author is right!
Add to that:
a) japans population is growing old
b) japan has limited land and hence housing price can be only so much up!!
c) the wages have stagnated for long
d) the yen has been devalued by nearly 50% in the last 2 decades
e) whatever japan can do other asian countries have also emulated and have even bettered in certain areas.
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Japan was the master of re-engineering( they killed US electronics hardware industry), korea and taiwan are killing them at their own game.

f) only china can bail out japan, when the problem escalates to unprecedented heights in about decades time.
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A global economic meltdown in the offing here with all developed countries defaulting on their debt. This will ensu war or massive write off( commodity and stock collapse to reboot again) to reboot.

There will be re-balance of economic power for sure!

It is inevitable china will be the economic superpower as others are broke( germany will be allright) and followed by india to an extent.

Other asian countries will also do very well( korea,taiwan etc)

The so called developed countries who are just living on loans cannot sustain the party for long.
we are seeing what is happening in some countries of europe already.