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What makes the Japanese market different is the way they react to economic slowdowns.
Generally, as the economy cools stocks reduce in price. As stocks reduce, the circulation of the dollar begins to decline and value of the dollar increases. As the value of the dollar vs. the price of stocks/interest/etc becomes favorable, people buy stocks/invest/rebuild/etc and the economy bounces back. That, along with the Fed controlling interest rates and other factors, is the sole reason we've been without a depression for 70 years (where they used to be every 10-20).
In Japan whenever the economy starts to cool, the entire populace stops spending money. This hurts the economy more than the cooldown ever could, and every 10 years or so they find themselves in very deep recessions.... only to skyrocket back a year later.
The major difference is we got hit by three storms this time all at once. The collective hits from all three caused us all to react much like the Japanese and stop all buying. Match this with companies pre-emptively cutting back on their employee count, everyone who WAS secure in their job stopped spending where they otherwise would have... and made it even worse.
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"Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas
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