David Westin: In the late 80s, Japan's economy grew by as much as 6.7% a year, only to have that growth plummet for most of the next 30 years, hovering between 0 and 2% and contracting during the Great Financial Crisis and the COVID pandemic, relegating what had been the third largest economy in the world to number 4, as Germany surged past. The Nikkei stock market went 34 years without setting new highs. Japanese government bond yields turned negative and stayed there for years. But all that could now be changing as Japan emerges from those lost decades.

Marc Rowan [Walking in Tokyo]: What a lovely day in Tokyo.

David Westin: Marc Rowan is CEO of Apollo Global Management.

Marc Rowan: This is a savings culture. And holding on to your cash or leaving your money into JGBs for the past 30 years has been fine, because there's been no inflation. In fact, there's been deflation. All of a sudden, you have closer to 3% inflation. You have interest rates up for the first time. And that savings is going to be deployed productively. And now some of it has to go toward retirement. They will want better solutions for retirement. But some of it is just going to keep up with purchase price and purchasing power. I think about what's happening in Japan. And in Japan, they're going through generational change. And it's generational change in corporate governance. It's in interest rates. It's in government policy. And in many ways, they are the first of the Western democracies to face real aging, retirement, and high levels of government debt. And what's happening here is totally different than people's expectation, because most people's expectation of Japan or business mindset of Japan is 30 years of stagnation. And that is so dynamic here today.

David Westin: The thing that got things going again for Japan was, ironically, adversity. As supply chains came under stress from the COVID shutdown and the war in Ukraine put pressure on energy prices, a big problem for a country dependent on oil from abroad.

Eiji Ueda: With the supply chain breakdown, corporate has excuses to transfer the price to the retail. So now the CPI started to suddenly, which has been 0 or negative for a very long time, suddenly went up to almost 3%. If she can get to third, that's a long...

David Westin: Eiji Ueda is head of Asia Pacific for Apollo.

Eiji Ueda: Everybody has to think differently. So with the deflation environment, cash has been the king. But with the inflation at the... close to 3%, cash is not the right asset to own. It's actually the worst assets to own. So that has to put the pressure on a lot of people to think about things differently.