Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has a provocative piece in the Telegraph today on the demographic timebomb ticking underneath many Asian economies. The Japanese government has borrowed enormous sums in a bid to sustain aggregate demand and keep the economy afloat and avoid yet another deflationary slump. But the ratio of government debt to GDP is now - according to the author - perilously high.

“Japan is about to go bankrupt. It is on the cusp of a fiscal crisis that will change perceptions of Asia dramatically. The IMF says gross public debt will reach 218pc of GDP this year. This is compounding very fast. It will be 246pc in 2014…But I am absolutely certain that pundits consigning the dollar to its death have missed an even more dramatic currency and debt story in Japan.”

The rest of the article can be found here