-- A New York Times columnist on Thursday attributed worldwide stock price declines to Japan's "misguided" economic policy.
William Safire said in a column that stock markets are slumping worldwide because the world's second-largest economy is near collapse and the country shows "no sign of knowing what to do."
Japanese business executives and the government "never understood the need for competition," Safire said, adding that liberal economists around the world gave Japan "misguided" prescriptions a decade ago -- cutting interest rates and stimulating government spending.
"Tokyo officials dutifully slashed rates to zero," Safire said, "subsidized falling companies to prevent unemployment and went on a Keynesian spending spree that led to the current disaster."
Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori should become "a conduit for a wholly different approach" when he meets U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington on Monday, Safire said.
"The Bush people," he wrote, "will not be so crude as to say: 'Look, prime minister, the way to avoid dragging the world down the drain is to close 20 of your weakest banks and make those remaining write off bad loans . . . then resign and be remembered in history as a hero.' "