In my 2014 book, The Death of Money, I wrote, “The United States is Japan on a larger scale.” That was five years ago. Last week, prominent economist Mohamed A. El-Erian, formerly CEO of PIMCO and now with Allianz, wrote, “With the return of Europe’s economic doldrums and signs of a coming growth slowdown in the United States, advanced economies could be at risk of falling into the same kind of long-term rut that has captured Japan.” Better late than never! Welcome to the club, Mohamed. Japan started its “lost decade” in 1990. Now their lost decade has dragged into three lost decades. The U.S. began its first lost decade in 2009 and is now entering its second lost decade with no end in sight. What I referred to in 2014 and what El-Erian refers to today is that central bank policy in both countries has been completely ineffective at restoring long-term trend growth or solving the steady accumulation of unsustainable debt. In Japan this problem began in 1990, and in the U.S. the problem began in 2009, but it’s the same problem with no clear solution. The irony is that in the early 2000s, former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke routinely criticized the Japanese for their inability to escape from recession, deflation and slow growth. When the U.S. recession began during the global financial crisis of 2008, Bernanke promised that he would not make the same mistakes the Japanese made in the 1990s. Instead, he made every mistake the Japanese made, and the U.S. is stuck in the same place and will remain there until the Fed wakes up to its problems. Bernanke thought that low interest rates and massive money printing would lead to lending and spending that would restore trend growth to 3.2% or higher. But he ignored the role of velocity (speed of money turnover) and the unwillingness of banks to lend or individuals to borrow. When that happens, the Fed is pushing on a string — printing money with no result except asset bubbles. Get ready for more disinflation (or deflation), slow growth and possible recession. The central banks are stuck and there’s no way out. Institutional investors can schedule a proof of concept with the world’s first predictive data analytics firm combining human and artificial intelligence with complexity science. Check out Jim Rickard’s company at Meraglim Holdings to learn more.