I think the Japanese had a peculiar situation. First of all, the stock market in Japan was probably more overvalued than the US market in the year 2000 or in the year 2007. Also, the real estate market was in "cuckoo-land" in Japan.
The good thing about Japan after 1990, when the recession hit and a period of no-growth began, is that the typical household never suffered very badly, for the simple reason that prices for assets, things like golf course memberships, nightclubs, housing prices, etc., all went down. So, their salaries didn't rise any more but stayed at the same level, and everything fell in price – we had deflation. So the typical household actually increased its standard of living.
In the US, the problem is that the household sector is terribly indebted. That wasn't the case in Japan. In Japan, the corporate sector was indebted and the banks and real estate companies were overleveraged, but not the household sector. And the household sector in Japan still had a savings rate of around 12 percent when the recession started.
In the US, the household sector had stopped saving out of current income throughout the 1990s. In 1990, the saving rate was nine percent; then it went to zero. Now, the savings rate will have to go up. The household sector will realize that savings out of illusory asset price gains, like stocks and real estate, are not permanent; and therefore, if we want to have money for retirement, we have to save money from current income. And that has, of course, a negative short-term impact on the economy.
