Rakuraku comments

Unfortunately the % would probably be quite similar for salarymen because of the work culture.

While Japan's inflation accelerated at a much slower pace than in the United States and Europe, its peak of 4.2 percent was a four-decade high, caused by surging fuel and raw material costs amid Russia's war against Ukraine.

And of course, it has nothing to do with the weak JPY engineered by the central bank...

@Jonhatan

120 knife attacks per day, and mostly by the same profile as this criminal’yes

Yes several cases but to say that there are 120 case knife attacks per day most of them with this kind of profile is extravagant. Even Le Pen does not give this type of number even though she would have all reasons to do it. This type of attack make big big noise in France and if you read the French press you will see it is not everyday.

MeiyouwentiToday  08:17 am JST

This seems to be something wrong with police and immigration officers in Aichi prefecture, though part of my sympathy goes to the eight police officers under investigation. Imagine having to deal with a violent criminal suspect who refuses to eat. Their superiors should have checked on the detained man’s condition and sent him to hospital.

The guy is a schizophrenic and they suddenly stop his medication. No wonder he gets violent as a result of very strong medicine withdrawal.

I am using their unlimited plan which at JPY 2800 per month is great value for me apparently not for them!

RedemptionToday  03:27 pm JST

To be brutally honest, inflation is in the government’s interest as it reduces the value of its current debt and increases tax revenue from sales and wage taxes. It is a stealth tax transferring your income and buying power to the government.

Yes I think they want to have a 4 % to 5 % inflation rate even though they pretend to target 2 %. Inflating away the massive public debt is the only way to pay it back. Inflation has been above 2 % target for 17 month and the BOJ forecast it will remain above 2 % for the next 2 years. So obviously they do not care about the target.

These pancreatic cancers are the worst. In the some cases one day your are diagnosed and 3 weeks later this is the end.RIP.

As long as Japanese consider that presence is more important than productivity it will not improve.

Having say that they hardly take more vacation in the US. The masters of paid leave are the Europeans!

TokyoOldManToday  06:35 am JST

Interesting article , though how does one get diagnosed as such ? Which institutions offer such an investigation ?

There's a lot of quackery within Tokyo (and presumably elsewhere within Japan) ... something, I have had experience with; all are money grabbing "fake-artists" offering falsehoods of hope, but delivering nothing, And as an unregulated Industry, its going to get worse here.

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Psychiatrist who can be consulted using normal health insurance are the one that can diagnose these type of disorders and recommend treatments (both drugs and non drug treatments ).

piskianToday  11:38 am JST

Have kids,then your own problems will magically disappear.

For people with ADHD (like what is described in this article) having kids will probably make it worst because these people have trouble juggling with many tasks. The solution is treatment of what is a brain disorder (physiological problem).

Peter14Today  11:38 am JST

No matter what governments do, from Japan to Jordan, from the US to Uzbekistan, there are always groups who loudly condemn everything. Dont spend more money defending our country, the people need help. So when they spend money to help people, another group pops up and says, yeah throw money at those struggling financially, cause that wont solve the problems at all. Damned when they do and damned when they dont.

No government has all the answers, not Despotic, Authoritarian, Democratic or Monarchy. At least JGov are doing something to try and help which is better than those countries that do absolutely nothing to try to assist struggling people and families.

Runaway inflation has really only been an issue across the globe since Covid. Before that it was isolated nations run poorly that had this issue long term.

This is not a Japanese government alone issue. Credit where it is due, they try. Help out with your suggestions by writing to your local member of government. I have done that a couple of times in my country, and you always get a reply, sometimes fast and other times slowly but they read it and respond. 

If you do nothing but complain then your not helping yourself or anyone else.

It is not a problem about complaining about the government doing something but about recognizing that the main cause of inflation in Japan currently is the weak JPY. The key actor to address this problem is the BOJ not the government.

EastmanToday  09:16 am JST

so what are news about japanese debt?

crucial info.how much per head now,how and when will be paid?

10,000,000 JPY per head!

In history the way to repay such a big debt (2 nd in the world after Venezuela) has usually been to inflate it away.

I always wondered who rent the flats, offices of these luxury real estate complexes. The offer is increasing all the time. It is not like the economy was permanently booming.

What is sure is that all these complexes look the same turning what was a very interesting city in a much more boring one.

Similarly the price of Japan rail pass was increased by 70%.! Just the law of demand offer.

problem is that drugs have side effect. There was such a drug in France a few years ago and here was the result:

« Servier hit with $3.1m fine over the sale of Mediator, a weight-loss drug linked to hundreds of deaths. A French drugmaker has been found guilty of manslaughter and deception over a weight-loss pill which was on the market for 33 years and blamed for hundreds of deaths.Mar 29, 2021 »

Nice but it is not only due to fundamentals but also to the BOJ supporting the market each time it is significantly down. It now holds 8% of total Japan stock market cap which is a lot making it the first shareholder of major Japanese companies.

dagonToday  08:39 am JST

Generational tensions flare as Japan faces economic reality of aging baby boomers

Read that these boomers with their pensions and well-hoarded savings accounts are sitting on some of the largest accumulations of capital in the world. 

And are being eyed by vulture capital private equity for extractionpension in Japan are the lowest of the G7 countries.

Well I am not to sure, it all depends.

People who worked for large companies do well thanks to nice corporate pension plans.

For the other ones public pension are the lowest in the G7.

Those who have saving they have been receiving 0% interest rate for the last 20 years. Right now with a 3.5 % inflation rate they see their savings destroyed.

For those who invested this is another story but most of them did not because they were burnt during the bubble burst.

if you want to see wealthy pensioners go to Europe. It is another planet

JeffLeeToday  08:40 am JST

Just got back from two days in Daigo, Ibaraki, and didn't seen a single Western tourist the entire time. The only non-Japanese we saw were a Thai couple at our hotel. Similar story during previous recent journeys in Minakami and Nasu.

It's still easy to avoid the hordes. The vast majority seem to go to a very limited number of places. It also helps if you drive a car or motorbike.

Indeed . If you go to the big tourist offices in Tokyo, there are nice brochures made by each prefecture to try to attract foreign tourists in their area but unfortunately it does not work at all.

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factcheckerToday  07:12 am JST

Asakusa is rammed every day with foreigners. It's not a pleasant experience going near that temple any more. Imagine how bad it's going to be next spring.

Yet with all these buffoons the yen is still tanking and the economy is going into reverse again.

I recommend going there at night. Very few people and it is illuminated until 11 pm. Incredibly beautiful.

toraToday  05:09 pm JST

Even with near record tourism.....

But it's inevitable, really. The ageing population will lead to a reduction in consumption, which is the main driver of the economy.

100% agree. This is the whole problem of the Japanese economy (and Japan is just a pioneer, many developed countries will face the same issue in the coming years).

And it can not be addressed by permanently loose fiscal and monetary policy which just boost economies temporarily with a lot of side effect.

And of course the BOJ will say.: the economy is too weak to change anything. So we will have more weakening of the JPY, more inflation, lower real income, lower private consumption and the economy will get even worst! And the BOJ will say the economy is to weak to change anything…

if only Einstein could come back and tell them “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different result”

JeffLeeToday  09:14 am JST

it now has to pay 1% on its 10 years debt.

Who does it pay that money to?

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Half to the BOJ but the other half to domestic investors (insurance companies, post…) and 5% to foreign investors. Of course you could have the BOJ buying the whole stock of debt and all new issues but I am not sure it will end up well. Or at least I do not know of an ex in economic history of a country that fully monetized its debt with a happy ending.

Japan is on the way to become the most indebted country in the world in term of debt to GDP ratio after Venezuela… (currently number 2).

Until now Japan managed to muddle through because it was paying 0% interest on its debt but these times are over as it now has to pay 1% on its 10 years debt.

There is not a single case in economic history where a country could escape such a debt spiral without great hardship for its citizens.

@ William

It works a lot perhaps but not very effectively since Japan has one of the lowest productivity rates in the OECD.

indeed this is one of the biggest problem of Japan. I just look at the data and read that Japan ranks 25 th in the world when it comes to productivity.

it is 42% lower than US and 40 %lower than Germany.

This is at the expenses of their personal and family life.

BOJ please stop this stupid strategy of trying to create inflation at all cost hoping that company will increase wages more than inflation. We have a very clear proof with today figures that is does not happen.

Why is the BOJ is si stubborned I even though this strategy has proved to be a failure for 18 months

In a word where companies do not increase wage keeping price stable is better than voluntary creating inflation.

hakuebisuToday  08:45 am JST

An analyst from Deutsche Bank send a report to customers yesterday saying « The Japanese yen's underlying forces are so weak the currency is in the 'same league' as the Argentine peso and Turkish lira »

I'm not a trader, but shorting Japanese government bonds in expectation of the yen or government's collapse is apparently known as the "widowmaker trade". Something hundreds have lost money trying to do over the past twenty or thirty years.

Japan owes the debt to itself and has vast USD reserves, more than anyone else including the Chinese. Neither of these factors applies to Argentina or Turkey.

What you say was absolutely true until very recently but I think we are at a turning point. Permanent increase of the public was fine when government yield were caped at 0 % and there was zero inflation . With yield at 1% and rising it is a very different story.

As for foreign exchange reserves to defend the JPY there are large but not unlimited. In addition analyst usually say that it would be risky to use more than 10% to 20%. So it is not that much.

I hope we will avoid a very serious crisis but in the best of case we will have a prolonged period of strong stagflation.

And yes the comparaison to the Turkish lira or Argentina pesos is exaggerated and use to generate commissions from their customers by selling them something but the dynamic is similar.

Instead of shoring up the economy he is putting it into a deeper hole everyday.

Japan has the largest public debt to GDP ratio in the world after Venezuela. Except massive tax hikes in the coming years either directly or indirectly through high or very high inflation.

An analyst from Deutsche Bank send a report to customers yesterday saying « The Japanese yen's underlying forces are so weak the currency is in the 'same league' as the Argentine peso and Turkish lira »

I think a bit exaggerated at this stage but may well be on the way.

factcheckerToday  10:07 pm JST

Not one word about dealing with the root cause (typically Japanese), i.e. the absurdly low-interest rates driving down the value of the Yen.

Exactly. According to the BOJ own forecast released last Friday, inflation will have been above its 2 % target during 36 months but they still keep minus interest rate. Insane.

Didn’t he notice that government bond yield are now rising quite quickly with the 10 years bond yield reaching already nearly 1 %. Financing debt at zero % is over. Printing more money by the BOJ to control rates will just lead to weaker JPY and higher inflation.

So the government sooner or later will have to raise taxes to finance the interest rate on the debt or try to control interest rate and see the JPY collapse and inflation rise sharply.

The time of kicking the can down the road is over.

This park is a huge success. Tickets are put on sale once a month online and are sold out within minutes. Ticket price is 2500 JPY. They could raise it to JPY 10,000 and it will still be full. Amazing!

JeffLee

Kuroda created a total mess 

Lowest borrowing costs around, low inflation, record-high corporate profits, 2.5 percent jobless rates, a stock market that became the darling of global investors. Yeah, if you say so.

Without Kuroda, Japan would never have been able to borrow to the extent that it did, leading it to become the second most indebted country in the world in terms of debt to GDP, just after Venezuela.

Do you have any suggestions on how Japan can escape the deep debt trap it finds itself in without either plunging into a severe depression or facing high inflation? I can't envision any feasible solutions.

Under Kuroda's leadership, Japan simply bought time by deferring crucial structural reforms and keeping zombie companies afloat, among other issues.