business

Japan consumer prices rise in March for third straight month

16 Comments
By Behrouz MEHRI

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16 Comments
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And today is "Premium Friday"....lol!

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Japanese consumer prices rise in March.

Great. Glad to know I just got a little poorer.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Wages frozen, prices up or quantity less, company's demanding extra work to make up the manages lack of leadership besides staying at work until the wife goes to bed in a seperate room. Happy times.

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Gees! You don't have to be an economist to work out that, if you raise taxes without raising salaries it will result in a decrease in consumer spending. As a result, retailers have to increase prices to cover the cost of lost revenue. Retailer's overheads will also increase creating a snowball of deflation. You'd think that after twenty years of the same dwindling economic strategy they would take some action to stop it, but no! Just the same old bat-crap economic policies that drove the economy into deflation in the first place.

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While Japan's job market is tight, individual spending -- which accounts for more than half of the country's GDP -- has remained in the deep freeze.

Tight? Meaning just what? Just about all sectors are looking to find employees, which should make it a sellers market, but here in Japan that never happens, as companies do not negotiate salaries.

The Japanese consumer is well known to hoard cash when the economic outlook is not bright. That isnt going to suddenly change just because Abe has an urge for it to happen.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

I'm making the least over my 16 years here, yet prices are up yet again. Thanks, Japan!

2 ( +3 / -1 )

checking the wall to see if there are any imports... hmm son't see any I wonder why the controlled protected economy here has rising princes.. hmmmm

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And at the end of the next quarter when they act surprised and angry that people aren't spending more for less...

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Great news. Ending deflation and raising people's expectations are what Abe said he would do. It has taken some time, but here we go. Along with a tighter labor situation, we might see the economy becoming more and more normal. Interest rates will start ratcheting up, but not too quickly.

A tighter labor situation in an economy like Japan's is not something to get excited about. It's becoming a labor shortage, and the only way to ease it is bring in foreign labor, which will drag wages down further as businesses will look, as always for ways to increase their profits.

The economy will not be "normal" for a long time, as it is being propped up artificially with public tax money. Look at the details, the increases are by large due to the increase in oil imports and consumer prices rose by a measly 0.2%. Not to mention stagnant, or real wages actually dropping in value as well.

And you still think this is "good news?" I wonder when you will think it's bad.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

CPI, 12 months comparison

Japan +0.2%, US +2.0%, UK +2.3%, Germany +2.0%

Unemployment rate

Japan 2.8%, US 4.5%, UK 4.6%, Germany 3.9%

Japan is doing a good job.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Abenomics working as promised.  and yet nobody seems to be feeling the thaw.  and soon I guess we will be bemoaning inflation and weaker yen and government budget deficits as price of servicing JGB 's goes up.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

they're NOT going to share the wealth unless the gov makes them

This is where those "reforms" were supposed to come in.

The way to force cash-rich businesses to do something with that money, is through regulatory reform.

When regulations are reformed in a way that facilitates and incentivizes competition in the market, things will happen - such as businesses seeking to newly enter the marketplace so as to earn a piece of the pie for themselves (by offering differentiated services, which in itself would stimulate demand and increase the size of the pie), or the incoming competitors demand for labour forces the existing players to improve their own wage conditions in order to retain staff.

But Abe has done precious little in this area other than talk so it's not going to happen. Japanese markets are over-regulated and the labour market itself is a primary example. Japan is for status quo rather than dynamic change (and the opportunities that change presents).

An alternative would be to go for state control like Venezuela, but that's been a total failure. It's a saving grace that Japan hasn't gone this route.

People are fed up with crap conditions for slave wages. They're fed up.

They should be fed up, but alas I think they aren't yet, actually.

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this is where those "reforms" were supposed to come in.

No, they weren't. The thrust so fair is to do the opposite: encourage companies to maximize profits, which means less for working folks. The recently introduced governance and stewardship codes are but 2 examples. they are the problem, not the solution.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Look. I just one some potato chips at prices I can afford!!

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but a drop in factory output and still-weak household spending underscored the challenges facing policymakers as they battle on-and-off deflation.

Because those idiot policy makers continue to refuse to raise the minimum wage or enact legislation that would give those non-full-timers SOME degree of stability..

And with cash-rich firms not splashing out on big pay rises, analysts are doubtful about a significant improvement in consumer spending anytime soon.

Well there you GO! You just hit the nail on the head!  And guess what, they're NOT going to share the wealth unless the gov makes them, which, of course as we all know, isn't going to.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe swept to power in late 2012 on a pledge to cement a lasting recovery through a growth plan dubbed Abenomics.

Abenomics is nothing more than hot air.  Same as Abe.

Just about all sectors are looking to find employees, which should make it a sellers market, but here in Japan that never happens, as companies do not negotiate salaries.

The Japanese consumer is well known to hoard cash when the economic outlook is not bright. That isnt going to suddenly change just because Abe has an urge for it to happen.

Exactly.  People are fed up with crap conditions for slave wages.  They're fed up.

Great. Glad to know I just got a little poorer.

That's right.  I love deflation.  Keeps feeding my family.  If you are a corporate dinosaur  who owns his own company deflation is a bad thing.  But if you are a simple worker not getting rich, you want deflation.  You don't want prices to go up because trickle-down economics is a myth.

Wages frozen, prices up or quantity less, company's demanding extra work to make up the manages lack of leadership besides staying at work until the wife goes to bed in a seperate room. Happy times.

YUP! Let 'em ROLL!!

And at the end of the next quarter when they act surprised and angry that people aren't spending more for less...

Go figure, huh?

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Great news. Ending deflation and raising people's expectations are what Abe said he would do. It has taken some time, but here we go. Along with a tighter labor situation, we might see the economy becoming more and more normal. Interest rates will start ratcheting up, but not too quickly.

-5 ( +0 / -5 )

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