Proponent of Abenomics blasts tourism campaign as pandemic rages on

In the midst of a pandemic encourage people to travel?

Fact is stranger than fiction...

The idea is OK, timing is terrible.

waiting until the pandemic hit to do this was dumb

Go-To Campaign failed. It is not saving the related businesses. People do not feel safe to go out and travel. The situation is not improving and it will continue long. Economic disasters begin from now.

But inflation remains far off the BOJ's 2% target, while the pandemic is threatening to wipe out the benefits of Abenomics by hitting jobs, corporate profits and tourism.

Inflation? Not far off, unattainable with these experts in charge, disband them and try again. "Wipe out the benefits of Abenomics" what were those benefits? Wage reductions, longer working hours, part time jobs with no benefits, bonuses, but still a tax bill. you really have to wonder in what world these people live in? Now during a pandemic they spend trillions to subside the movement of large groups of people? It's madness. Well at least Tokyo has stickers to tell you they might be virus free untill the next infected person visits. A whole mess of juvenile decisions.

A similar campaign is happening in the UK now, half price meals Monday to Friday each week, to encourage people to go out and eat again.

It's half price up to 10 pounds, no alcohol included, three days a week.

Meanwhile, people are being advised not to see family at home. My elderly mother is currently hospitalized and hasn't seen family for a week because visitors aren't allowed, yet if she were at home she could go and sit in a pub with hundreds of maskless strangers guzzling beer.

Oh, and she tells me none of the patients in the hospital are wearing masks. Staff yes, patients no. This Go and Eat campaign is a total shambles, corporate welfare for Tory party donors from the big food chains backing it. Meanwhile, the number of hungry and malnourished children is increasing.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-guardian-view-on-englands-hungry-children-the-indigestible-truth/ar-BB16GEIz

While this guy may be noted for actually coming out and saying something about the ill-concieved Go To Travel campaign, he's kinda just stating what's obvious to nearly everyone.

But remember what the Abenomics he's a fan of really is, as he does mentions this:

the BOJ could ramp up bond buying or cut interest rates, including pushing short-term rates deeper into negative territory, Harada said.

"Deeper into negative territory" refers to how the government ALREADY PAYS the big banks to borrow money. As it is now, instead of charging regular interest rates, the negative interest means when the gov lends 10,000 yen, then only 9,990 needs to be paid back, so going "deeper negative" means maybe only 9,980 or less nedds to be returned.

This isn't a lending policy, its a giving policy.

@divinda

http://www.worldgovernmentbonds.com/country/japan/

Doesn't look negative according to the yield curve. Shorterm bonds, perhaps, but the government doesn't use these to finance the country.

IMHO, it's more of a rort, the banks, on top of benefit from negative rates offered to depositors, also benefitting from buying government bonds.

Anyway, the BOJ is obviously trying to put on the brakes on what is broadly understood by the community to be silly economics.

Abe has always been about bad timing. I believe BOJ already has a negative 0.1 interest rate so now what? Unless there's real structural reform and strong leadership, the corporations and consumers are not going to spend. Abe increased the consumption tax to 10% last year against BOJ recommendations and corporations found revenue falling because of low consumer spending. For a country that is aging dramatically and living off a fixed income, there's no way people are going to be spending on big ticket items. LDP reverted to their same old public works project digging up roads but failed to invest in building up aging walls along the rivers to prevent the flooding that we see all too often. Wages remained stagnant and although employment slightly rose it was mostly for hourly wage workers. And to further exacerbate the problem Abe and the LDP are showing poor leadership in the current crisis and his support is tanking in the polls; does anyone really think the people and the corporations are going to be spending in this environment? Abe declared that his three arrows would be the keystone of his economic policy and it received massive publicity when he started; there's almost no mention of it now because it was a total failure just like his mask. He wish it would go away and that people would forget about his policies and inept leadership.

We are now in a very strange place where some people are being told to refrain from traveling to visit family and others are having government subsidized pleasure trips to go to potentially the same places. The people in question may work in the same office and live only a few km apart across a prefecture border.

It was careless to launch the campaign without provisions for cancellations in case of further outbreaks, and stupid to bring it forward for the "Olympic" four day holiday. Haste is not going to defeat this disease.

Used both the prefectural and the “GoTo. I think at this stage of the pandemic, people should only stay in their prefecture hotels.

Abe's half-baked "Go To" campaign to stimulate business has inevitably resulted in folks going to hospital, as we have learned from the first (official) cases in Iwate. Boris's bonkers "Go Out 'n' Eat" mantra, redolent of "let 'em eat cake", has likewise been responsible for a resurgence of infections. The bitter truth too many still refuse to countenance is that the hospitality and service industry must bite the bullet and continue to take a hit. As long as the virus is around the local and global economy will never recover. A hiatus of business activity in these sectors lasting one or even two more years may be required to flatten the curve of a pandemic which could still morph into a reprise of the catastrophic 1918 global pandemic caused by an avian virus.

I'm picturing a rat jumping into a lifeboat

It is like every day is 'Opposite Day' in the Abe steering committee meetings.

They call it “flip flop” in Americaese.

@Crickey

 what were those benefits? Wage reductions, longer working hours, part time jobs with no benefits, bonuses, but still a tax bill. 

Abe-san doesn't pay my wages or set my working hours, does he decided yours? Decisions on wages are made in the corporate boardroom, not by people in government.

People have short memories, but in the pre-Abenomics era, bonus cuts were the norm, year after year for many years. Things aren't great now, but significant improvements were achieved in the realm of govt policy -- until the coronavirus appeared.

There;s a reason that wealthy people are buying up gold at a rate of knots - a collapse is coming, and fiat currencies will be next to worthless. Buckle up, you're all going to experience what it was like to live in the 1930s.

Dear JeffLee, he Abe doesn't set anyone's wages but his policies set a tone, he talked about fixing the over work situation and then legally increasing the over work hours to 100 a month from 60? Child poverty has increased under his watch, tax has gone up for individuals but down for corporations. Special needs services cut, corporate subsidies raised. Pensions are flat. The list goes on. A PM should be striving to make the people's lives happy he seems to have a different view.

@Crickey

 Abe doesn't set anyone's wages but his policies set a tone,

YOur original post makes a very direct link of responsibility between Abe and workers' wage cuts (decided/implemented not by him but someone else. ). As for "tone," Abe has been publicly calling on employers to raise wages and improve working conditions, but they aren't listening.

Why the reluctance of people in Japan to criticize corporations? Are they afraid of them?

The campaign WAS scheduled to start in August to coincide with the Obon holiday and "Mountain Day", to get people to spend some cash .

Abe had it pushed up because of the 2 holidays that got moved, to lessen the traffic burden in Tokyo, for the now postponed Olympics.

Screw the pandemic, get people out and about, because they have a 4 day weekend, and get them to spend money.

The LDP SHOULD get rid of Abe ASAP!

I don’t think it was a particularly bad idea. A similar campaign is happening in the UK now, half price meals Monday to Friday each week, to encourage people to go out and eat again. Remember, many businesses in tourist areas, and restaurants are both on the brink of no return. The Go To campaign in Japan and the Go our and Eat campaign in the UK is trying to help these businesses, as well as trying to return some kind of normalcy. If the restaurants and tourist areas have all the current Covid safety standards in place, then it’s easy to see what the government is trying to achieve.

Its not a "particularly" bad idea, its an extraordinarily bad one.

I get that these businesses are hurting and I am very favorable towards the government stepping in financially to help them out. But they absolutely should NOT be structuring their assistance around a program that encourages behavior that is going to spread this dam disease even further. That should be obvious.

A month or two ago when things were under control I can see why this would have seemed like a reasonable program, but it is beyond irresponsible to be stubbornly pushing ahead with it in the middle of an outbreak when every public health expert is telling them to stop it right now.

This is just a farce of mixed messaging with one half of officials telling everyone to social distance and the other half telling them to go out and travel as if everything were normal. There is a very well known country whose government is going through the same chaotic and contradictory shambles of governance right now. I won't bother naming it since everyone knows who that is and how bad things are in that country, but I absolutely am livid at seeing Japan head in that direction.

I up voted Jeff. My mistake the PM has absolutely no say in how people are paid, treated or the application of Labour Laws. He is a figure head and has no real power to affect the citizens who pay his wage...sorry about that.

Go To Campaign – yet another abject failure in Abe’s economic miracle.

Just put it in the pile with Premium Friday.

JeffLeeToday  12:14 pm JST

Why the reluctance of people in Japan to criticize corporations? Are they afraid of them?

Like Abe, you mean? He's been "publicly calling" on employers to raise wages, but very little else. Some action would speak a bit louder.

Japan is run by and for the KEIDANREN club and top ministries, and the LDP is their political machine. You don't matter. The individual doesn't matter.

The LDP SHOULD get rid of Abe ASAP!

Nothing will change, it is the bureaucrats that decide policy. The lawmakers lack leadership, are clueless and lazy and care more about re-election. This is because most inherited their diet seat or got elected through theirs or their fathers fame.

Abe has been publicly calling on employers to raise wages and improve working conditions, but they aren't listening.

Wasn't it a pledge and when it wasn't materializing and he was called out. he started to urge.

Taxpayer money should be used to find an immediate cure to kill the virus and/or a vaccine to prevent infection.

This Go To Campaign is like some kind of really weird and insane idea the Trump administration would have come up with. It really reflects badly on Abe's ability to govern in a crisis.

Just look for the corruption in Japan and you'll understand why things are done.

A quote from the financial times regarding the go to campaign.

The programme has strong backing from Toshihiro Nikai, the powerful 81-year-old secretary-general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Mr Nikai represents rural Wakayama prefecture and is also chair of the All Nippon Travel Agents Association.

It's not even about reviving the economy. It's about another Japanese politician lining his pockets with an apathetic populace' money.

Absolutely not. That money should be used to help businesses that rely on tourist trade.

*The programme has strong backing from Toshihiro Nikai, the powerful 81-year-old secretary-general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Mr Nikai represents rural Wakayama prefecture *and is also chair of the All Nippon Travel Agents Association.

This is what it's all about. Amakudari Oyaji says "Jump" and Abe throws the country into the abyss.

@Simon Foston

Like Abe, you mean? He's been "publicly calling" on employers to raise wages, but very little else.

For the leader of the country - as a opposed to a member of the opposition, private lobbiest, or us etc, - to take that stance (blaming the corporate establishment for low wages) and take it repeatedly is pretty ballsy. One needs to appreciate the political context.

When Trump "publically calls on" Amazon, for example, to improve its ways, it's seen by most Americans as a very harsh move for a sitting president.