When you are a fully-industrialized island nation that makes its living in the world by importing raw materials, fashioning them into useful exports, and collecting the difference as your profits, then you simply have to run a trade surplus for the model to work.
Which means Japan is in big trouble:
Japan posts largest-ever trade deficit
Apr 21, 2014
Japan suffered its largest-ever trade deficit last fiscal year, underlining a wrenching structural shift for an economy long renowned as an export powerhouse.
The now chronic deficit has widened even during a more than year-long [sic], limiting the impact of Shinzo Abe’s “Abenomics” stimulus policies.
Those policies have helped to weaken the yen – a once reliable way to kick-start the Japanese economy, but one whose effect today is less clear as Japan manufactures less than it once did and buys more energy and other items from abroad.
The gap between the value of Japan’s exports and that of its imports grew by more than two-thirds in the 12 months through March, to Y13.7tn ($134bn), according to government data released on Monday. It was the third consecutive fiscal year of deficits, the longest streak since comparable records began in the 1970s.
Toyota, Hitachi and other large Japanese companies have enjoyed soaring profits as a result of the weaker yen, which has fallen by a fifth against other major currencies since November 2012.
(Source)
There are several things of note here. The first is that Abenomics, the 'plan' to help the Japanese economy by weakening the Yen through a very aggressive policy of printing up enough money to double the monetary base in two years, is clearly failing on many fronts.
by lesphelps 
