As others have pointed out, comparing a ratio of companies closing over a period in the US with absolute numbers of companies older than N years in Japan is not very useful. There is a listing of oldest companies in the United States on Wikipedia [1] that shows companies still operating since 1819 (83 by this count). Well over two orders of magnitude difference for the 100 year mark, and for the 200 year mark.
I do not believe that longevity ceteris paribus is an unalloyed desirable trait. Rather, it increasingly becomes a necessary tool as the scope of our technology and modeling power increases, and the ability to build and consistently, successfully sustain multi-generational business focus to address increasingly complex market demands in the future becomes the hallmark of a significant sector of growth in that future (for certain values of "growth").
I do not believe that longevity ceteris paribus is an unalloyed desirable trait. Rather, it increasingly becomes a necessary tool as the scope of our technology and modeling power increases, and the ability to build and consistently, successfully sustain multi-generational business focus to address increasingly complex market demands in the future becomes the hallmark of a significant sector of growth in that future (for certain values of "growth").
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies_in_the...