jump in more than four decades.

Sony will close 10 percent of its factories around the world and slash 8,000 jobs. Pioneer, another electronics giant, announced Friday it was slashing its work force by 10,000 employees. Toshiba is laying off 4,500 contract workers in Japan. Nissan, which said last month that it was cutting domestic auto production by 64,000 vehicles in February and March, is reducing its global work force by 20,000 jobs.

A surging yen has exacerbated the collapse in demand for Japan’s exports by making its products more expensive overseas. Because exports have been falling much faster than imports, Japan recorded trade deficits during the last three months of 2008.

And if all of this weren’t bad enough, the Wachovia report predicted that “Japan appears headed for another boutand all creditors. It therefore appears that the notice generated by the clerk's office in the Western District of Tennessee was mailed prior to the expiration of the original bar date of June 29, 1992, but the court has no knowledge of when Mr. Nicholson or his attorneys received that new notice. One of the attorneys for Mr. Nicholson, who appeared at the oral hearing on this motion, stated that she called the clerk's office of this court in Memphis, Tennessee and inquired whether a new bar date for filing complaints had been set and that she was advised that a new bar date of September 21, 1992, had been set. That attorney also stated that she and co-counsel relied upon the new bar date set by the