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Gov't unveils series of measures to deal with strong yen

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With the relative strength of the yen, total Japanese savings is probably equal to $15 or $16 trillion USD, I agree somewhat with weedkila, countries should go back on the gold standard. However, I believe central banks have no idea what they're doing. Europe is going to collapse, and America is close behind. The whole Western system of not producing and rampant consumerism to the point of massive indebtedness has resulted in systemic failure. The money printing will just accelerate.

Instead of letting the financial system purge itself of bad debts, the Federal Reserve and ECB have doomed America and Europe to hyper-inflation. Also, a few days ago Austria declared gold a "controlled commodity" and banned orders greater than 16,000 Euros. Buy gold (and silver) while you can, hide it, and tell nobody. It will be your financial salvation over the coming years.

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As for me not knowing economics...trust me when I say I have more money from investing that you do.

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Why would Japan want to destroy its economy. Look at America and Europe and what bad financial shape they're in. Why would Japan want to copy that? No, Japan's model is economic success. Not a band-aid. Apparently, neither you or Jefflee know anything about economics. The West is finished because it doesn't produce anything. How is that success? Japan runs largw trade surpluses. Why isn't that success?

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Jeffrey Duelley -- thanks for the laugh, especially from someone who accuses others of "knowing nothing about economics." In case you missed the history of Japan's post-war economy, it was built on consumerism in the West, and "maxing out credit cards" by the consumers there. JeffLee is absolutely right when he says Japan must get off this export-focused model and address the deep structural inefficiencies this model created in the domestic economy and the low level of domestic consumer demand. Throwing more yen into the Forex market to artificially keep the echange rate at a level to sustain this model is just an economic Band-aid. Not a real solution.

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We're not talking about the Soviet Union, we're talking about Japan. If consumerism is so great, why haven't Western nations had trade surpluses in decades? Western nations are becoming poor. That's a fact. How is maxing out credit cards a good thing?

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@teesquared

You say you don't give central bankers that much credit and that they have no idea what they're doing. If you see their job as getting the world economy up and running smoothly again then, yes, it would appear that they have no idea what they're doing. But I don't think that's the case.

Central bankers like Ben Bernanke work for the power elite -- look at who owns the Fed -- and take their orders from them. Since the 2008 crash when the Western banking system became insolvent they have been playing for time and there has been a huge transfer of wealth, virtually interest free, to keep the system afloat. I've read that somewhere between $20 - 50 Trillion has been somewhere injected into the zombie banks and economy to keep them going.

If you consider that the Central Banks, Wall Street and the City of London are on the same team then it's becomes obvious why the central bankers are making the decisions they are. They're saving their own and don't give a toss about misusing the public's money. If you have the time take a look at the following link explaining that the Fed provided $16 Trillion in financial assistance to large banks and corporations. This came light as a result of an audit but was hardly reported on in the MSM.

http://www.thedailybell.com/bellinclude.cfm?id=2729&perpage=20

I don't know anything about the Salomon Bros gold lease scam. But like I say these guys are on the same 'tag team' so it would not surprise me if it was collusion, made to look like incompetence on the part of central bankers. What I do recall is that a large amount of gold bullion was moved and subsequently disappeared from at least one of the basements of the WTC buildings just days before they were attacked on 911 (google it). I wonder whether the gold you're talking about is the same as what disappeared. Curiously, the 3rd NY building to collapse on that day was the Salomon Brothers building (WTC7).

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@weedkila Sorry, I don't give central bankers that much credit. For sure they have no idea what they are doing. Are you aware of the scam when Salomon Bros stole the central bank's gold from under their noses? It was a scam product called a gold lease. Basically the whiz kids at Sally's invented a gold lease product which they told central bankers was for hedging purposes. Sally's took physical delivery of the gold and paid 1pct interest to the central bankers. It was over a year before the central bankers realized that they were never getting their gold back and it was all hushed up at the time. Lots of egg on face there.

Here is a tongue in cheek blog I used to write before but I haven't had time to update it. You might find something interesting or controversial there. http://vestedinterestsslayer.blogspot.com/

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@teesquared

Crony capitalism rather than Capitalism, or State Capitalism if you like, is what has accelerated the destruction but ultimately it's the system of central banking which is at fault. It's why we go through booms and busts and finally a major war to reset the system. WW1 & 2 both came after major recessions.

It was invented centuries ago so the money changers in the middle east could realize some profit. We now have a massive global economy built on an ancient ruse.

Agreed but I'd go further and say the current system was inherently designed to fail from the start. In addition to wealth and power being transferred from the middle class to the power elites, their ultimate goal has always been global governance and you can see this with power being centralised after WW2 in institutions like the UN, IMF, WHO, International Criminal Court, World Bank etc. This is a multi-generational thing.

The current race to debase currencies is part of this theft and centralisation of power, speeded up by what you alluded to in your post. Things are not as bad as they might seem though because the elites have miscalculated and overreached. Their memes are falling apart (global warming, peak oil/water, central banking etc) and where they used to operate in relative secrecy they now have the spotlight of the internet on them.

I agree that the world needs to move to something new, preferably based on the free market, fair competition and more compassion for one another. As you say, old money beware.

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Jeffrey Duelley: "Manufacturing creates wealth, not consumerism."

The Soviet Union was a manufacturing giant, but a consumer basket-case. Think about it.Or enroll in Econ 101 if you can't figure it out.

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@weedkila Since this is a forum about Japanese ongoing economic woes, I wont continue after this posting, but more than happy to continue in private if you request......

I agree with some of your points especially the mass brainwashing about interest. I have worked in finance for over 30 years. "Time-value-for-money" is a crock. It was invented centuries ago so the money changers in the middle east could realize some profit. We now have a massive global economy built on an ancient ruse. To my mind an investor should take all the risk of repayment and decide accordingly whether to invest or not.

Globally outlaw, yes outlaw dividends and premiums from stocks. If you don't work for the company and you want to get paid something then you take all the risk from a zero coupon stock. If a company can pay dividends it is either Raping its suppliers, over charging its customers or ripping off its employees, or most likely a combination of all 3. Capitalism does not automatically create a profit! The fact that we extract profits means the surpluses that should be plowed back into the system are being pocketed by the rich and greedy.

The whole world needs to move to something new and almost the same. I call it "steady State Capitalism" Capitalism without undue profit. It can be done. However it will take the peoples of this world to bring down their own currencies by printing home bank bills before this will happen. Think that is getting closer anyway. Old money beware!

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Slight amendment from above post.

The debt primarily comes from the central bankers creating money from thin air (counterfeiting) and then expecting the debtor (the public/government) to repay the original loans PLUS non-existent, compounding interest. You cannot put 10 coins in a box and miraculously pull out 11 coins, as the bankers expect. Therefore we should NOT be obliged to repay these debts.

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@teesquared

Fact: Japan owns almost all of its own debt.

Who and by what means is this going to be paid back to the people it was borrowed from? Why did Japan need to borrow so much -- more than 200pc of GDP -- in the first place?

Japan is not restricted like other nations. It can afford to just print money under a controlled plan.

How much printing of money (ie: legalised counterfeiting) is enough? The financial system is already seriously distorted and in trouble.

In times such as these money should not be a scarce commodity, it should be plentiful. Printing more money and forcing the money supply to become bigger will make the yen weaker and promote exports and also inspire domestic demand to buy.

Times like these have become times like these BECAUSE OF the very system we have now where money can be printed from nothing and interest (which was never in the financial system to begin with) is demanded by the privately owned central bankers. The amount of liquidity in the financial system used to be tied to gold and therefore controllable. Now it's not.

money should not be a scarce commodity

A commodity because it's paper? Money is given value only because governments says so (fiat) and because people have been deceived into believing their paper or digital dollars/yen have value. It's a bankers trick and the central bankers are currently 'disappearing' the value of our money through monetary inflation, ie; printing money and buying up assets on the cheap when countries have been deliberately crippled by the IMF, World Bank, economic hitmen and corrupt government officials in the pay of the Western bankers. (ie; look at Greece or Argentina and even Iceland which, fortunately saw through this scam.)

Western nations have sold their debt to so many other countries that they do not have this option.

Is the bulk of the debt really to the people of those other countries or the central banks of those other countries?

Japan should also refuse flat out to raise consumption tax.

Agreed.

Ever wondered why almost every country is in debt or who this debt is owed to? The only solution to this debt problem is to do away with the central banking system and Keynesian style economics. It's parasitic and is breaking the back of humanity. The debt primarily comes from the central bankers creating money from thin air (counterfeiting) and therefore we should NOT be obliged to repay it.

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So, the government admits they have no power at all and they will give up trying to manipulate the yen.

The government will risk to have the yen rising ad eternum.

This plan won't work either. Peg the JPY to a fair 100yen for a US dollar and wait.

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the usa has been printing dollarinos into oblivion, and now the swiss are flooding the slippery slopes with francs to prevent the rabble from ascending their alpine bastion.

it would seem that there should be a means by which japan could leverage such a measure to return the balance of currency values to something having a passing resemblance to what has been the status quo for the past say 30 years, like 90 yen to the dollarino.

in fact, treesquared's suggestion to channel some of the newly minted notes into investment in post-petro chemical technologies makes a lot of sense.

of course, the government can't just subsidize companies, as that would be anti-competitive and violate GATT, but they can subsidize consumers to stimulate domestic demand for such technology while making financing for related capital investment more readily available. on the other hand, with public sentiment in japan against nuclear power at a zenith, it's also a chance to gut the crony capitalism of the energy industry, domestic demand would be there, as there, and the better the technology, the cheaper the cost of electricity, the faster the return on investment in consumer level technology.

and if the government doesn't follow thru with such progams--which were discussed in the wake of the nuclear power plant disaster--then japanese companies are basically facing the same scenario as usa's solyndra vis a vis china, where they have been investing in the R&D and have the advantage in production costs...

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Teesquared has the best post in this thread and seems to be the only who knows what he/she is talking about, finally someone else understands.

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Fact: Japan owns 55% of the worlds savings. Fact: Japan owns almost all of its own debt. Japan is not restricted like other nations. It can afford to just print money under a controlled plan. In times such as these money should not be a scarce commodity, it should be plentiful. Printing more money and forcing the money supply to become bigger will make the yen weaker and promote exports and also inspire domestic demand to buy. Western nations have sold their debt to so many other countries that they do not have this option. Japan has great potential to lead the world in new green technologies but it needs the investment. That investment can come from within if the government open their eyes and stop believing in Reagan/Thatcher economics. Japan should also refuse flat out to raise consumption tax. The Euro zone and US are putting a lot of pressure on Japan to raise consumption tax to 10pct or even 15pct as early as next year. Don't those fools in the diet remember what happened when they raised it from 3 to 5 pct after the bubble burst? It send Japan into a 20 year deflationary cycle and the economy was in a better state then. My advice to the diet. Just say no! to Euro zone and America. Japan didn't get it wrong, they did!

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Either join with China and adopt the yuan, or take advantage of the yens strength and build businesses worldwide and get stinking rich.

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It is not the Yen that is a problem for the world, it is the Chinese Yuan

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If the yen is high, why not take advantage of the situation and buy from overseas. Companies can buy overseas assets and stock up on raw materials while the yen is strong.

Also, the problem is not so much a strong yen, but a weak dollar and euro.

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A strong yen means cheaper overseas products and services for Japanese consumers!

Don't believe all the big high-tech companies whining for intervention. They've already shipped off all their jobs overseas anyhow..... They are only concerned with their own profits!

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Just keep the yen floating.

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JeffLee, you know nothing about economics. Manufacturing creates wealth, not consumerism. Why should Japan create another housing bubble and follow in the failed steps of the West? Japan is doing fine, and doesn't need to be a failing nation like America or the Eurozone.

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i dont find any strength in the listed measures. Don't invite misfortune (by weakening yen) instead take full advantage of strong yen and pass on part of profits to consumers as well.

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Subsidies, subsidies, subsidies. That's right - throw taxpayer money at the problem, especially when the country is already the world's most indebted.

The only viable measure is to stimulate domestic demand, like making the housing market more competitive and attractive to consumers, etc.

Japan already runs huge trade and current-account surpluses, and so it's time to end its export obsession. This isn't the 1960s anymore and exporting more TV sets isn't going to solve Japan's problems.

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