Japan's net external assets top ¥400 tril in 2021 amid weaker yen

How about getting some of that money back to pay down the national debt and benefit from the current exchange rate. The 400 trillion is based on a 115 yen exchange rate but currently it's 127 so that's another 10 percent

Does this make us all rich?

Net external assets mean little to the ordinary Japanese who is getting poorer and poorer.

Most Japanese are frightened to do anything but sit on their money( the little they have) and sparingly buy cheap Chinese imports…

@nandakandamanda, it doesn't. But what it does do is make sure the country doesn't default on their national debts. As long they have external assets, the bonds owners would still have confident in the government and this also allow them to continue with funding large scale projects both outside and inside the country. Any nations that doesn't have external assets, would have a hard time during economic crisis and struggle to pay interests on loans. Kinda like Pakistan and Sri Lanka atm.

The Nomad

How about getting some of that money back to pay down the national debt and benefit from the current exchange rate.

No. It means there is no need to paydown.

What you call "national debt" is J Government's debt, not Japan's debt. Its creditors are Japanese people, not foreigners. Japanese people who buy J Government bonds are making money by so doing via interests while J Government is using the money to support social security. In other words, J Government debt is a mechanism to use money from those who are rich to support those who are not - while increasing profits of the creditors.

Japan, as a nation, is a net creditor, the world biggest net creditor. And this is the reason why Japan does not go bankrupt despite what you call "national debt".

Yen weakness depends entirely upon other countries junkie fix willingness to tolerate Japan’s penchant for gaming the system to artificially enhance export competitiveness through the expedient of quarantining much of its wealth offshore. An upward revaluation in the direction of its fair value of around 80円 is long overdue.

How about getting some of that money back to pay down the national debt

That includes the bulk of my financial assets, and I would prefer not to donate it to laying down debt racked up without me having even a single vote about it.

If they come after my financial assets then I’ll be relocating them such that they don’t show up in Japan’s numbers anymore.

The government’s debts are primarily a result of excessive spending. Until that problem is fixed I am of no mind to help.

@JeffLee

When Japan becomes a giant nursing home then watch that money disappear…

kurisupisu:

When Japan becomes a giant nursing home then watch that money disappear…

No. Can't you see a simple fact that Japan found the way?

The total value of Japan's external assets expanded 9.2 percent to a record 1,249.88 trillion yen, up for the 13th straight year, as the volume of Japanese foreign direct investment rose. (from the article)

Japanese business model has changed from an export-oriented model to an investor model. Japanese companies can find infinite number or workers and buyers of their products overseas!

At the risk of upsetting any Japanese folk now flicking through a Porsche catalogue, there is a difference between having a huge gold in your treasury and 'external assets'.

Many external assets are not really recoverable - favours have been purchased and bad investments have been made. Most others will collapse in value in national defaults or when the global economy tanks - probably not that far away now, with deglobalisation, unworkable nationalist economics, war, trade barriers, climate change, sanctions, famine and MMT.

It's amazing how fast an asset can depreciate or become entirely worthless. Crypto, if nation states get their conniving heads together and all criminalise it at the same time. Ouch.

Ask Western companies who had 'external assets' in Russia and just got seriously burned in the firesale they were nudged into by their glorious leaders. Billions in value and billions in future income erased from the books.

Ask Toshiba, who had 'external assets' in the US nuclear industry. That cost them the crown jewels - their memory unit.

Lots of Western companies lost their fossil assets when the Shah was deposed in Iran and again in Venezuela. It happens quite often. And every now and again, it happens globally, all at once.

Japanese people are notorious for keeping their savings under their bed and Indian dowries are paid in gold. There is a reason for this, and it is a good one. Numbers on screens can turn red very quickly. But don't have nightmares - our nations are run by Johnson, Biden, Kishida, Macron etc. What could possibly go wrong?

How about getting some of that money back to pay down the national debt...

That would be pointless.  

It's amazing how fast an asset can depreciate or become entirely worthless

Gimme a break: Japan has been the world's biggest creditor nation for 31 years in a row now. Positions like this don't evaporate, barring World War 3 and total destruction of the Earth.

Yen weakness depends entirely upon other countries junkie fix willingness to tolerate Japan’s penchant for gaming the system to artificially enhance export competitiveness through the expedient of quarantining much of its wealth offshore. An upward revaluation in the direction of its fair value of around 80円 is long overdue.

In exchange, Japan will keep its assets in host states and transfer technologies to host states. The host states even have the right to confiscate those assets as Russia did recently.

Basically, Japan has almost all of its wealth being held hostage overseas and can be lost at any time.