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Japan racks up record deficit; lowers growth estimate

38 Comments

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Wow, so in other words, Japan is no longer the Japan of the 1970s and 80s. We now have a much wider workforce (hello women and seniors) with wider types of jobs (benefit-less temp-staff, part time only, and menial pay-by-the-piece work), salarymen surviving on significantly reduced bonuses...and fully one in four of the entire Japanese population now aged 65 or over relying on budget-busting government pensions while pinching every yen they can.

But don't worry, folks! According to AHK (the pro-government Abe Housou Kyoukai~ yeah, I know it's supposed to be the "NHK," but these days Abe IS Nippon, right??) a whopping SIX electronics companies are planning to actually give their (full-time only) workers a massive 2000 yen monthly base-wage increase! Gee, that should totally cover the 3% tax rise on EVERYTHING THESE WORKERS BUY each month. Of course! So get spending, everyone!! What's to worry about? Utsukushii Nippon, here we come!!

11 ( +13 / -2 )

What happens when more money continues to leave Japan? Who is going to buy all the Japanese government debt? Japan is headed off the cliff.

10 ( +10 / -0 )

And just wait until April when the consumption tax goes up! No one can say nuclear energy is cheaper and more reliable and that the NPPs should go back online when it is the government that has driven up the cost of imports. What a complete and utter failure Abenomics has been.

9 ( +16 / -7 )

It will be interesting to see how numbers are revised after March. I was in Yamada denki over the weekend and it was packed with customers. I assume lots of people trying to make big ticket purchases before the tax hike. We'll see reported recovery in Feb/Mar which the government will take credit for, but Apr/May figures will tell the real story.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

Where are the usual Abomonomics apologists to defend the genius 3-arrows thru the head swindle? Oh, right, too busy massaging the numbers and creating excuses.

7 ( +10 / -3 )

All is well! Happy days are here again!

Suckers.

6 ( +9 / -3 )

We all knew this was going to happen, this is Abe's last chance to funnel as much money as he can to his "construction" buddies before resigning with another case of bowel problems.

5 ( +12 / -7 )

There is trouble in River City. This is one more indication that shows the Abe and the LDP are screw ups . You cannot keep printing money forever to keep the yen artificially low. Something has multiple give. Something I has.o

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Japan needs to go global. With that I mean business needs to speak foreign languages and companies need to create products for outside Japan.

Also please restart the reactors while slowly phasing them out. What's up with this all or nothing attitude? Just make no sense. Feels like reacting instead of planning.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

This is the third growth number which the government has put out. I remember other posters here comparing numbers, and saying that Japan was seeing better growth than America and Europe. Unfortunately, all the numbers are wrong. The numbers are so heavily massaged, that we have no idea what is going on, on figures from GDP to unemployment rates. These numbers are especially suceptible to change before election seasons.

Originally, last year's growth (which somehow managed to slip in stimulus spending into the figures) was to be 1.9%, and now it is supposed to be .7%. If you subtract wishful thinking, and governemnt stimulus spending on public works, which had to be borrowed from the taxpayers at interest, "growth" was more likely to be negative to the tune of 2-3%.

Cry as some people might about the financial practices of companies and corporations, at least they are required to tell the unvarnished truth about their finances. Governments have taken the term "creative accounting" to levels which make Enron look good.

3 ( +7 / -4 )

Well if the Japanese local cities stopped wasting money every year around feb / March without fail, digging up the same road as last year, and the year before (and not the main roads which need some work) just so their funding isn't cut in the new financial year, the government would have a lot more to play with. So many wasteful projects are suddenly "needed" at the end of the finance year its a joke. Every Japanese person I have spoken to about it knows it, anything voiced or done....no! I have lived in three different governed places around Tokyo and Chiba in 6 years and ALL do it!

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Exports have shrunk 7.8% from previous month, even despite the fact that the Yen has shrunk tremendously compared to last year.

Exports rose 16% year-to-year. Import rose 30% year-to-year. Weak yen made the price of crude oil etc higher as it's bought in $ and made it more expensive while the the consumption is much bigger recently because of greater production. What you write is clearly wrong and I don't know what's your purpose to doing this (you probably go around the web writing comments like that).

for a total net minus effect of 20%.

I don't know what school you were going to but I doubt you ever got higher than elementary school looking at this...

3 ( +3 / -0 )

sangetsu03 Mar. 10, 2014 - 02:39PM JST Governments have taken the term "creative accounting" to levels which make Enron look good.

But why would any investors buy a Japanese bond, when the J-government plans to double the money supply in less then few years? You’re bond is most likely going to be worth half as much by the time it matures. Maybe its Japanese loyalty, but more likely there printing money and buying the bonds themselves. The Japanese debt is to high and can’t be paid off without serious pain, so the J-government wants to inflate its way out by printing money “double the money supply”, but they can’t just pump it into the Japanese society without massive inflation and sky rocketing yields so they use it to buy the bonds themselves and suppress the yields, but that only creates more debt? which already can’t be paid off.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Until Japanese major corporate begins with targeting overseeing markets changing marketing approach (dumb CMs, pink products, you see only in Japan) that will not change. Samsung is a very interesting best practices case.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Three arrows? More like 3 nails (in the coffin)

1 ( +6 / -5 )

Things are going to get so bad they'll be discussing the next tax increase 'to cover debt' (incurred due to stimulus to companies that fail to increase wages) before June.

1 ( +6 / -5 )

A lot of doomsday talk here. Where were you critics when GDP was.... negative. That was...um...before the new stimulus policies. But now that GDP growth has turned positive, all the critics come out of the woodwork.

Yep, it's not growing as high as expected, but it is growing. You seriously think that pre-Abenomics period, when the economy was shrinking, was better?

1 ( +4 / -3 )

Maybe Japanese exports are down because, first, a lot of cars made by Honda, etc. are now made in the US and other countries. I'm also betting that a lot Chinese and Korean folk might be avoiding Japanese exports.

I'm not sure Abenomics is going to succeed with the foreign policy as bungled as it is. Like it or not the two are related.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

If Abe would only focus on the economy and Japan's best interest, Japan would have definitely done better. 2013 should have been a piece of cake for the economy considering that 2012 was best forgotten. But Abe ratcheted up WW2 images and denials with his gang and this slowed exports to Asia! Japanese electrical products and cars in Asia have never been cheaper with steep discounts, but we are buying less. Every product I have at home is Korean and no product I have in my Chinese apartment is Japanese. Either local, Korean or European! I have 8 other siblings with the same grandfather killed in WW2 in an internment camp. Every one at home is doing the same thing. And lest you jump immediately that I am brainwashed by communist China, let me tell you that we fought the communists after WW2 and I watch CNN and BBC and NHK and read Japan papers!

1 ( +2 / -1 )

" How else does a country with a sovereign fiat currency issue its currency, if not by "thin air"? Have you ever wondered about that?"

The logical conclusion to this fiat currency experiment will end as all others have; the majority of people will be left holding nothing, not even worthless paper while the most wealthy will have hedged their bets on things with intrinsic value. Note that despite the economic downturn since 2007, sales of top luxury items (e.g. Rolls-Royce, jewels, art, etc.) have increased.

Abomonomics is hastening the precipitious collapse of the Japanese currency. Only the coins will have any value: their melt value.

Abe and his apologists just rammed the huge iceberg that was dead ahead and of which only a few were warning.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

He's doing fine, except for all the right wing stuff. That's tedious.

Better than the DPJ, who were just not good at anything.

I'd express a more detailed opinion but JT likes to remove my comments so I'll keep everything nice and simple.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Japan's been racking up record deficits for the past twenty years.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Looks like Shinzo Abe has put Japan into an even deeper hole than before. An excellent place to bury himself deep down forever.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

so the corporate handouts didn't spur an economy that isn't fuelled on reality. I'm shocked, shocked......

If at first you don't succeed, tax increase again for more handouts!

Japan is capable of having reasonable people in charge, just not lately nor this decade. I hope one day it happens. Next time give the handouts back to Japanese to fix their communities not brown bagging it to their corporate buddies. All your taxes belong to corporations is preposterous and sounds like the American Failure model. Japan can do better.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Abenomics. Deficit spending, print more yen, build more concrete highways to Nowheresville.

'Cause if first you don't succeed (1995), try(2001), try (2013) again.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

If people want to practice nationalism... stop buying anything made in China... eat only home grown organic food and stop spending money at Pachinko parlors.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Sure, the Japanese economy is not IMPROVING as fast as everyone would like it to but, with the mess in China (remember Chinese going hog wild attacking Japanese and Japanese factories, cars, etc...)Japan having to rethink about its investments etc..in that country, the huge earthquakes and tsunamis 3 years ago) I think Japan is doing VERY GOOD, considering all of the terrible things that have happened!! Oh, yes, Japan SHOULD JUST TURN BACK A FEW NUCLEAR REACTORS?? Stop wasting so much MONEY and OIL, right?? If you are Japanese and Japan is your country and you see the nuclear wasteland up in FUKUSHIMA!! Very, very easy to see this same disaster in anywhere city, town, JAPAN!

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

The price of shutting down those nuclear plants is record deficits. I think it's quite obvious by now to everyone.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Abenomics is just printing lots of money out of thin air and giving debts to the people to pay, pay and pay. These old fools know how to enslave the people and run them into wars.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Exports have shrunk 7.8% from previous month, even despite the fact that the Yen has shrunk tremendously compared to last year. You're in trouble when your currency is devalued but the exports are still shrinking despite the more competitive currency, while imports rise by 12.5% from previous month, for a total net minus effect of 20%. This could be the year Japan's current account surplus turns into a deficit, permanently. They better turn on those nuclear plants. But will it still be enough to avert this long term pattern?

-2 ( +6 / -8 )

The Cabinet Office revised its real gross domestic product growth to an annual pace of 0.7%, lower than its initial 1%. It said that both private and public demand was lower than it had estimated last month, including lower levels for private consumption and public investment.

Not good news for the average salaryman and his family. Energy costs are soaring and the economy is weakening, so increases in wages are unlikely. And consumption taxes go up 3% in April. No wonder Abe keeps stoaking International tensions so as to keep folks focusing on the real problems there.

-2 ( +3 / -5 )

Ha ha! Here it comes! The beginning of the failure of Abenomics. The Japanese economy and the financial well-being of the Japanese public are doomed because of a total lack of insightful and creative thinking by a bunch of bureaucratic cronies. If you think it bad now, wait until September after a few months of the sales tax increase. It's gonna get much worse!

-2 ( +6 / -8 )

@ Elbuda Mexicano

(remember Chinese going hog wild attacking Japanese and Japanese factories, cars, etc...)

If the people here would stop giving China the free publicity maybe China will just go away. The more China is in the news this plays into their media bashing. Why not just talk about the Japanese economy we know what the other country is doing but as long as you mention that country you are helping to promote that country cause!

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

"Abenomics is just printing lots of money out of thin air"

How else does a country with a sovereign fiat currency issue its currency, if not by "thin air"? Have you ever wondered about that?

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

I think Japan should be more global. But as a gaijin living here and me integrating and finding a woman with a heart to be my wife is like oil and water mixing. They ALL do and act the same way! Which is why I have a hard time feeling hope in any sense of globalism happening here.. still very closed and racist and this will reflect in the market. 15 - 20 years ago, maybe it wasn't that bad and maybe there was hope..but now, i don't know. they seem so evil and shallow hearted. like little heartless robots who have no personality and kick you legs when walking at the station. they don't say excuse me..and the majority of the women only want to be with the oyaji who dish out that cash..they might as well go into porn!. Maybe they just don't like me.

-7 ( +0 / -7 )

We need those nuclear power plants back online to reduce the fuel imports. This would also make a weaker Yen better for Japan and the innovators.

Abe has done a good job so far, well done, and keep it up.

-16 ( +5 / -20 )

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