The Winter Olympics were last held in Japan in 1998. The stage was Nagano, and on that stage, the Japanese athletes performed brilliantly. They won no less than five gold medals, one silver and four bronzes. Many of the winning athletes sported auburn, if not blonde-tinted hair. Some even went for eyebrows with faux tattoos painted over them. They looked carefree. They were skiing, skating, jumping and somersaulting for their own enjoyment. The pressure to win did not seem to bother them.

Fast forward to: this year's Olympic Games in Turin, where the Japanese athletes have performed miserably. Medals kept eluding them, apart from the one dazzling exception in the women's figure skating event. Disqualifications, tripping over themselves, last-minute illness: you name it, they went down with it. Their hair was no longer dyed brown or red, let alone blonde. Eyebrows were left untouched. The participants looked scared stiff. And they kept apologizing for not living up to expectations.

In 1998, when we excelled in winter sports, the economy was in the doldrums. Banks groaned under the weight of massive nonperforming loans. The Bank of Japan became quite alarmed at the severity of deflationary pressures and the fragility of the financial system. So much so that it adopted the zero-interest-rate policy the following year. In 2006, while we wallow in misery at our incompetence in the Olympics, the economy looks better than it has been for very many years. Corporate profits are booming. People are spending. Banks' nonperforming loans are history. The Bank of Japan is keen to end its quantitative easing policy and to allow interest rates to start moving normally again.