Leading economist warns of 10 years of depression and debt

Before say anything too stupid, let me say that I'm very worried about the short to middle term economic impact of Coronavirus. However, I live in Japan having moved here in 2007 -- nearly a decade after the bubble burst. We've had pretty much flat growth the entire time. It's often held up as the example of "You don't want your economy to do that!" I can get a 25 year closed mortgage with not rate changes at something like 1.6% and I've been able to do that for the last 10 years! We've been basically deflationary the whole time I've been here.

And it's not that bad. In fact, there are a fair number of good things about it. The crazy inflation in real estate prices in other places in the world worried me far more than the completely stagnant growth of Japan. The fact that farmers are getting squeezed with real prices for their good not changing for decades while distributors pull in every increasing profits is... unnerving to say the least. While the last 30 years in the west has mostly been economic party time, there have also been a lot of casualties. A U shape or even L shape economy may not actually be the worst thing in the world (although there will obviously be a lot of people who will be hurt by it).

Just my uneducated impression. Likely I'm totally wrong, but I can't shake the feeling that we're missing something fundamental about how a healthy economy should operate.