Japan's economic woes out of sight  Social stability conceals
crisis  July 20, 2003|By Michael A. Lev, Tribune foreign
correspondent.  SUSAKI, Japan — They still talk of the 1960
tsunami as the greatest disaster to befall this small port city,
but what is happening today is worse. It is just more subtle--
the quiet dissolution of the economy.  The slow collapse of
Susaki, a nondescript manufacturing town that once made a minor
contribution to the miracle rise of Japan Inc., is an only-in-
Japan phenomenon: a city in crisis that looks fine from the
outside.  The puzzling story is the same all over this country.
Despite more than a decade of crippling economic malaise, there
are few overt signs of catastrophe. There is no city that
personifies the Japanese decline the way America's Rust Belt
cities testify to the economic troubles of the 1970s and early
1980s. There is no Flint, Mich., of Japan.  One reason is
Japan's remarkable flair for teamwork, which helped the nation
build so much wealth and now helps it sha