Bank of Japan lifts growth forecast, keeps policy unchanged

The BOJ has consistently fallen short of hitting the target it considers key to turbocharging the stuttering economy, despite a barrage of stimulus and monetary easing packages.

What an impenetrable mystery. No matter how much easy money the BOJ throw at the financial centers and Japan Inc. corporations, and the stock market goes up, people just do not seem very positive about this economy. Might want to convene another policy roundtable and commision a think tank to investigate this conundrum.

What an impenetrable mystery. 

Not really. Inflation was headed toward the target - until the consumption tax was hiked, also triggering a recession. (I predicted that at the time.) Then came the plague.

Both events were outside the BOJ's policy scope.

@JeffLee

Disagree. When I look at the chart https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/inflation-cpi I see that inflation has been below 1% almost all the time since 2015. The consumption tax hike was not until October 2019. My Bazooka had 6 years before that of printing money.

Where did the money go? To finance the government's massive spending and into the stock market. None of this puts money in consumer-san's pocket. A minimum wage hike might have done that paid for by draining some of the money from the inflated stock market.

The ordinary workers should place their non-existent cash in the stock market?

What nonsense.

And going to buy imported goods made in sweatshops is not the way to an economic boom.

Everything in Japan is costly.

From food to transport-what is left over?

A minimum wage hike might have done that paid for by draining some of the money from the inflated stock market.

Paid for by consumers, but especially those who don’t get jobs because the government decreed it illegal to employ people below a certain wage level.

The stock market would care if the corporate tax rate were hiked, but I doubt it cares about minimum wages.