Japan: The counterfactual to the EU.

We're well underway of testing two (or more) Conservative counterfactuals:

1. Maintaining a proper debt/GDP ratio is critical to growth.
2. Expanding the monetary supply -- a la quantitative easing -- will entail a rapid and large rise in inflation.

Well, we already know the answers to both, but Conservatives insist that the US' experience is an anomaly due to the US Dollar's preferential treatment as a global currency (oil priced to the USD, etc).

But more so, it would serve to disrupt the importance of creating thresholds of debt/GDP ratios, such as the 60% limit created under the EU's Maastricht Treaty.  And in the United States, it could disrupt and marginalize the Libertarian attack on fiat money -- if smart monetary policy can push economies out of recession / depression, then gold bugs have nothing to stand on.