Are you saying the reason the Japanese asset markets have been depressed the past 15 years is because the average Japanese citizen has a predisposition not to invest in the markets (I do not agree with this assertion, BTW)? Since the Japanese save so much more money than Americans, then where is this money going? I agree with you that it is not going into the stock market, but then that is plainly obvious. Americans were not investing in stocks in the 1930's either. I contend that the depressed markets are the result of the contraction of credit and deflationary monetary conditions even in the face of negative real interest rates.
And to say that the average US citizen invests more than the average Japanese citizen is ludicrous. The average US citizen curently has a ZERO percent savings rate. The average US worker has like 50 grand in their 401K.
And our vast reservoir of wealth and natural resources certainly do not seem to be generating much wealth for the country. The last time I checked, we were running a trade deficit of several hundred billion a year. As opposed to the Japanese who manufacture many consumer goods products and have continued to run a vast budget surplus even throughout their recession. Of course, unlike the US, they actually have a strong manufacturing base and an highly educated workforce.
What do we produce as a country that will sustain our economy in the face of a real estate downturn? Here is a good article on the topic:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/12/op...12krugman.html