Financial Reckoning Day is a "big picture" investment book that skillfully illustrates how the American economy is following in the footsteps of the Japanese economy, which fell into a long, soft "slow motion" deflationary depression brought about by two irresistible forces–its aging population and a structural reaction to the greatest financial boom in its history. With the U.S. market in a downturn, investors are looking for answers to why this is happening and what they can do to protect their investments. Financial Reckoning Day will provide the answers to those questions. Written by a team of well-respected financial professionals–whose publications and newsletters reach a quarter million investors each week–this book shows readers how the economic megaboom of the 1990s will inevitably be followed by a megabust in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Many believe that depressions are artifacts of financial history, not features of the future. Financial Reckoning Day shows why these events are a real possibility and discusses the dangers they pose to investors around the world, arguing that popular democracy, aging populations, and bad economic theories doom Western economics to bear markets, and falling consumer spending for years to come. More importantly, it shows readers how they can survive and thrive during such events.