“Little else is required,” Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations, once remarked, “to carry a state to the highest degree of affluence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.”

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.

Japan’s largest bank, Mitsubishi UFJ, has announced that its annual profits have plunged 28%, largely due to its exposure to the subprime market.

The bank said its annual subprime-related losses were more than 120 billion yen ($1.15 billion) and that it could lose another $480 million this year because of subprime exposure.

According to a report by Thomson Reuters, the bank’s president, Nobuo Kuroyanagi, said: “Subprime had a very broad effect on us.