Aso says yen is a stable currency

He is right. Not so sure I want the yen to be covering for a lot of these Asian economies though.

The Nikki is overvalued, Japan has a culture of slave labour, Japanese projected growth is base on the worker working unpaid overtime. Add the weight of this value to projected margined profit and numbers for growth would be in the negative. If you take away all the free overtime, to me the Yen is overvalue by a 10%., I read Aso statement as "please keep the status quo and we will keep lending money at below rates". With Trump warning of Japan money mulipulation, and going to take action prior to election. I see the Yen going south, and Japan told by it Trading partners to get handle on it culture of unpaid overtime.

launch bilateral foreign exchange swap arrangements with Southeast Asian nations, enabling Tokyo to provide yen funds to these countries in times of financial stress.

Or to have someone else to blame when the Yen tanks?

Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said on Friday the yen was a "stable" currency and could contribute to promoting financial stability in Asia.

Coming from the guy who never went to the supermarket to buy his own food EVER, anything he says isn't worth a bucket of warm urine.

The Nikki is overvalued, Japan has a culture of slave labour, Japanese projected growth is base on the worker working unpaid overtime. Add the weight of this value to projected margined profit and numbers for growth would be in the negative. If you take away all the free overtime, to me the Yen is overvalue by a 10%., I read Aso statement as "please keep the status quo and we will keep lending money at below rates". With Trump warning of Japan money mulipulation, and going to take action prior to election. I see the Yen going south, and Japan told by it Trading partners to get handle on it culture of unpaid overtime.

Excellent post John.  Agree.

Yen stable? That must be why the Japanese are flooding money into the bitcoin market. Because that's more likely to retain value over the next 10 years than the yen is.

Japanese Yen should be much stronger, as Japan continues to chalk up huge current account surpluses. But has been distorted by BOJ relentless money printing to weaken the Yen in past 5 years of Kuroda BOJ to help exporters.