Category: Japan Economy
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Sunday, November 02, 2014
For Whom Are Japanese Leaders Kuroda and Abe Making Their Monetary and Fiscal Policy? / Interest-Rates / Japan Economy
Monday, September 29, 2014
The Japanese Deflation Myth and the Yen’s Slump / Economics / Japan Economy
Brendan Brown writes: The slide of the yen since late summer has brought it to a level some 40 percent lower against the euro and US dollar than just two years go. Yet still Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his central bank chief Haruhiko Kuroda warn that they have not won the battle against deflation. That caution is absurd — all the more so in view of the fact that there was no deflation in the first place.
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Friday, August 29, 2014
Rethinking Japan’s “Lost Decades” / Economics / Japan Economy
Peter St. Onge writes: One of the great economic myths of our time is Japan’s “lost decades.” As Japan doubles-down on inflationary stimulus, it’s worth reviewing the facts.
The truth is that the Japanese and US economies have performed in lock-step since 2000, and their performances have matched each other going as far back as 1980.
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Monday, August 18, 2014
The Keynesian Counterfactual is Japan / Economics / Japan Economy
We heard the "surprising" news last week that the Japanese economy shrank at an alarming 6.8 percent annualized rate in the three months through June, its biggest quarterly contraction since the 2011 earth quake and tsunami. Proving Japan's greatest national disaster, Abenomics, has failed and the Japanese economy has fallen victim to the scam called Keynesian economics. Defined as the belief that a country can tax, spend, devalue and inflate its way to prosperity.
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Friday, July 04, 2014
Why Abenomics Flopped - Class Warfare Saps the Economy / Economics / Japan Economy
By every objective standard, Abenomics has been a complete flop. Household spending has plunged, wages have dropped for 23 months in a row, inflation is on the rise, the number of workers who can only find part-time jobs has ballooned to 38 percent, and most economists now expect 2nd quarter GDP to shrink to minus 4 percent or worse. So where’s the silver lining?
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Saturday, June 28, 2014
Shinzo Abe and the Japanese Economy Three Magic Arrows / Economics / Japan Economy
Andy Sirkis writes: Despite claims to the contrary in the mass media, Japan’s economy is continuing to suffer mightily under the leadership of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo. Abe is from a famous family and he’s a convincing talker, so he was able to bamboozle people into believing that he could make Japan prosper with his three arrows. These metaphorical arrows stand for “monetary stimulus,” “fiscal stimulus,” and “structural reform.”
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Wednesday, May 14, 2014
The Japanese Debt Economy / Economics / Japan Economy
"Japan’s national debt totaled a record-high ¥1.02 quadrillion as of the end of March, up ¥33.36 trillion from a year earlier, the Finance Ministry said.
The central government debt, which increased ¥7.01 trillion from the end of December last year, kept rising mainly due to ballooning social security costs in line with the aging of the population."
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Japan - The Twilight Of The Rising Sun / Politics / Japan Economy
US President Barack Obama begins a three-day visit to Japan on Wednesday. As for what he’s going to be talking about, I can give you a hint or two. First of all, there are ongoing tensions between Japan and China, something both nations have a very long history of. And second, these tensions risk flaring up as they move towards intensifying domestic economic troubles, as their exports dwindle.
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Saturday, January 04, 2014
The State of Free-market Thinking in Japan? / Economics / Japan Economy
Marc Abela talks with us about the state of Austrian economics and the freedom philosophy in Japan. Abela, a Canadian by birth, has lived in Japan for almost 20 years and has organized the Mises Meeting in recent years, at which Japanese scholars in the Austrian tradition gather to discuss their scholarship. He also organized the recent birthday celebration for Toshio Murata, who introduced Austrian economics to Japan. Abela was one of the founders of the Tokyo Tea Party and continues to be involved with Japanese for Tax Reform and other free-market groups in Japan.
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Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Avenomics - The Clock Runs Out for the Japanese Economy / Economics / Japan Economy
By Grant Williams: In 1853 the French romantic composer Charles Gounod wrote a melody that was especially designed to sit over the Prelude No. 1 in C Major written by Johann Sebastian Bach over a century earlier. He titled it (somewhat unimaginatively, perhaps) "Meditation sur le Premier Prelude de Piano de S. Bach."
Interestingly enough, Gounod's father-in-law, the magnificently named Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmerman, transcribed the improvised melody and arranged it for violin, piano, and harmonium; and thus a piece that Gonoud himself never actually wrote down went on to become one of the most-recorded and most-played pieces of music in the history of mankind.
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Thursday, September 12, 2013
How Japan Pretends To Fight Debt And Deflation, But Doesn't / Economics / Japan Economy
Let's see if I can keep this nice and short: in my view the article below from Reuters correspondents Yoshifumi Takemoto and Yuko Yoshikawa, while looking innocent enough at first glance, in fact borders on nonsensical disinformation.
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Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Abenomics And The Fukushima Syndrome / Economics / Japan Economy
MIXED BAG - ONE MESSAGE
News media reported August 8 that Japan's Shinzo Abe “....made an unlikely companion with environment protection campaigner Greenpeace as both indicated Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) isn’t up to the task of containing the Fukushima nuclear disaster”. As media has reported on an extensive scale, Tepco's crippled nuclear plan is gushing about 300 tons-a-day of highly radioactive groundwater into the Pacific – while holidaymakers and fishermen enjoy a day out by the seaside in view of the plant! As some media also reported, the Fukushima plant has an increasing risk of simply exploding from pent-up heat released by hard-to-access molten radioactive fuel and equipment.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Free Spending Japan Now Headed for Economic Recovery? / Economics / Japan Economy
George Leong writes: It’s official: free-spending Prime Minister Shinzo Abe along with his Liberal Democratic Party and its alliance with the New Komeito Party will control the fate of Japan for the next few years. This will be enough power and support to push forward Abe’s massive and ambitious $1.2 trillion 10-year spending plan to drive the country’s economic recovery and battle deflation.
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Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Is Japan's Economy Heading for Another Lost Decade? / Economics / Japan Economy
Recently various commentators have been warning Euro-zone policymakers that they needed to boost stimulus policies in order to avoid a Japanese-style lost decade. To support their case, they point to the years 1991 to 2000. The average growth of real GDP in Japan during that period stood at 1.2 percent versus the average growth of 4.7 percent during 1980 to 1990. In terms of industrial production, the average growth stood at 0.1 percent versus 4.1 percent.
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Sunday, June 09, 2013
Finding Japanese Optimists in the Demographics of Doom / Economics / Japan Economy
As kids, not knowing that we were being politically incorrect on so many levels, we would shout “Geronimo!” when we were playing war or getting ready to do something reckless. (For those not familiar, Geronimo was a rather fearsome Apache chief who plagued Mexico and the American cavalry.) Sam Houston and his fellows cried, “Remember the Alamo!” as they rode down upon Santa Ana at San Jacinto. The British went to battle with “God Save the Queen [or King]!” Confederate soldiers took up the rebel yell as they charged live bullets and fixed bayonets. Every good war movie has its own memorable moment of the battle charge.
In Japan, the term Banzai! literally means “ten thousand years” and can be used to wish someone long life and happiness. But during World War II, “Banzai!” was shouted in battle. It was the Japanese equivalent of "Long live the king!" – but to soldiers on the other side it came to mean a suicidal, hell-for-leather attack.
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Sunday, May 26, 2013
Japan Money Printing Economy - Damn the Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead! / Economics / Japan Economy
Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
– Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
I wrote several years ago that Japan is a bug in search of a windshield. And in January I wrote that 2013 is the Year of the Windshield. The recent volatility in Japanese markets is breathtaking but characteristic of what one should come to expect from a country that is on the brink of fiscal and economic disaster. I don't mean to be trite, from a global perspective; Japan is not Greece: Japan is the third-largest economy in the world. Its biggest banks are on a par with those of the US. It is a global power in trade and trade finance. Its currency has reserve status. It has two of the world’s six largest corporations and 71 of the largest 500, surpassed only by the US and comfortably ahead of China, with 46. Even with the rest of Asia's big companies combined with China's, the total barely surpasses Japan's (CNN). In short, when Japan embarks on a very risky fiscal and monetary strategy, it delivers a serious impact on the rest of the world. And doubly so because global growth is now driven by Asia.
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Friday, May 10, 2013
Why Japan Stock Market Is on a Tear Towards Economic Recovery / Stock-Markets / Japan Economy
George Leong writes:
Chinese stocks are a disappointment in 2013 and, at this point, are looking to underperform the U.S. stock market for the fourth consecutive year.
But while China sorts out its growth issues, across the East China Sea, Japan has been on a tear. The massive infusion of liquidity into the Japanese monetary system has driven down the yen and, in the process, is leading to an export-led economic recovery.
Thursday, May 09, 2013
Is Abenomics Going to Put Japan Economy Back on the Growth Map? / Economics / Japan Economy
In a special Outside the Box today, Keith Fitz-Gerald, Chief Investment Strategist for Money Morning, dissects "Abenomics," the radical, not to say outlandish, fiscal moves that the newly installed government of Japan is making. And Keith has a ringside seat: he spends much of each year in Japan.
In an attempt to cut the Japanese a little slack, Keith comes up with four things that will have to happen for Abenomics to work – but when all is said and done, he says, Abenomics is a recipe for disaster. That does not mean, however, that there is not plenty of opportunity here for short-term profit, and Keith offers a play that is a potential money maker in this volatile Japanese environment.
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Friday, April 19, 2013
Japan Steps into the Void, Trying to Reflate Busted Bubbles / Economics / Japan Economy
In the years following the global financial crisis, economists and investors have gotten very comfortable with very high, and seemingly persistent, government debt. The nonchalance may be underpinned by the assumption that globally significant countries that can print their own currencies can't get trapped in a sovereign debt crisis. However, it now appears that Japan is preparing to put this confidence to the ultimate stress test.
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Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Is Japan's Economy Heading for Endgame, Nature of Deflation / Economics / Japan Economy
Newly elected Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has promised to boost the Japanese economy by unlimited stimulus and increased government intervention in the financial market. The Japanese economy has been bogged down by lucklustre economic growth which can be shown by the following GDP Growth chart from 1993-2013.
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