By Wayne Arnold
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

TOKYO — Bond traders have been betting against Japanese government debt for years — and losing spectacularly. Victims of the so-called “widow-maker” trade of shorting JGBs thought the March disaster would vindicate them. Rebuilding, after all, will add to Japan’s sky-high debt and, with a shrinking workforce and rising pension costs, push yields up. But the quake hasn’t disrupted the self-perpetuating money machine that drives JGBs. Doomsayers still run the risk of becoming road kill.

By Wayne Arnold
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

TOKYO — Machiavelli warned never to waste the opportunities afforded by a crisis. Japan today is struggling with an epic catastrophe: an anemic economy struck by a once-in-a-millennium disaster that may have killed 24,000 people, left hundreds of thousands homeless and destroyed nuclear reactors that spewed poisonous radiation over an estimated 600 square kilometers. Summoning their traditional spirit of “gaman” — enduring the unendurable — the Japanese have united to persevere and rebuild.