BY RICHARD BARLEY
Canary in the coal mine? The cost of insuring Japanese government bonds against default has doubled to 0.75 percentage point in the past three months, as markets fret about debt issuance. Credit risk is assuming ever-greater stature in government-bond markets previously blithely assumed to be risk-free.
Japan's debt problem is becoming urgent. It is grappling with issues other governments such as the U.S. and the U.K. will face, but is much further down the road already.
Its debt-to-gross-domestic-product ratio is set to rise to a staggering 227% in 2010, the International Monetary Fund forecasts, making it particularly ...