Japan's plight may not be as dire as its nominal exchange rate implies. According to Bloomberg, Eisuke Sakakibara, who as Minister of Finance in 1997-99 came to be known as "Mr. Yen" for his efforts to influence the currency's value, asserts today's exchange rate of 85 yen to the dollar isn't the same as the 80-ish to the dollar back in 1995. The domestic deflation in the intervening years makes Japan far more competitive. According to one calculation, the yen would have to equal just 55 to the dollar for its real exchange rate to be the same as 15 years ago. So, the yen has been less of a hardship than its nominal exchange rate versus the dollar implies.
Even so, the specter haunting U.S. officials is that America would have to go through the deflationary lost decades of Japan. To which, David Goldman retorts, "You should be so lucky."