Gov't pledges to slash public spending by Y8 tril over 2 years

240 yen per year? Thanks, expert.

biculturalAug. 12, 2013 - 12:07PM JST

Contradict yourself much?

I love the invented claims. Please give sources. Of course I live in Japan, that's clear from my posts and I never said I bought US dollars. I bought Kiwi dollars at Y47 each, had them locked into a 4 year savings account at 5% per year.

The dollars are still working for me as I bought them at Y80 in 2011 and will see them mature in 2016, when the Yen should be about Y240 to the dollar.

In another article, it stated that Japan has Y `1,000 trillllion debt. Doess tisi mean Japan will reduce its devts in 250 years? Check my arithmetic that sound funny.

Dog, in one post (July 6th) you claim to have made money from exchanging currencies from 2008 to 2012. That would mean you bought yen at around 108 yen to the dollar and then bought dollars at 76 yen to the dollar, assuming you got the timing perfectly. Yet in another post you claim to have bought dollars in 2009 (90 yen to the dollar) and sold this year (103 yen to the dollar, again if you somehow got the timing perfectly. You say in your post on June 11th that you made a 17 million yen profit (which means you invested a whole lot of money in fx), and that you were leaving Japan next year (2014). Yet in your post on June 22nd you claim that you don't even live in Japan. Contradict yourself much?

Storm, don't underestimate Dog. Remember, he made "millions" off of FX (yen / dollar)

Slashing public spending Y 8 trillions for 3 yrs mean more public servants will be out of works. They will be punished with sales tax increase. Private sector can not absorb all former public servants. Long term unemployed will be very reluctant to spend. It will translate low demand for goods and service. Low consumption means lower growth. Low Yen will make energy and raw materials more expensive. Abenomic is vicious cycle of print more, spend more, tax more, sack more and borrow more.

Intelligent post again from you dog just like the advice you gave a few months ago to invest in the Rupee, which is now at all time lows. Hope that went well for you.lol

Dog is one of those who believes the Anglo-American economic model is the only valid path to take and refuses to acknowledge other economic systems. It's a form of ethnocentrism.

Before raising consumption taxes, Japan needs to push the chess piece that the Swiss National Bank chose in September 2011 when the SNB stated unequivocally to markets that it would not permit 1 Swiss franc to be worth more than 0.83 pounds (SFr 1.20 to the Euro). More specifically, Abe and Kuroda need to state unequivocally to markets that for the next 5 years, Japan will not permit the Yen to strengthen more than 100 Yen to the US Dollar; and that if the success of Abenomics requires it, they will produce a still weaker yen.

Such a stand will produce the following benefits: First, most Japanese firms have based their earnings estimates on the assumption that dollar/yen will trade between 91 and 95. Creating certainty for them that dollar/yen will not be weaker than 100 will permit these firms to raise their earnings estimates and plan domestic infrastructure/investment projects with certainty that the worst case scenario for their profit projections can be calculated using dollar/yen of 100. Due to the market’s expected rate of dollar/yen equilibrium closer to 105, this cutting off of the higher end of strength as outlined by current dollar/yen volatility below its expected equilibrium price, Japan would avoid the UK’s September 1992 mistake and thus limit its action to diminishing the range of volatility while simultaneously demonstrating respect for the course of long term currency flows. Consider the value of Draghi’s verbal intervention during the thick of the European Financial Crisis when he stated that he would do “Whatever it takes” and that “It will be enough”. Market participants who were holding European policymakers hostage via the credit-default swap market, sovereign debt yields, and equity shorts were tamed such that intuitively they came to understand the merit in the mantra “Don’t fight the Central Bank”. Since then, they have been compliant, and the efforts of European policymakers to achieve their aims have been facilitated. In like manner, Japan too needs to announce to markets that it will not permit the Yen to strengthen more than 100 Yen to the US Dollar, and will do “Whatever it takes” including enforcing a weaker exchange rate in order to convert markets from foe to friend to the success of Abe and Kuroda.

Wrong again !

StormRAug. 10, 2013 - 09:34AM JST

Intelligent post again from you dog just like the advice you gave a few months ago to invest in the Rupee, which is now at all time lows. Hope that went well for you.lol

Errrr. advice I gave last month more like and I knew you have very little business savvy but one month investment in any currency from another is not going to give you much of a return.

We'll see what happens in 2014 and 2015.

Intelligent post again from you dog just like the advice you gave a few months ago to invest in the Rupee, which is now at all time lows. Hope that went well for you.lol

The country’s outstanding public debt including borrowings reached a record 1,008.6 trillion yen ($10.46 trillion) as of June 30, up 1.7 percent from three months earlier, the finance ministry said in Tokyo today. Larger than the economies of Germany, France and the U.K. combined, the amount includes 830.5 trillion yen in government bonds.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-09/japan-s-debt-surpasses-1-quadrillion-yen-as-abe-weighs-tax-rise.html

I, like Globalwatcher, have kind of given up on this site as a place for meaningful knowledgeable intelligent exchange.

A good post randomman, but the doosday sayers are on a certain winner with this one, unless Japan has reinvented the debt wheel.

Dog

What is really needed is a new economic model, where Japan, through Information tech, service and a skilled workforce, does things which the semi-literate worker in Vietnam and China will not be doing for next 30 years.

Because the movements towards 'service' and 'finance' worked so well for the US and UK didn't it? Japan doesn't need to let go of its manufacturing economy, or in that case, does Germany need to get rid of theirs too? Japan and Germany have cornered high end manufacturing that is still years away from being achieved by other Asian countries.

If they were serious about reform, employment is the place to start- ditch the antiquated seishin and other employment categories like aribito and hopefully bypass the post-industrial employment systems of the West and bring it into 21st Century- give employee a base employment position and the power to negiotiate the conditions- mutual to them and employers.

According to USA today, Japan's debt tops 1 quadrillion yen. Both US and Japan needs to wake up and start cutting spending

@Dog,

Japan's problems in both the long and short term are government finances, demographics and manufacturing over production with a limited domestic consumer base.

Demographics is a problem globally. Immigration is a theoretical solution that brings in other problems but it has changed markedly in recent years. Its a very slow "death" but has nothing to do with near term doomsday predictions.

Manufacturing and production issues are Japanese corporate specific issues of competitiveness eg. household electronics and changing business conditions due to emerging market low costs of labour, as you have pointed out. Although Japanese are slow to change survival will bring about change. Japanese are the most productive when they have a gun pointed to their heads.

The main doomsdayer "trump card" is the national debt. It is an issue but your link with hyperinflation and default are wild speculations. Growing Government debt in itself has not been a deterministic factor to hyperinflation in history. Although you say that borrowing within Japan is inconsequential, when there is little foreign exchange involved the Government is essentially moving money from left to right at a cost of the low interest rate involved; money is not destroyed it circulates. From a different angle, a default and Japan hyperinflation would have such catastrophic repercussions through global financial markets the central banks would change the rules of the game. My 15 years of experience in financial markets has taught me one thing, never ever bet on the side of doomsday predictions especially when the fundamental reasons are obvious, the Governments globally will change the rules.

Interesting to note that 10 year JGBs are now 0.75% just after the recent panic scare of plumetting JGB's and surging interest rates.

zurcroniumAug. 09, 2013 - 05:12PM JST

This is patently absurd. Japan corporations are sitting on 225 trillion of yen in reserves that they have made under the current tax laws. The real question to ask is why are firms not investing these funds. Tax law is irrelevant to that much more important question.

You obviously have very little understanding of how corporate tax works in Japan, so let me make this as simple as possible for.

My own company, which owns large plots of land in Chiba, would like to build a new state of the art steel factory. To get funding for that it can either issue a large batch of new shares, which would be suicidal, or it can sell off some of that valuable land (commuting distance from Tokyo and in a house building zone).

However such a sale would be classified by the Japanese tax authorities as a surplus and my company would be taxed on any monies collected at a 35% rate, which actually would mean that my company would be making a loss on the land, which was bought in the 1960s and 1970s.

It's not rocket science.

A fantastic concoction for economic disaster:

1) yen devaluation is increasing the cost of imported products like fuel, etc. While inflating corporate profits an expected increase in hiring is not going to be immediate even if theoretically that is supposed to happen.

2) increased unproductive spending on defence is shifting resources and money away from badly needed improvement in social programs.

3) reducing public spending means less construction and the building of public facilities that create employment with multiplier effects in the moribund economy.

4) overseas travels and giving away money to other countries further stress the government deficit.

5) the forthcoming sales tax will reduce already low domestic consumption.

6) prices of milk, energy and the like have increased and people will become more tight with their spending.

So, this is what Abenomics and Kurodanomics are bringing to Japan.

Is this what the Japanese people want?

private funds are stifled by the corporate tax rate,

This is patently absurd. Japan corporations are sitting on 225 trillion of yen in reserves that they have made under the current tax laws. The real question to ask is why are firms not investing these funds. Tax law is irrelevant to that much more important question.

The US boomed in the 50s under the highest tax structures and now it has the one of the lowest and the economy has struggled. Higher taxes seem to stimulate the economy and lower taxes do not.

"To remedy these problems it needs to curtail government spending, restructure the economy, build a genuine service economy, socially reconstruct Japan into a consumer society, increase immigration and foreign investment"

Isn't the government attempting to do these things? By all accounts it seems the reforms are geared to these ends. So I am bit confused why you are so critical. The immigration thing will be a tough nut to crack, no doubt. Overcoming deeply ingrained cultural attitudes towards outsiders will be a challenge. Demographics is certainly something the Abe government can not immediately remedy, no? They do have incentives in place to encourage couples to reproduce, but if society chooses not to, what can be done? I don't have solutions to these challenges myself, but I think the Japanese are aware of the problems and are actively pursuing solutions to solve them. It took time for things to get so messy, it will certainly take time and effort to solve it.

In my opinion, and its just my opinion, Japanese society needs to take a rough shot upside the head to knock them out of the complacency. They have been spoiled and pampered by the government long enough. Seems they are no longer willing to make the necessary sacrifices to acheive success. This certainly wasn't a problem in the past. Perhaps the failure you predict is the only remedy.

ElementzAug. 09, 2013 - 04:34PM JST

Dog-- I don't say this to be condescending, but what is the right thing in your opinion? And how is Abe bankrupting Japan?

Japan's problems in both the long and short term are government finances, demographics and manufacturing over production with a limited domestic consumer base. To remedy these problems it needs to curtail government spending, restructure the economy, build a genuine service economy, socially reconstruct Japan into a consumer society, increase immigration and foreign investment

In the short term, the Japanese economy and populace is not in a bad place. Japan, in terms of monetary value and savings, is the richest nation on earth and the blue ribbon companies are still up there with the best.

However the long and short term problems will eventually take their toll and it will be all very quick and sudden, probably around 2017 by the estimates of quite a few Japanese economists, and the richest nation will become the Greece of Asia as the Japanese government defaults on its sovereign debt and all the savings the Japanese had, will have been invested in government debt and be worthless.

Dog--

I don't say this to be condescending, but what is the right thing in your opinion? And how is Abe bankrupting Japan? He has been in office less than a year and so far things are looking up. Granted it has only been a short amount of time, but how can you make such definitive statements about the future? Are you an economist? I am certainly am not and I am rather naive when it comes to these things. Your opinions and suggestions?

StormRAug. 09, 2013 - 04:03PM JST

So doing nothing would be better then would it dog?

Doing the right thing would be the best, but what Abe is doing, bankrupting Japan in the next 3 years, rather than the next 10, is worst than doing nothing.

StormR--

Agreed. At least Abe is attempting some kind of reform. I really don't understand why so many people hate Abe so much--other than the ultra-conservative hawkish thing. Especially foreigners who in reality have no say in Japan's domestic matters. The Japanese seem to be on board with him. Can the negativity and see how things roll. My wife is a small business owner and she has seen a recent upswing in business and profitability.

Besides, as a US government contractor as higher yen rate hooks up my bank account. Come with it, Abe.

So doing nothing would be better then would it dog?

I Applaud Abe for doing something and I hope he succeeds in turning the place around, so far business confidence is up and the general mood is positive, it will just take time for the benefits to filter down to those near the bottom of the pile maybe thats why you havent seen any benefits yet LOL !

Gov't pledges to slash public spending by Y8 tril over 2 years

and then potentially blow gazillions of Yen on the olympics......

randommanAug. 09, 2013 - 02:38PM JST

Japan is still deflationary and is going to be the hardest woe to shake off and overall wage increase is crucial. To fight the debt in a deflationary environment is a contradiction in itself so one has to get worse in order to control the other.

Most economists worth their salt believe that Japan is so built-in to the Asian market that there really isn't anything Japan can do to get out of a deflationary market. Our Asian neighbors for the next 30 years will be manufacturing and growing things at a much cheaper rate than ever possible in Japan and the only way, realistically, to get out of the defationary spiral would be either to make Japanese workers work for $1 an hour or maintain the protectionist tariffs that is stifling competitiveness in the Japanese domestic market.

Deflation is not the bane of the Japanese economy, the bane is that Japan hasn't changed its economic model for 50 years and the LDP believes Japan can chug along with that ancien model for another 50 years by currency manipulation and supporting Japan Inc to the tilt at the expense of the Japanese nation as a whole.

What is really needed is a new economic model, where Japan, through Information tech, service and a skilled workforce, does things which the semi-literate worker in Vietnam and China will not be doing for next 30 years.

Your mates in the steel industry is a bad sample space to judge changes in the economy. The Japanese steel industry has specific problems of its own.

Actually the Japanese steel industry is a good example of how things should be going. The Japan steel industry is producing grade A steel, which only the Koreans can produce and leaving the Chinese and Indians to fight over the Grade B and Grade C market. The problem is that the investment, public or private. for new factories capable of producing Grade A steel consistently is not there. Public funds goes into highways for bears in Hokkaido or another shinkansen to nowhere and private funds are stifled by the corporate tax rate,

You get your views from foreign publications yet you criticize an advisor who lives in the US.

I watched him on the 10 O'Clock news last week and not only was he getting his bum handed to him by Japanese academic opponents of his theories, but I definitely detected that senility had kicked in.

Dog, actions taken to change thing in an economy takes time to have an effect. For 7 months in office I think there has been a marked improvement in sentiment which has lead to bonus increases in many industries and improvement in profit levels of companies in the last quarter. As expected. the yen has a lot to do with it but rather than sitting at extremities it has come back to saner levels. Japan is still deflationary and is going to be the hardest woe to shake off and overall wage increase is crucial. To fight the debt in a deflationary environment is a contradiction in itself so one has to get worse in order to control the other.

Your mates in the steel industry is a bad sample space to judge changes in the economy. The Japanese steel industry has specific problems of its own.

So economics is specific to a country? You get your views from foreign publications yet you criticize an advisor who lives in the US.

randommanAug. 09, 2013 - 01:54PM JST

Whether you like the guy or not at least Abe is trying to fix the Japanese economy by fighting a serious deflationary spiral that has plagued Japan for a decade, cultivate the environment for wage growth (which is the direct responsibilty of Japanese corporations) and decrease the reliance on issuing bonds to ultimately decrease the Government debt.

He hasn't done any of these things. The only inflation detected so far has been on consummer food products, energy and imports. None of my colleagues and probably anyone working in a Japanese company as a regular worker has seen an increase in our base salaries, and have no chance of seeing one until the next tound of pay talks in March 2014. The present government is totally reliant on bond issuance, more so than previous governments. The only difference is that the BOJ is buying around 70% of them, where previously the private investor was the majority buyer.

Now to all you JT "smart economists" that think you know better just remember that Abenomics is predominantly the "baby" of Abe's direct advisor, Koichi Hamada, a current Yale professor who was a direct student of James Tobin, the Harvard Nobel Memorial prize winner in Economic Science.

Who lives in America and hasn't lived in Japan since 1986. The economy and state of Japan is a completely different animal today, from then.

Whether you like the guy or not at least Abe is trying to fix the Japanese economy by fighting a serious deflationary spiral that has plagued Japan for a decade, cultivate the environment for wage growth (which is the direct responsibilty of Japanese corporations) and decrease the reliance on issuing bonds to ultimately decrease the Government debt. If this was such an easy thing to do as many here believe by tweaking one dimension of a multi variate economic model, previous Governments could have just Googled the answer or asked one of the "experts" on JT.

Now to all you JT "smart economists" that think you know better just remember that Abenomics is predominantly the "baby" of Abe's direct advisor, Koichi Hamada, a current Yale professor who was a direct student of James Tobin, the Harvard Nobel Memorial prize winner in Economic Science.

StormRAug. 09, 2013 - 12:00PM JST

What he is saying and trying to do is what is needed to be done and i hope he can follow through with his plans and make them happen, so at the very least he can laugh in the faces of those who wish for failure.

Totally wrong. What he is saying and trying to do are 2 completely different things. He talks about revitilizing Japan through his 3 arrow approach, but the 3rd arrow is a total dud and the first 2 arrows are what the LDP has been doing for the last 20 years.

Without the third arrow in place, economic restructuring and the transfer of a large partion of this country's wealth from those now on a fixed income (retirees) to those on a wage earning income, the whole concept of Abenomics is a joke.

His promises of slashing public spending are as vague as his previous intentions for the third arrow. The reason for this is quite simple. If he were anything less than vague and inactive, he would cause a split within the ruling LDP, akin to the previous split in the DPJ over raising the consumption tax.

Abe is a dud who will carry on with the same old same old of the LDP wasting our taxes and savings on propping up the dysfunctional economic model of 40% of Japan Inc propping up the rest of Japan. He talks a good talk for power's sake, but he has no choice, for party unity, to follow the same old path which got us into this mess in the first place.

So, which is it going to be? Adopt the IMF prescriptions, rein in the debt and become leaner. Or, damn the torpedoes, double the money supply and do all the things theyve already announced that theyre going to do in the way of expanding government and with it the debt.

Well, I guess there won't be any new computers at city hall next year when XP gets the flick from Microsoft.

Maybe "new" computers with XP on them. =Nobody buys the Windows junk anymore =so they refuse to upgrade. I am for the 4% reduction in spending and hopefully this can be reduced the same rate every year until there is a surplus.

at least there is some senses on what the PM and his cabinet are trying to implement, only a matter of implementation and perhaps getting closer to what the society (independent economists, businessmen, etc) also thinks about in solving these issues at first hand. gambatte kudasai :)

This bears repeating:

" "A nation trying to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle." Winston Churchill"

Abe's Keynesnian policies will blow up in his face, but it's the people who will be devasted by them.

It wouldn't matter what Abe says or trys to do there will always be the detractors on here who wish for failure for abe and japan.

What he is saying and trying to do is what is needed to be done and i hope he can follow through with his plans and make them happen, so at the very least he can laugh in the faces of those who wish for failure.

Atleast Abe is trying to fix some of japans problems by taking action and not sitting on his hands like the previous bunch of gormless cretins.

Go Abe, I wish you success in your endeavours to sort out some of what ails japan.

Well, I guess there won't be any new computers at city hall next year when XP gets the flick from Microsoft. And, I guess the kids will have to get used to sitting on the floor in schools. Education and public services will be the areas most effected by this. They will cut the staff at city halls and reintroduce Saturday schooling with no increase in salary for the teachers. They will also cut public works projects, so roads and parks will not get any attention at all.

Yet another pledge, like pledging to rid the world of nuclear weapons - I think that was last week's pledge, and making Japan more friendly for foreign investors, two months ago's pledge...

Although economists like to boast that Japan's debts are mainly held domestically, the imports and exports that are the only way to clear it via economic growth come from international transactions...

...and there is still the spectre of TEPCO's decommissioning costs, rising each day, and further costs as Japan continues to wantonly pollute the Pacific Ocean.

How are they going to cut spending while they're building the giant ice wall?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-07/abe-sanctions-government-funding-freeze-fukushima-giant-ice-wall

Stop building new roads and bridges to no where.

Monetary expansion and fiscal contraction. almost entirely the wrong way to promote growth.

It would be suicide to cut social security. I remember reading in an article that 44% of voters are over 60, Abe has to be careful not to alienate those voters. They've just increased defence spending to keep China in check, ODA has been declining for years, where are they going to find these 80 trillions?

"A nation trying to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."

Japan is not trying to tax itself into prosperity. It's try to tax itself out of insolvency. A nation trying to borrow and spend itself into prosperity is worse than one that taxes itself. The fact is that taxes in Japan are relatively low.

Japan is basically flailing: increase taxes (necessary), increase spending through stimulus (unsustainable), decrease spending (at odds with the stimulus). It's trying to push and pull at the same time.

Too bad I don't know how to post a "like" icon... Hats off to both Bertie and Alejandro's comments above! Reminds me of the five blind wise men in search of the elephant tale... All right and all wrong...

Still, wouldn't it be a hoot if in retrospect Kuroda gets all the credit for "authoring" the plan of "three arrows" (despite Abe's ownership)? Think about it, Kuroda steps in and announces, "Okay, now that arrows one and two are firmly implanted (including the tax increase), we'll launch arrow three - government austerity (so consumers will feel the government is "sharing the burden."

All of a sudden, Japanese traditional values will chime in with "Gaman," "Shinbo," "Kodomo No Tame Ni," and other Yamatodamashi rallies. I can see it now...

I believe it, when i see it

Or..they could just sell their 100 trillion in US treasuries.

Obviously the 2 extremes of massive stimulus (China) and massive austerity (Eurozone) does not work and the the ideal spot lies somewhere in the middle where enough stimulus creates growth that in turns enables the government to collect more taxes, eventually taxing at a higher rate, eventually improving the country's finances.

The ideal time to raise taxes would have been during brisk economic growth so it has the least downward impact. But, hey, only very few people (e.g. the Germans) are that smart and organised.

I agree with the way Abenomics is doing things: Using the first 2 arrows (monetary loosening, fiscal stimulus) to create enough economic breathing space (i.e. optimism) in order to implement significant structural changes. Abenomics succeeding wildly is very possible, although the devil is in the details.

The next crucial step is for Abe is to use the success of the first 2 arrows in raising optimism and not to be timid and go for arrow#3, structural changes (improved female labor participation rate, increased immigration, improvement of English education, etc., that will enable the Japanese economy to continue growing.

George III or Churchill have nothing to do with this discussion, while people may try as they may to make connections between them the situations are different enough that there is no need to use outdated analogies or quotes from long dead rulers.

GB never was in debt to the tune that Japan is, and GB never had it's own populous fund and support it's debt to the level that the Japanese people have "invested" in their own country.

Don't be fooled by the Ministry of Finance. Japan has stashed close to 300 trillion yen in net external assets. They have the money but won't use it, that's the modus operandi of the Ministry of Finance.

The debt will eventually need to be restructured, leaving Japanese bond holders taking a bath...

Unfortunately, I suspect a lot of the 'savings' will be diverted into rearmament and expansion of the Japanese military.

If you know anything about the limitations on spending for the Japanese SDF you would not have had the need to post this comment.

Unfortunately, I suspect a lot of the 'savings' will be diverted into rearmament and expansion of the Japanese military.

And people actually think that Abe-nomics is going to work with a plan like this? How in the world does he plan to expand public spending to boost the economy and then cut spending by the amount stated here?

I can not understand why his approval ratings are at 60 + %, the people have their heads in the sand to the bleak reality that it's THEM that are going to end up footing the "bills"! (Plural that is!)

"A nation trying to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."

Winston Churchill

Reduction of 4% spending? Impossible (almost), when you look at $1.2B beautiful Warship and Nikkei 225 struggling around 13~14,000 level.

Raising taxes alone will not solve anything!!! Without curbing public spending there will be no amount that is large enough. Let's see if Mr. Abe really got the balls to go after the public spending!!!