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According to the website, Seeking Alpha:
Even though Japan is paying less than 1.5% on its bonds, their 200% debt to GDP level is so elevated that interest payments amount to 27% of tax revenues. If you include the roll of maturing debt needed to service it, the share rises to 57%.
Think of that, 57%. Over half of every single yen received in taxes and revenue is used solely to service the existing debt load. Just as a matter of perspective, if rates were to move only to the level of the US, existing debt servicing would equal all tax revenues leaving absolutely nothing for any public service. No schools, no public transport, no social security, no defence spending, nothing at all, a libertarian dream come true. https://seekingalpha.com/article/257182-the-current-japanese-debt-situation-and-what-we-can-learn-from-it
Lawrence G. McDonald,  president of McDonald Advisory Group and a partner with DC Tripwire. and Chriss Street,  report that Japan has maintained current-account surplus and has been sending more than 3% of its GDP abroad, providing more than $175 billion of funds this year for other countries to borrow.
This paradox of a stunningly indebted nation financing the world is explained by a combination of high corporate saving and low levels of residential and non-residential fixed investment due to poor investment opportunities in Japan.
That money is gone after this crisis. Millions of Japanese savers are about to start spending their savings on essentials, since they have lost their jobs and businesses due to the damage.
Tokyo Electric Power Company will suffer losses of over $100 billion from its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant meltdown and most of Japan’s northern corporate facilities that hug the eastern coastline have been destroyed or incapacitated.
Japan averages one earthquake every four minutes, but Friday’s quake and tsunami were both the largest in the history of the country. Earthquake insurance in Japan is very expensive and only 10% of homeowners buy coverage. Therefore, the Japanese government will be on the hook for several hundred billion in infrastructure and reconstruction costs.Â
They conclude by stating that  many naive analysts are commenting about how this natural disaster will be good for the Japanese economy because of the substantial rebuilding program.
That might have been true if Japan was not already on the verge of a man-made debt disaster prior to this natural disaster. Standard & Poor’s credit rating service had just downgraded Japan’s sovereign debt to AA- in mid-January.
The huge increase in the costs for welfare and unemployment payments, the economic disruption, the scale of the devastation, the lack of insurance and the minimum five years to rebuild the country may take Japan’s credit rating down to “junk bond†levels.
The earthquake and tsunami that have devastated Japan came quickly and violently. But the debt crisis has been building for 20 years and may be much more devastating to the future of Japan. https://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/japan-earthquake-earthquake-in-japan-japan/3/15/2011/id/33360
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