Let me show you some telling figures on the inverse dependency ratio, which indicates how many people of working age it takes to provide for one dependent person.4 The Japanese ratio peaked around 1990, and it was in the very next year, 1991, that the Japanese Bubble peaked.
The peak of the US ratio was between 2005 and 2010, and the peak of the US subprime bubble was 2007 (Fig. 1). The economically troubled countries of the eurozone have a similar pattern to Japan and the United States.