Okay so the US doesn't like something about how Japan's economy was doing in the 90s, what was the beef? I know Japan was manufacturing a ton of stuff, but I thought the US wanted consumer products manufactured overseas.
So they're not happy with this, so they do a run on Japan's currency. What does this mean? Like how do they do it?
The run on the currency causes the value of the Yen to go up. This is bad for some reason, even though your currency is worth more? Like can't you get more for a Yen? But clearly it's bad because it destroyed their economy, I'd like to understand why or how.
Because right now the best I was able to explain it to someone was "America did some money magic bullshit and destroyed Japan's economy", but I would like to be able to answer some follow up questions.
It's also important to keep in mind that part of the Japanese miracle was that the USA had set the Yen at an espcially low rate back after the war. This was done for several reasons, 1) as a means to boost the Japanese economy in the face of communism and a strong japanese communist party, 2) a sop to the Japanese bourgeois to get them on side and play ball as a subject state in the American empire, 3) so that japan could act as a manufacturing hub in asia for the US military. In a sense this was the USA going "alright no more special deal, you are starting to bit the hand that feeds."
The future of the japanese economy was basically already bankrolled on the superconductor industry at that point and the accords pulled the rug out from under that by making their exports more expensive. At that point they basically switched to real estate... and well.... Thats the reason Silicon Valley was the main tech hub and not Tokyo, or whatever equivalent in Japan.