Further, if they succeed, what would be the implications for Japan's position in the world, the global economy, and such?
This is where prediction gets misty....
A possible timeline
1989 The Japanese government under the ruling LDP decide not to tax the post office personal savings accounts as too many voters would be upset, and some economists mention the possibility of huge sums of money being moved out of the accounts would be a BAD THING. As a result, the economy continues grow, the bubble gets higher, and Gerald Celente stops going on about the USA's debts and starts worrying a lot more about the Japanese Super-Tsunami that's bound to hit eventually.
1996 Japan's economy (on paper) has become easily the wealthiest in the world, far surpassing the USA. Japanese corporations dominate in Asia-Pacific region, are hugely influential in the world markets, and in the public media. Japanese R&D has taken technological advantages years ahead of their competitors; increasing their common 2-year lead to a 5-year lead in many fields. There is abundant government funding for biotechnology and "blue sky" projects such as Cold Fusion, human genetic modification, new fabrics, mechanical engineering. Japanese corporations are allowed to research and take risks with less legal restrictions as long as it supposedly serves the "public good".
The Japanese gangsters (yakuza) become dominant on the USA's West Coast, tied into American corporations as they present a legitimate business face. Corruption is everywhere, but with the enormous amounts of money changing hands it's easily able to avoid most legal investigation.
The richest man in the world is Japanese, and he has hundreds of billions of dollars (at least).
USA government politics is distorted by Japanese finance, elections and the legal system begin to suffer. Japan is convinced to fund the USA military in various adventures, to such an extent that they overshadow Israel for the charges of influence peddling.
1997 The Crash hits with the Asian Crisis, within months leading to the sort of disaster OTL had in 2008-2009. Only worse. Japanese suicide in the tens of thousands. South East Asian nations go into default. Japanese money and corporate influence is tied to the world economy to such an extent that bankruptcies of states become commonplace. Much of South East Asia are overwhelmed. Unrest rapidly turns into revolts and civil wars. Xenophobia is rampant as foreigners are blamed, and the globalisation of manufacturing, banking, and the massive fraud on a global scale causes the general public in many nations to rebel. Japan's economy is ruined, the LDP are discredited but struggle on with the same stopgap half-measures that they did in OTL. Over the previous several years, most of Japanese manufacturing has been moved to 3rd world nations, so employment plummets and high-flying executives try to get jobs as taxi drivers - or kill themselves.
From 1998 onwards, it's a lot like the doom and gloom predictions we're getting now, but probably a lot worse. Gerald Celente can start shouting "I told you so!"
In Japan, the LDP gets kicked out of power earlier, and the JDP get swept into power with a landslide election result. With Ozawa in charge (oh what fun!). They'd have the mandate to go further, probably destroying the Japanese economy much faster - but getting rid of the rot would be beneficial in the long-run. They may win a second term, and rule for 8 years (unlikely in OTL).
