Academic social science is often treated dismissively, and with good reason: its standards of accountability are depressingly low. Seldom are errors acknowledged, nor are those responsible asked to account for them. The profits of Japan's nonfinancial businesses have plummeted, and the balance sheets of Japanese financial institutions have been seriously weakened by the decline in the market value of their assets. Contemporaneous with the mistaken forecasts about the US was an equally erroneous set that proclaimed Japan's impending dominance in the world economy, thereby displacing the US Once again, the social scientists associated with the view of Japan ignore the evidence that conflicts with it, and feel no obligation to acknowledge or explain their mistakes. To be sure, the Russian economy has not "turned the comer," and confidence in its future would be premature. Nevertheless, the alarmists have seriously erred. Instead, the shortness of memories allows, and indeed encourages, an absence of professional accountability.