Why is Warren Buffett buying Japanese stocks? Because there is value there, says financial historian Edward Chancellor, author of a definitive history of past speculative excesses, from the South Sea Bubble onwards, and a brilliant new book about the folly of low interest rates. An earlier version of this article first appeared on the online financial website, Reuters Breakingviews.  

The upside in Tokyo Conventional wisdom holds that stocks deliver around 6.5% a year after inflation. That’s the historic return from U.S. equities publicised by Wharton professor Jeremy Siegel in his best-selli...