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Majority of Japanese households expecting price hikes this year

35 Comments
By Leika Kihara

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35 Comments
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Abenomicsdoes still continue to take from the poor to give to the rich.

12 ( +13 / -1 )

. The gap between the poor to the rich in Japan is widening at expense of the poor. You have not seen anything yet..

8 ( +8 / -0 )

The latest survey, conducted from May 10 to June 5, targeted 4,000 households, of which 2,273 replied.

The other 1700 were too busy working ludicrous hours trying to make ends meet.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

If the Bank of Japan survey were as clear as the above story ... wonder how many of the households really understood what they were being asked to comment on.

A simple "Are you better off now than you were seven months ago before the Abe government took control?" might have been easier to answer..

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Majority of Japanese households expecting price hikes this year

Doh! Taxes went up, gas prices went up, basic grocery items went up, the yen dropped in value and imports went up in price. One would have to be living on a deserted island with no media what-so-ever to even think otherwise.

The problem is just how much higher are the hikes going to be?

6 ( +6 / -0 )

" “Wages may gradually start to rise early next year as corporate profits increase…"

Wishful thinking!

Belts will tighten instead, especially after the tax hike.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Wages MAY rise but prices def will. Abenomics works for no one except the rich, fat cats. Why is the public buying into this crap? Or are they? No one I speak to seems to think it is great - just the media.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Abenomics is doing good things gor my family. Not everyone does well out of these things, that is the way of the modern world.

-5 ( +0 / -5 )

Flase, how exactly is it doing your family well?

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Taxes will be hiked, utilities will be hiked, food and other consumer goods will be hiked, but salary will go down, mark my words. This promise to raise household income will definitely not happen, while the hikes definitely will. Call that pessimism, most people realize it as experience.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

@tmarie

Any devaluing of the Yen is a good thing for my family.

-7 ( +0 / -7 )

Global hyperinflation - Soon coming to a store near you!

4 ( +4 / -0 )

falseflagsteveJul.

Abenomics is doing good things gor my family. Not everyone does well out of these things, that is the way of the modern world.

marieJul. 08, 2013 - 08:09PM JST

Flase, how exactly is it doing your family well?

Because he's posting from America and hopes to meet the Japanese in-laws sometime and treat them to a Yakiniku as the big paying man

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Yay. More Abenomics hard at work for the Japanese people... With that and the nuclear industry, moving overseas is starting to look really appealing.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

falseflagsteveJul. 08, 2013 - 06:47PM JST

Abenomics is doing good things gor my family. Not everyone does well out of these things, that is the way of the modern world

falseflagsteveJul. 08, 2013 - 09:50PM JST

Any devaluing of the Yen is a good thing for my family.

http://womennewsnetwork.net/2012/10/09/united-nations-world-hunger-report/

I see no humility and humanity in YOU, falseflagsteve. I pray for you.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

"Wages may gradually start to rise early next year as corporate profits increase. That means the positive effect (of the BOJ's monetary easing) will gradually spread and support consumer spending,' he said."

Uh huh, sure. Yeah right. Ho ho ho. Snicker, snicker, wink wink . . .

Ha ha ha!

1 ( +2 / -1 )

On a pension here, and now with threats of pensions being cut it is not such a cheery prospect.

I have tried to cut down, even renegotiated the rent (thanks to the kind landlord) but it is still hard to make ends meet, especially when I have to pay about half my pension back again, ie 1.05 mill for local and state taxes and obligatory health insurance and old-age care insurance. Still, I have managed not to switch on the aircon yet this year, which must be good for my soul! LOL.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

OK, I see the general pattern of responses to Abenomics is basically this: Most of you hate it, because you see it as a flawed, pernicious economic program that is regressive, i.e. will shift enormous, onerous fiscal burdens onto the backs of low-income and lower-income people in Japan.

Now, between 1960 and 1990, Japan was home to arguably the most egalitarian society the world has ever seen, a true paradise if you will (socialism without socialism, I guess you could call it). Corporate executives and taxi drivers lived side by side in mixed residential housing, as opposed now to the virtually walled-off gated communities emerging in Tokyo and inhabited by expat bankers and their trophy wives and whatnot, something like The City in London. Japan used to be a place where factory workers with no education beyond junior high school could live comfortably, and where their children could gain admission to a top university by passing a purely meritocratic entrance examination that did not favor the children of the elites.

I'm guessing many of you would like to see a return to that type of Japan, except more progressive on issues of gender relations and treatment of ethnic/racial minorities. What are your policy prescriptions if Abenomics is not the answer?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

DogJul. 08, 2013 - 10:28PM JST

falseflagsteveJul.

Abenomics is doing good things gor my family. Not everyone does well out of these things, that is the way of the modern world.

marieJul. 08, 2013 - 08:09PM JST

Flase, how exactly is it doing your family well?

Because he's posting from America and hopes to meet the Japanese in-laws sometime and treat them to a Yakiniku as the big paying man

OR maybe he and his family export goods from Japan... There is a noble idea! A weakened yen makes Japanese goods more competitive in the global market... The fact that corporate profits are rising in Japan due to this is a good thing as long as they offer higher wages to compensate the rising costs in Japan due to a weakened yen. If Japanese corporations decide to hoard all of these profits for themselves rather than accelerate it through the economy (in higher wages) then they will only be hurting themselves in the long-run. And how would this be Abe's fault anyway? The guy has dome immensely since taking over as PM. More than any other bone idle Japanese politician has in teh past 20 years...

1 ( +2 / -1 )

DoubleHelix, i do export goods from Japan. The Yen was far too strong and still is a bit for my liking. Hoping the nuclear power plants can ll get up and running again to stop the need gor importing expensive energy.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

MASSWPE has it backwards (even though he/she overstated the paradise part). Abe and his ilk are passing off the image that Japan will return to past glory.

He's the George Bush of Japan and people will fall for it because people are stupid. Bankers and the crony friends who rent the LDP politicians are the only people who will benefit from inflation.

A country that will lose 1/4 of its population and most of the remaining will be out of the workforce because they're old cannot have true "economic growth." The market is what it is and no amount of manipulation of monetary policy will change that. All bubbles collapse and nothing artificial can last forever.

Let's revisit this topic in two years and see how much wages have gone up and the general health of economy.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

I <3 Abenomics

The people who don't like Abenomics are the ones who don't take advantage of the situation. There is always ways to make money in deflation and inflation, it just requires the correct positioning of your capital

20% increase in my networth due to Abenomics makes me a happy panda

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

Japan's corporate politics is about three decades too late. They have been running Japan's outdated government for a long time, even to the point where the Japanese people cannot do one thing in their life that don't have some sort of corporate attachment. Japan's personal life is in Japan's corporate hands and the politicians are only in office to honor the corporation. And Japanese people pay one of the highest price in the world for basic needs. Japan needs to change and join the free trade agreement with EU, North American and China. Can anyone think of how FTA will instill the fear in Japan by lower prices and more selections?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

sfjp330

Free trade would destroy Japan for the benefit of a small group of the ultra rich. Japan needs to avoid going down this route and avoid becoming like Europe. People think there will be more choice but in the end, only in crap like cookies and processed junk. These idiots that push free trade want to destroy diversity and steal monies from each country that enters agreements and history shows this to be 100% correct.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

@darnname, not sure what you think I have backwards. Care to explain?

All I see here at JT is this: Overwhelmingly negative opinions expressed about Abenomics, on the basis of the fear that it will widen income inequality. Nobody here seems to be fooled by Abe's policies. So a lot of people here seem nostalgic for the way Japan used to be, which begs the question: What policies can lower the Gini coefficient that everybody seems so distressed about?

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

falseflagsteve,

Annually, Japan goverment spends close to $50 billion on farm subsidies. The average age for the farmers is over 60 years old with average farm size in Japan at less than 5 acres, but in the U.S., it's 100 times larger. The basic staples like rice, wheat, corn, rice, meat, and other basic needs will be reduced substantially.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

fupaymeJul. 09, 2013 - 06:56AM JST

The people who don't like Abenomics are the ones who don't take advantage of the situation. There is always ways to make money in deflation and inflation, it just requires the correct positioning of your capital

Sad.

Be compassionate for those who are not fortunate as well as you are. They have no capital to begin with. They cannot to take advantage of the situation. They are trying to catch up to make ends meet. Hope you see things from a social engineering perspectives in this threads. Thank you.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

There is always ways to make money in deflation and inflation, it just requires the correct positioning of your capital

aka, Confucius he say, To make big fortune, first start with small fortune. If you have no fortune to start with - tough.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Back to the topic, people residing in Japan(Japanese households) MAY see salaries rise, probably not significantly enough to offset the much more probable actual increase in costs.

The bottom line is Taro Lunchbucket takes it on the head. If you can find a way to come out on top, good for you, but that won't be the experience of the general populace.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

"Back to the topic"

You're implying people have gone off topic. I don't see where that's happened. Again, I see real unhappiness here with Abe's planned inflation targeting. What alternatives should be pursued? Steeply progressive taxation on rich people and corporations (as opposed to regressive taxation, e.g. the consumption tax) combined with a major expansion of social welfare provisions? Is that it? I'm no fan of neoliberalism, but I'm wondering what the anti-Abenomics people want.

I'm asking this because not only are Japanese people generally proud of the fact that their country does not "look like" America (with its gross income inequality, consequent higher levels of violence, large numbers of morbidly obese people, etc.), they are ALSO proud of the fact that Japan does not look like your typical Western European country with its large welfare state. Japanese manage the difficult feat of combining an egalitarian, almost communalistic ethos with a strong sense of self-reliance (hence the extreme hostility among many Japanese towards the homeless).

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Sad. Be compassionate for those who are not fortunate as well as you are. They have no capital to begin with. They cannot to take advantage of the situation. They are trying to catch up to make ends meet. Hope you see things from a social engineering perspectives in this threads. Thank you.

Well what do you suggest to get Japan out of its deflationary spiral?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Well what do you suggest to get Japan out of its deflationary spiral?

I have written many posts on this thread in the past. I am with former BOJ Chief Mr.Shirakawa, this MAY solve problem for a short term objective, but will fail for a long term, PERIOD.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Jobs going out of Japan and prices going up-that seems to be inconsistent with social economic advancement.

20 years ago it was rare to see homeless people here but now any major city has them in plain site.

What will the numbers be in 5 years from now?

My bet is up!

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

@globalwatcher

Its not about being fortunate, its about hard work and not wasting your money or time. When I go shopping, I always do this quick math in my head, "If I buy this 10000yen pair of sneakers, how many hours will it take for me to recoupe the loss of 10000yen", and 99% of the time, I don't buy things unless its an absolute need.

Under-consume, live within your means, SAVE money, so that when opportunities do arise (such as abenomics), you can jump on it and increase your wealth.

I was bankrupt and in huge debt 3 years ago, and you know what got me out of it? Working 7 days a week, 16-18 hours a day, and the determination that I was not going to accept my crappy situation in life.

It has nothing to do with being fortunate. Its all about determination and not wasting away your earnings.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Its not about being fortunate

You are fortunate to have been born with the mental ability to do quick sums in your head when you go shopping.

You are fortunate to have the physical stamina to be able to work 16-18 hr days 7 days a week.

You are fortunate to not to have been born with some genetic fault or illness that would have made you unable to fend for yourself.

You are fortunate not to have been involved in any accident or natural disaster that left you physically or mentally impaired through no fault of your own.

You are fortunate to be able to live in a society where hard work does bring rewards.

It does not have 'nothing to do with being fortunate'. Every single one of us posting on JT is fortunate to have access to the Internet, fortunate to be literate enough to take advantage of it, fortunate to have been born with at least average intelligence.

It seems you are not fortunate enough to be able to count your blessings.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

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