Cool article. I find myself using semicolons often on facebook and the like, but in text messages I usually opt for the run-on sentence. It might be to seem less pretentious, or just because it's one less button-press.

This comment was written with a hyper-awareness of where I might use a semicolon; I doubt it can really be taken as a measure of how much I use them. How about this: ;_; (probably accounts for 30% of my typed semicolons).

I had read both of the linked articles and found them interesting so I like that people are referring to them and continuing the conversation.

Need a subscription :(

Would be curious to see the conclusion though.

Always interesting to see the bleak side of Japan compared to the pleasant, cartoony aspect in popular culture. Their whole educational system needs some help.. But whose doesn't?, I guess.

I'm surprised that 95% of their debt is held by Japanese citizens. That's a bit ridiculous! Is there just not much to go around? I'd think big ForEx players would be interested in more than just 5% of the debt.. Even if it's this risky, I bet more than 5% of people are stupid! But I'm no public debt guru.

The part towards the end:

Elderly Japanese refuse to consider changing their pension system. The euro elite have closed their eyes to the unsustainability of their currency union. And the U.S. has Wall Street in the driver’s seat. We all have political systems that have figured out how to promise far more than can be repaid, and how to work with the financial sector to opaquely transfer resources to powerful groups—at a cost, it is often said, to be paid by future generations.