Japan's consumer prices down for second straight month in April

where else in the world it happens ? Only in Japan.

So what are these consumer prices that go down? I can't see anything cheaper anywhere.

Why can't any opposition party make any headway by demonstrating to the electorate what an abject and total failure Abe has been?

Because there is no opposition? And in any event, Abe is merely continuing what the previous opposition parties began during their short stint in power; tax and spend. If Abe were tossed out of office, the person who took his place would do just as poorly. The problem with politics and politicians is that regardless of what party they belong to, or what ideological drivel they spew, they all exist to spend other people's money. There may be some minor differences on where they direct their spending, but the end result is the same; they and their friends get more, and the rest of us end up with less.

The problem with Abe and Abenomics is not that it failed, but that people expected it to succeed. Success was never possible, not in a country were culture and business practices are so entrenched. The system cannot be fixed, it can only be rebuilt after it collapses.

What if i told you the left (wing) and the right belong to one bird.

What if i told you the left (wing) and the right belong to one bird.

People would still vote along party lines. To quote an Austrian man who rose from army corporal to Chancellor, and then Fuhrer of Germany: "How wonderful for rulers that men are stupid!"

“Japan’s inflation is going to remain weak,”

Good. My income hasn't been going up.

My thoughts exactly Serrano. It means real income goes up. Good. Unfortunately the thing I spend most of my disposable income on doesn't ever seem to get cheaper.

Abe's obsession with inflation is flawed. Increasing prices will not miraculously lead to economic growth. People, many of them working on low wage, short term contracts, do not have any spare money to spend. Increasing prices will lead to fewer sales and a further downturn in the economy.

Abe should be focussing on getting the record profits companies are making into pay packets. The labour law should be enforced and all overtime paid for. The minimum wage should be hiked by 10% each year until the demand for labour drops off.

But Abe doesn't care about ordinary people, only his rich mates. To Abe the Japanese people are nothing but cannon fodder to be sacrificed in his much longed-for war. Yasukuni needs new souls and, given a change, Abe will provde them by the thousands.

Abe's obsession with inflation is flawed. Increasing prices will not miraculously lead to economic growth.

Of course not, and anyone with a minimal understanding of economics and the effects of cost-push inflations knows this. But the great majority of people know little about economics, and believe what they are told.

Abe wants inflation because inflation is a tax, and it is a tax with no loopholes or deductions. Inflation is an extremely clever tax which allows the government to take the value of your labor and savings instead of taking the money itself.

Unfortunately for Abe, deflation is kind of an reverse-tax, where the value of people's savings and labor increases. Deflation is a wonderful thing for anyone who has money and who works. Deflation is bad for those who carry large debts (like governments), because in a country line Japan, even 1% of deflation increases debt servicing costs by billions.

Sangetsu, spot on!

Abe should be focussing on getting the record profits companies are making into pay packets.

These "record" profits you speak of are largely the result of stock gains, and not sales, which as we know from the lack of GDP growth are stagnant at best, and falling at worst. One-third of this money has already vanished as the Nikkei has declined. And whatever money companies are sitting on is vastly negated by the huge debts many of them are supporting. It would take 25 years of the profits Panasonic earned last year just to pay off the debts it incurred between 2008 and 2012. Toyota and other other makers' profits are earned overseas, and most of that money goes to their overseas employees. Toyota and every other Japanese automaker has lost money in the Japanese domestic market for the past several years running.

Do a google search for the annual results of major Japanese companies year by year. Add up the losses incurred each year, and then subtract the profits they have earned over the last two years. You will find that the balances to be very much negative.

As the population decreases, and the domestic consumption declines, along with profits and tax revenue, companies will need every yen they have, and this is why they are holding onto their "record profits."

And the large companies also want inflation to occur, for the same reason the government does, because of the massive debts they are holding, many of which debt back to the bubble era.

Trillions and trillions of yen later and nobody I know is the richer-what a colossal failure......