As an investment banker in Tokyo in the 1980s,Taggart Murphy had a ringside viewof one of the greatest transfers of credit in history as,in seven short years between 1981 and 1988, America turned itself from the world's greatest creditor nation to the world's debtor. The real price of Japanese Money tells the story of how postwar Japan accumulated its vast surplus; of Japanese financial strategy, and why the Japanese do not give up overseas markets even when they are losing money; of thepowerful business alliances and affiliation in which loyalty is exchanged for security and protaction;of the conditions of life for the ordinary Japanese; of America's desperste need in 1981 for credit, as the new Reagan government cuttaxes but not spending;of the 1987 stock market crash, as Japanese investors sawno end to the dollar depreciation; of Japan's 'bubble economy'