Einstein's favourite books and authors

Einstein liked Mach, Spinoza, Hume, Cervantes, Goethe, Dostoevsky and Blavatsky. Here is what he said about his belief:

“I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.”

Edit: There are rumors that Einstein used drugs, but they are largely unsubstantiated. On the other hand, other famous modern thinkers did.

The puzzle of Japan's Lost Decades and resilient social indicators

Commentators have long opined that Japan's Lost Decades (very low economic growth since their asset bubble collapse in 1991) were bad for the country. Counterintuitively, Japan's life expectancy has slightly increased in the past 30 years (and is still ahead of the pack). Predictably, household disposable incomes and average incomes have not increased as much (very similar to Italy's in USD). The most visible negative indicator for Japan is its aging population, much worse than the rest of top OECD economies, but likely not related to their economic growth.

Note: FX does not seem to have changed much either for USD/JPY (or EUR) to skew the above USD comparisons (with some obvious self-canceling swings during the period).