Japan OKs ¥21 trillion extra budget to counter impact of inflation

The ordinary Japanese won’t benefit from it though.

It’s already bitterly cold and people are turning off heating.

Viruses thrive in dry cold weather too.

Expect more mortality this month

Japan’s national finances also are a longstanding problem... 

They are? You mean the rocketing interest rates and inflation, massive unemployment, bond meltdown, IMF bailouts, etc. that characterize a serious and "longstanding" fiscal problem?

Needless to say, the Japanese economy has seen the opposite trends: the lowest rates of all, relatively low inflation, and full employment -- for a "longstanding" period of time.

How can a journalist write a statement like that with no evidence and no attempt to back it up?

but companies are reporting record profits . . .

Japan OKs ¥21 trillion extra budget to counter impact of inflation

Pouring more money to fight inflation? It's like pouring gasoline to existing fire.

Just how stupid does the government think the Japanese people are here? First all the money they have been pouring down the drain until now, was to bring inflation up to 2% , and now since it blew past that, they want to shovel more down the same drain, in the hope that they stop it.

Raise interest rates to 0% or even 0.5% and watch the inflation bubble deflate in a heartbeat!

Japan’s parliament approved a hefty 29 trillion yen supplementary budget Friday aimed at countering the blow to household finances from rising food and utility costs and the weaker yen.

Is that really its aim?

Past performance , particularly of the massive pandemic stimulus budgets, do not point to any of this money improving "household finances".

Unless pork projects and the bottom lines of LDP cronies are counted as "household finances".

In an article earlier in the week, Japanese companies are reporting record profits. If only there was a way to reduce consumption tax and increase business taxes. Wait, did someone just whisper that Japanese companies have close ties with politicians?

You mean the rocketing interest rates and inflation, massive unemployment, bond meltdown, IMF bailouts, etc. that characterize a serious and "longstanding" fiscal problem? 

You didn’t spot that in Japan, the central bank has to buy all the government debt to not only keep the government solvent but to keep market rates from rising, lest all the zombie economic actors wither and die? There is that rather glaring issue…

How can a journalist write a statement like that with no evidence and no attempt to back it up?

They are doing a fine job and need not worry about the odd outlier rando MMT proponent complaining about it on the Internet

They are doing a fine job and need not worry about the odd outlier rando MMT proponent complaining about it on the Internet

You are one of the few who think Japanese journalism is doing a "fine job".

And MMT is the UBI that large asset holders enjoy every day.

It just doesn't reach the working classes.

¥21tn of cuts to the purchase tax would help people even more and typically benefits the poorest most.

if they wanted to help people could abolish VAT for basic food as some european countries did and could have better impact than some silly 5000JPY thing...dont need to "invent hot water" just to learn from actions or others and implement asap.

Fight fire with fire. Doesn't work.

Can't fix every problem with throwing money at it.

Have to fix the root cause of national debt in the first place.

Capitalism is build on a debt system, if you have credit you have debt. And can't do anything beyond the threshold of what you earn without it.

By design capitalism creates debt and inflation.

We don't need more spending.

Fiat currency will go to zero in the end.

Is this not false economy? The money still needs to be paid back by the very same people who are struggling

Lots a luck...

So we pay tax, they take a cut and return a certain percentage back after their policies make our lives miserable?

You are one of the few who think Japanese journalism is doing a "fine job". 

I don’t know if this AP journalist is Japanese or not, but pointing out the gross indebtedness of the Japanese government is the lord’s work indeed.

And MMT is the UBI that large asset holders enjoy every day. It just doesn't reach the working classes.

Enough with the MMT trickle down thanks.

Were it me the MMT would be ended immediately, and we’d get back on a path to normalcy.

The BOJ is banned under law from directly buying government debt for good reason; that they buy indirectly to subvert the intent of the law says that something is very very wrong.

It’s going to take more than ¥21 trillion extra budget to counter the impact of inflation

Enough with the MMT trickle down thanks.

Don't take it from me. Take it from an actual hyper-rich venture capitalist who knows that easy money QE is the gift that keeps on giving for the rich.

https://twitter.com/mcuban/status/1318929147348090882

I am sure the Japanese rich love the easy money as much as the Western rich.

To give them credit, some like Cuban see that this "trickle down" ends with the rich and pols and never reaches the working public.

So it is incorrect to say that the public needs to assume fiscal responsibility and austerity to deal with the problems created by these policies.

It's time for Japan to drop the yen, these numbers are ridiculous. Could you imagine the US or Canada counting their money with pennies. Canada doesn't use pennies any more.

Man, you got to love this show, modern monetary theory at its best. Print baby print! 270% of GDP, why push the breaks now?! Go go go, every single one here lives in borrowed time ehi sorry money. How long can this go on, it’s truly fascinating

What about wages? I have a middle aged family member who helps out at a day care center part time mon-fri , helping the elderly with activities, lunch time, cleaning up etc..

From January she was told her measly ¥1000 an hour would be cut to ¥925

The yen is back to 135 yen to the dollar, so petrol/kero should come back down in price a bit, just in time for winter proper. I don't expect the price of anything else to improve though, because they never do. Food items may shrink further.

It seems like 150 to the dollar had imaginary future rate hikes from the Fed already priced in, so I hope no-one paid much attention to the "it's going to 200!" posters. The same posters tend to be the ones who have spent thirty years saying the sky is going to fall in because of the Japanese government debt.

Enough with the MMT trickle down thanks.

That description is a howler. Kelton's book spends much of its time on social security, advocating that more of the national income should shift away from small number of multi-billionaires and toward the low and middle income earners, who spend their money in the economy rather than hoard it in Panama. MMT is based on the assumption that prosperity doesn't "trickle down" from the top, but spreads out from the middle.

The same posters tend to be the ones who have spent thirty years saying the sky is going to fall in because of the Japanese government debt.

Some of them are still trying to make that argument. LOL. On a related note, remember the prediction? 300 yen to the dollar? Gold at $5,000 and Bitcoin going to a million?

MMT is based on the assumption that prosperity doesn't "trickle down" from the top, but spreads out from the middle.

Nice try but MMT is all about government spending money willy nilly (like Japan) in the hope that some of it will “trickle down” to the little people.

This is in contrast to common sense economics of government not spending money willy nilly on the fortunate few in hopes of it trickling down, but getting government off peoples backs, letting people keep the fruits of their own efforts. Rather than having some central planning authority decide where to redistribute the people’s hard earned money, “to trickle down”, the money is rather left in the hands of the people and they benefit directly from their own hand, not in some inane indirect trickle down nonsense that doesn’t work