The two buildings hosting the Bank of Japan. Photo: iStock/Manakin
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BOJ members stick to monetary easing amid lack of wage growth

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@daito_hakJuly 26  06:39 pm JST

What are you f** talking about? Do you even believe the bla bla you wrote?

I was going to comment that using profanities and personal attacks is against the rules here, but seeing your latest comments:

https://japantoday.com/category/national/marauding-monkeys-injure-42-in-japanese-city#comment-3139922

It is that is all you do, calling other commenters stupid and telling them to shut up (and in CAPS LOCK no less) so I guess you are being protected by the moderators.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Japan has been doing monetary easing for over 30 years. Company profits are huge but wage growth has been negative over those decades. So in 2022 easing is going to magically raise wages? No, companies use

free money to increase profits but not raise wages. The late PM Abe begged companies to pay higher wages but they refused. The government has to force industry to pay more wages, they will not do it otherwise. Meanwhile more Japanese fall into the poverty category and the middle class get screwed over. This all comes from Koizumi adopting trickle down economics from the Republicans in the USA.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Japan should classify itself as a developing country at this point.

-5 ( +6 / -11 )

Exporters are reporting record profits, despite their domestic sales dropping by half. Why on earth would they care about easing the easing when their goal was to report to an export-driven economy and where workers sacrificed themselves "for the good of the company"?

-2 ( +4 / -6 )

So the government has abdicated their role of structural reforms and nurturing and increasing competition in the markets to BOJ and Kuroda who only seem to have one trick that they are capable of. Wages may increase nominally because of the inflation but the real wage growth will be even worse than the lost 3 decades.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Lack of wage growth and yet prices of food going up? Great. Was watching TV today and so many products (the usual junk food like awful cookies loaded with shortening) have reduced their sizes, with one product HALVING in size.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Einstein
1 ( +3 / -2 )

If you have no wage growth, that is keeping up with other nations in terms of cost of living, you are doing nothing but making the richer rich, and the poor poorer, and creating nothing but classless, homelessness society that will eventually crime ridden.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

kaerimashita

BoJ has maintained artificially low rates

When you're struggling with deflation because employers spent many years throughout the 90s and early 2000s cutting workers bonuses (wage cuts), then the BoJ's rates were anything but "artificially low."

You can't have deflation with high interest rates. Well, you could -- if your aim is to totally destroy the economy.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

You may get your QT (quantitative tightening) yet, but don't winge then because what it will mean is:

Good bye any wages growth;

Hello higher interest to service loans

Reacquaint yourself to another 2 decades of nothingness.

I can't believe what I'm reading here, people on 3 continents are panicking because of interest rate rising, and yet, here in the land of low inflation, high job security and demanding higher interest rate.

I can only guess majority here has got on the wrong side of bond yield bets, because workers certainly don't want to have more if their income servicing debt.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Wages hasn't increased in 20 years, if anything they have decreased.

3 ( +6 / -3 )

Interest rate reduction to unprecedented levels and QE or money printing to give it its old name, was a temporary, emergency measure to prevent banks collapsing and the entire world financial structure imploding some 14 or 15 years ago. Once the risk abated it should have been unwound and normalised. The universal failure by central banks under pressure from politicians to retain it is the cause of most of the problems and unnecessary market distortions we are suffering from today.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Because they only have ONE tool, a one-trick pony: foolish MMT.

-2 ( +3 / -5 )

@Antiquesaving

What are you f** talking about? Do you even believe the bla bla you wrote?

-9 ( +4 / -13 )

The inflation present in Japan is nearly all due to rising import prices and not an expanding economy.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

Hmmmmm. So wage raises (or lack thereof) are what determine the direction and success or failure of an economy? Ever since the bubble in Japan burst and particularly during Abenomics, the BoJ has maintained artificially low rates and has supported any number of zombie companies by doing so. Blaming "the corporations" is not blaming the true culprits. sure big companies suck and do all they can to maximise profit at the expense of staff and shareholders and the taxman and whoever. But that is not what ruined a once great economy. It was interest and exchange rate manipulation by the BoJ in cahoots with other central banks. And it goes on today. Rampant inflation and still zero interest rate and yield curve control. It is a criminal enterprise that is hurting almost everyone.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

These people are criminals...

The corporations and other employers are the criminals. Even when Japan's corporate profits hit their highest level in recorded history a few years ago, they argued they couldn't "afford" to give wage rises. The BOJ is powerless do to anything about that.

They have ruined a once great economy.

Yes, the corporations have through their wage-suppression business models. If the BOJ were to raise interest rates right now, you'd see real ruin.

 Why are people in Japan so afraid of criticizing the country's corporations?

1 ( +6 / -5 )

Well of course they're going to stick to what they've already been doing.

It hasn't worked for the last 14 years, so what would be the point in switching course? Stick to what you know, that is the way of things.

-3 ( +4 / -7 )

I'm all for increased wages, but I feel increasing wages will abuse those poor foreign blue-collar workers even more so. If wages were to increase, I hope every company that employs foreign workers will get properly audited each year to ensure salaries and wages are met properly.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Looking at US, raising interest rates did little and worst of all it hits the poor the hardest as food prices increased in tandem.

Even some countries in Europe have been hesitant to raise rates as the inflation is too complex to just think raising rates is the magical answer.

Is raising rates really the answer?

I think it is way more complex than twiddling with the interest rates.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Monetary quantitative easing QE is real money...for the bankers, for Japan Inc. The BOJ relies on the disconnect of the public when hearing the repeated litany of this news leaving them in a state of learned helplessness and ignorance.

The public is being defrauded.

https://www.businessinsider.com/universal-basic-income-guy-standing-quantitative-easing-2017-1

5 ( +8 / -3 )

The problem is how people “perceive prices”?

The way that I perceive prices is when I have a less in my pocket to buy the same things I’ve been buying for months on end – and that perception is taking a good beating right now!

8 ( +12 / -4 )

Bank of Japan board members underscored the need to maintain monetary easing to support an economy hampered by surging commodity prices while promoting more robust wage growth in pursuit of its inflation target, minutes of a June meeting showed Tuesday.

Love the gaslighting leads in the Kyodo articles.

The BOJ and LDP have told us that wages will rise by providing bankers with easy money.

Trickle down is real!!

Quantitative easing will continue, the financial markets will be buoyed and wages will remain stagnant to no one"s surprise.

9 ( +12 / -3 )

In the west they can't stand the idea of having to compromise and not get everything they want .

"In the west" give it a rest. People all over the world are exactly the same.

7 ( +12 / -5 )

These people are criminals. They have ruined a once great economy and are now so deep in their hole that they can't get out by raising rates and trying to allow price discovery to operate in both fx and interest rate markets.

15 ( +19 / -4 )

2012 - Wanted cashier: 800 yen/hr.

2022 - Wanted cashier : 800 yen/hr.

Hey, Kuroda, wages aren't going up. Not going to either. This has been the help wanted sign at my local supermarket for over 10 years.

15 ( +21 / -6 )

I watched a Canadian economist trying to explain how most western "experts" are clueless regarding Asia and their economies.

He was explaining that the idea of raising interest rates to cause people to slow down buying stuff to slow inflation is all most western countries can do and most Asian countries don't need to do.

It is more complicated than the following but it gives you an idea.

Most Asian countries including Japan have some form of price controls on the basic necessities like rice, most also have food reserves for things like yes Rice,etc..

So letting things like lettuce going to $10 isn't a concern as long as rice or equivalent remain affordable.

Most western countries don't have a basic "bread" or cooking oil government set price. So the best the can do is maybe use strategic fuel reserves and raise interest rates.

Japan has mechanisms in place already, some controls on Rice are already in place, other infrastructure is available and has been since the 40s and was used for years back then.

So these basic controls and very different view on government control makes the western model less appealing or needed here or in China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, etc ..

Also the populations are less whiny if they get their basic meal but can't get the 500g steak on the BBQ or buy the latest iPhone the vast majority will be ok until things pick up.

In the west they can't stand the idea of having to compromise and not get everything they want .

-7 ( +8 / -15 )

"Lack of wage growth" There hasn't been any real wage growth for at least a generation now!

Costs have risen, taxes have risen, true employment has fallen, contracted and PT people are not getting any money, and the government is still using outdated and unreliable statistics.

16 ( +18 / -2 )

while promoting more robust wage growth in pursuit of its inflation target, minutes of a June meeting showed Tuesday.

what idiots, wage growth? What wage growth? Their wage growth? Who has wage growth?

but that wage growth was still lagging compared with the United States and Europe.

‘Has been for decades, Inforced poverty?

who are these people? It really seems they are evil or just stupid. I’m hoping evil because if they are that stupid not much hope for the economy.

15 ( +20 / -5 )

More insanity. Admission of the total misguidedness of their policies over the last decades.

16 ( +20 / -4 )

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