Japan’s Cabinet Office said today (Wednesday) that economic output fell to its worst levels ever, tumbling an annualized 15.2% in the first quarter, as the worst recession in 60 years hammered exports and consumer demand.

Anyone who has ever visited Japan knows it to be a country where everything works beautifully - and with great efficiency. Right now, however, it’s clear that something has gone horribly wrong there.

The markets of 2009: plenty of offers; few bids.  From Dubai comes word that the property market has not just fallen…it has ceased to exist.

The dollar and the yen gained ground on Monday as grim Japanese data intensified global recession fears and encouraged buying of safer assets, while concerns about trouble in eastern Europe pressured the euro.

Joining a chorus of ailing U.S. automakers, Toyota Motor Co. (TM) yesterday (Monday) forecast its first operating loss in 71 years on plummeting demand and sharp appreciation of the Japanese yen. The announcement prompted Moody’s Investors Service to consider downgrading the company’s top-rated credit.

The Japanese economy is steadily growing and may have finally “decoupled” from the US, according to a report in The Guardian:

Senior officials say the economy has become much more stable as it has plugged into the booming economies of Asia, exporting everything from consumer goods to machine tools. But not everyone is convinced, with some worried that as Asia slows in response to lower exports to a recession-hit US, Japan’s exports will suffer, as will its consumers, whose spending will be hit by higher fuel prices.

“Japan is cheap in a way that no other developed markets are,” says Merryn Somerset Webb in Money Week.

On one of my first mornings at our home here, my family and I headed for the Fushimi Inari Taisha shrine. Built in the 8th century by the powerful Hata family, the shrine is best known for the four consecutive kilometers of orange Torii gates covering the mountain on which it was built.