Rakuraku comments

Agent_NeoToday  07:20 pm JST

Those who say that a weak yen is bad for Japan have little evidence to support their argument. If the yen continues to weaken, it will be a tailwind for the Japanese economy. I hope the yen stays weak for the time being.

Consumption has been very weak because of the impact of the weak JPY on inflation and consumption is 60% of Japanese economy so beyond a certain level the JPY weakness is no more a positive factor for the economy. This is why recently politician like Motegi and Kono put pressure on the BOJ to hike rate to avoid further weakening of the JOY.

Nearly all Japanese would prefer to see Aiko on the throne rather than him.

In fact, Japan has had eight empresses in its history, with the last one reigning from 1762 to 1771.

It was only after the Meiji Restoration, when Japan copied the male-only succession law from Prussia, that it became impossible for a woman to ascend the throne. Japan should return to its original system.

Several people seem to enjoy convenience store sando. I've always found them totally tasteless and offering very little choice. Just try the ones from Marks & Spencer, and you'll understand what I mean.

Other prepared meal while not healthy taste nice though.

Considering that these convenience stores operate around the clock couche jamais would be more appropriate!

Ricky Kaminski13Today  08:21 am JST

Something about Ishiba that just gives me the creeps. The way he talks to the media and people as if he were giving a stern lecture to a child, he is confident I’ll give him that but there’s a background coldness and arrogance to him that just doesn’t work for me somehow. Very much get the feeling that he is talking down to everyone, not exactly endearing or high on the relatable scale.

I completely agree. There’s something about him that makes me feel very uncomfortable. I’ve never understood why public opinion considered him the most suitable candidate for prime minister.

SeigiToday  09:33 am JST

I am not surprised. 1970s and 1980s or even 1990s and remnants of early 2000s would worship anyone who was blonde and blue-eyed.

You must be confusing him with another actor. Delon's hair was dark brown!

06:58 pm JST

The plutocracy at work in this country yet again. Privatisation has been a failure everywhere else it's been done. What could possibly go wrong!

Do you think the privatization of JR was a failure? Everyone recognizes that the Japanese train system is probably the best in the world.

On the other hand, take a public company like SNCF in France. It is a disaster, with 20% of trains being late and very frequent strikes, especially during school holidays when people want to travel!

Probably the most well-known French person in Japan of all time, along with Napoleon.

The company may not use it in a systematic way but at an individual level I think (hope) that many employees use generative tools like Chat GPT in their daily work to generate email, correcting mistakes in a text , improving style, summarizing text, translation …etc. No need for any expertise for that.

@Sakurasuki

 Last year Japanese GDP only 1.9%, because it already counts all twelve months.

Regarding last year a growth of 1.9% is not bad at all considering that the population declined by 0.58% (700 000).

Damage was done progressively over the last 3 decades and in term of GDP per capita according to the IMF Japan is now ranking 34, the lowest of the G7 and much lower than the average. Of course a lot of it is due to the super weak JPY but not only.

@JeffLee

Many need to spend a few seconds thinking before pressing the “sell” button.

A lot of the fall was due to algorithms trading which explains the strong rebound. Not much thinking behind it. Quite similar to the black Monday of 1987.

@Agent Neo

> What are the people who keep making a fuss that Japan is in danger of defaulting on this thinking?

Sure not a default stricto sensu, as the BOJ can print money indefinitely, but rather an indirect one through high inflation eroding the value of the debt. What just happened with the BOJ having to backpedal immediately after the dramatic market reaction to a tiny 0.15% rate increase shows that the BOJ may not be able to do what it would like to do, making this possibility a real concern.

tigerjaneToday  05:08 pm JST

Wait a minute???? They can give civil servants a raise, however, they cannot raise the minimum wage for the rest of Japan are the minimum pay earners not as deserving too??????

Not true the minimum wage was just raised by 5% from 1004 to 1054 JPY.

But of course this amount remains ridiculously low.

HiroToday  11:58 am JST

Stock is just gambling. It goes up and goes down depending on how the stockholders react by selling or buying. At this point if the rich elite want to crash it, they can do it anytime they want and if they want to make a big killing, they can also do it. This is a game made for those who can afford to play it. If you don't have the cash to play, then don't participate.

All the recent panic selling is just a huge boom for the rich to buy bulk of the cheap stock back after they had sold it for a high price long time ago. And the cycle will repeat again once they fatten you up. 

This market crash was already foreseen for 2-3 years now and it boggles my mind that people still act surprise when they get burn. In fact i wouldn't be surprise if a few intentionally hype up the selling to create a panic selling.

Yes short term trading is a type of gambling.

But it is totally different in the long term where companies’ stock prices reflect fundamentals, moving along with corporate profits. The Nikkei is up 12% today, erasing yesterday’s loss, and nobody knows where it will be in a couple of months—maybe reaching new highs. In 1987, the Dow Jones crashed by 22% in a single day. Just a few days later, the loss had been totally erased, and a few months later, the market was again reaching new highs. Nobody knows what will happen.

JeffLeeToday  08:22 am JST

Periodic downturns, or corrections, are actually healthy in the long run for financial markets, otherwise prices would rise to bubble territory. US stocks had been overbought this year. Time for a shakeout. And we in Japan will probably be ending up with a stronger yen as a result of all this.

Good riddance to the carry trade. Let’s get back to fundamentals.

Exactly. Not to mention that the S&P 500 is still up 9.3% YTD and + 77% over the past 5 years.

JeffLeeToday  05:14 pm JS

What planet to do you live on? Only about 5% of my NISA holdings are yen-based. Both my NISA and IDECO, which are highly diversified, are flying high despite today's NIkkei's meltdown

I do not know if you are a JPY-based investor (measuring the performance of your portfolio in JPY), but if you are, the performance of your portfolio of global assets is probably not better than an investment 100% in Japanese stocks considering the 14% fall of the USD/JPY (and basically same for other currencies) and the fact that foreign stock markets are also down, though not as much as Japanese stocks so far. I think we all saw a sharp fall in our portfolios regardless of our asset allocation over the past couple of weeks. There was no place to hide except JGB and JPY cash.

Of course it may not matter or be good for you if you are in the accumulating phase and have a long-term view, which you certainly have.

diagonalslipToday  07:21 am JST

how did kids survive when the buildings were new(er) and pre- aircon I wonder....

Ask any Japanese above 50 years old, and they will tell you that when they were kids, summer days with temperatures above 30°C were rare. Now, it is days with temperatures below 30°C that are rare.

In my message above I wanted to write « My impression is that BertieWooster » not « My impression is that Mr Kipling »

4( +0 / -4 )

Mr KiplingToday  07:15 pm JST

Buying and selling stocks and shares is gambling. Anyone playing with this is going to get their fingers burned eventually.

Really?

The Nikkei is still up about 12% this year.

Long term nothing beats low cost index stocks.

My impression is that Mr Kippling talks about short term trading trying to time the market getting in and out but believes like you and all experienced investors that nothing beats buying and holding of low-cost index funds.

リッチ

From 161 2 weeks ago to 150 today lord who needs to work anymore.

Why did you not recommend us this beautiful trade 3 weeks ago!

Actually there was an even better trade buying the USD JPY the day of its low at 75 and selling it at its peak of 161.2! That was an easy one!

@burgers and beersToday  02:23 pm JST

The action you take when you don't want to take action....

Yeah, BOJ really preferred not to do anything and sit on its hands as usual until Motegi strong jawed them into action by his public statement last week. LDP is freaked out by those dismal approval ratings.

Indeed. Central banks are supposed to be independent. But in Japan Abe said the BOJ was « a subsidiary of the government »!

wallaceToday  07:57 pm JST

Billionaires currently pay the equivalent of 0.3% of their wealth in taxes.

Less than their secretaries pay.

This 0.3 % is a tax on assets not on income. Depends of countries but the minimum assets to start to pay here is around 2 Mio USD. Their secretaries are very unlikely to have these type of assets so they pay 0%.

kohakuebisuToday  09:50 am JST

Japanese economy is as weak as it’s ever been

Wages are going up, real estate in an increasing number of places now is going up, there are cranes everywhere, it's hard to get a plumber or a carpenter, you have to wait over a year to get a new Jiminy or Land Cruiser, something something inbound tourism, but the economy is as bad its ever been.

Consumption, which accounts for 70% of GDP, has been declining for several months. The government's growth forecast (always an overestimate of course) for this year is 0.8%, while the Bank of Japan's forecast is 0.5%. I would not call this a strong economy.

JeffLeeToday  07:20 am JST

Well, that blows apart the countless posts on JT claiming that the stock gains are only benefiting a tiny minority. 

Actually we are all stockholders, at least indirectly. The biggest investors are pension funds. And Japan's fund, which collects surplus revenue from the state pension system (yes, folks, the nenkin system is in surplus) is the 2nd biggest money pool in the world.

No wonder it is in surplus with an average pension of 150,000 JPY! Many people line with less than 100,000 This is by far the lowest in the G7 countries.

Many Japanese pensioner live in misery and it gets worst and worst as pensions have increased much less than inflation (whereas in most of countries there is an indexation mechanism ).

Didn’t you notice the surge of people in their seventies and even eighties working these days. The increase compare to 5 years ago is very obvious.

umbrellaToday  10:04 pm JST

The stock market is nothing but a gambling center which totally has nothing to do with the very poor real economy. It's nothing but a bubble which soon will crash as all bubbles do.

But in the meantime we are all making big gains with our stock holdings. Just a matter of timing to get out before the coming crash.

Not entirely true. Many companies are making record profits, and valuations are not crazy.

Even if it is a bubble, they can last for a long time before bursting. In 1996, the president of the Fed talked about irrational exuberance in the stock market, meaning he considered it a bubble. The market then skyrocketed for the next four years. But you are right, it ended up in tears with the dot-com crash.

TokyoLivingToday  08:02 am JST

Why Japan??, Could he have gone to the nearest country and asked for asylum??..

Great majority people travel to Japan from the other side of the world with false asylum applications..

This may not be the exception..

Considering the very low number of people granted asylum status in Japan I am not too sure that it is the most efficient way to get in Japan.

Actually legal immigration is wide opened these days so why would they need fake applications?

JeffLeeToday  09:06 am JST

@Dango bong

Japan’s household financial assets are at a all-time high, while investing in the Nikkei and other share indexes as never been easier or cheaper, with plenty of tax protection. If those families decided to keep their savings in cash or life insurance rather than investing it, then it’s their fault they’re not 

Indeed. What is lacking is lack of education about investment. And also the generation that was burned with the burst of the the bubble will never invest anymore. Sad for them as their are the ones sitting on the most cash that will be eaten away by inflation.

WoodyLeeToday  07:33 am JST

""163-165yen incoming.""

I can't remember where I read it, but experts believe that the yen will trade around 230 by the end of the century.

-11( +3 / -14 )

Talk to an expert (market economist) over a couple of beers, and he will confess that he really doesn’t have a clue where the USD/JPY exchange rate or any other economic data will go.

They make a comfortable living convincing others that they know, while in reality, they are just as clueless as you, me and anybody else on planet earth!

Analysis of results shows that it is unlikely that any of the three blocks can achieve an absolute majority, so it is going to be chaotic. 

Don't be fooled by the RN. They made various demagogic promises and are already retracting most of them, knowing it would be totally impossible to implement them. Here are a few examples among many:

Lowering the retirement age from 64 to 60 (makes no sense as the country is aging like others).

No income tax for those under 30.

Blocking prices of daily goods (like in a communist country).

Their leader, Bardella, is 28 years old and has no political experience. He didn't attend college, which is evident in debates where he lacks technical knowledge. He seems more like a product launched on TikTok, primarily due to his good looks. While I don't deny that he has some talent, he is simply too young and inexperienced for the job of prime minister which is a really tough one.

YankeeXToday  06:08 pm JST

The delusion that debt doesn't matter because it's domestically is coming home to roost. Sadly, nothing will change until it's too late.

Exactly. it's a good lesson for the believers in Modern Monetary Theory.

proxyToday  10:31 pm JST

Kanda Masato has been fired. It is so bad that a bureaucrat has been fired. When has a bureaucrat, any bureaucrat been fired in Japan? Kanda was the person who was responsible for Japan's interventions in the foreign exchange market is a huge move. 

IMO, it means Japan will now aggressively try to manipulate the yen higher but at the end of the day will be forced to throw in the towel as nobody can fight the tide coming in.

The fact that Kanda was fired is very concerning. He is a scapegoat. The responsibility for the current mess lies with the politicians and Kuroda and just replacing a bureaucrat will change absolutely nothing or probably make things worst as you say.