Aso pushes back on U.S. call for scrutiny of currency moves

Good points by Aso for a change.

he was saying the other day that there is no need for uber in Japan because the taxis here are so awesome, which was just ridiculous.

The Yen should be at 75 to the dollar according to the Purchasing Power Parity framework. It is at 109. Why, because Japan has for decades and will unless punished manipulating its currency to support the export

industry. Almost all countries too this, including on occasion the USA. But to deny it is being done and to deny the its contributing to the huge balance of trade surplus Japan achieves is nonsense. Aso may not be smart enough to understand the PPP but his Ministry of Finance does and they know what they are doing by screwing USA companies to unfairly subsidize their own. China of course is worse but that does not in any way make what Japan is doing better, in fact China is just copying what Japan has done since the end of WW2.

http://www.economist.com/content/big-mac-index

As defined, a trade surplus is actually a bad thing.

Exports are things you need to make and they don't do much for you once they are overseas. You get some money for them and that's it.

Imports are things you can buy from overseas with the money you made from your export revenues etc.

So why would anyone want a trade surplus, where it's calculated as exports money minus imports? I'd rather have lots of things from overseas, than not.

Trump is a moron for thinking this is a bad thing.