoka (お金はどこに行ってしまったのか, Where has all the money gone?). Until a few years back, the tone among Japanese business pundits used to go like this — a little humorous and slightly hopeful, almost as if we were all playing kakurenbo (かくれんぼ, hide-and-seek) with money, and money was proving to be especially adept at the game.

Sadly, that illusion has gone out of style. The automatic assumption is that money has disappeared and, like some runaway rock-musician teenager son, ain't about to show up again. Just the other day, a nakazuri kōkoku (中刷り広告, hanging advertisements in train cars, often broadcasting the headlines and blurbs of various weekly magazines) proclaimed wistfully: Okaneyo sayonara (お金よさようなら, Farewell, money). How final does that sound?

My great aunt used to call cash oashi (おアシ, reverent legs), which is a generational turn of phrase, and one that she grew up hearing from her own mother. The logic was that cash grew legs as soon as it entered the house, and would hotfoot it outside at the nearest opportunity. This great aunt also said, "Kane wa tenkano mawarimono" (「金は天下の回りもの」, "money journeys the land and eventually comes back to one's wallet"), so we shouldn't worry too much about it. Personally, I'm more willing to embrace the latter.