Japan Pensions: Where is the Incentive?

It seems that, little by little, the world is waking up to the importance of all this. Last week it was the Italian Minister of the Interior, this week it is the director of economic policy in Japan's cabinet office. When I started blogging about this, just over a year ago, it was much harder to get a hearing. This change is positive. OTOH too many people

Row Over Resona Bailout

This is obviously part of the backdrop to the election campaign, and it is always hard to judge the significance of things in this context. But Resona is interesting, since it is a strange case, and it could give us some clues as to the real determination for serious reform in Japan. On the face of it, not encouraging.The Democratic Party of Japan, the country's main

Japan Still On the Deflation Trail

Japan economy minister Takenaka tells us Japan will triumph over deflation. Just one last question: how? No, this isn't fair, he does offer some pointers. But it still remains to be seen what these actually mean in practice......Heizo Takenaka, Japan's economy minister, said on Thursday that the country could overcome its persistent deflation because the

Japan: Conflicting Signals?


Along with the renewed pressure from the Bank of Japan against the rise of the yen, here is one more small piece of evidence that all may not be as well as the markets imagine:Machinery orders placed by Japanese companies fell by a bigger-than-expected margin in August, according to official figures released on Wednesday, indicating an uncertain outlook for capital

Japan: Thrice Fooled?

Why do you blog. Sometimes for the simple comfort of knowing you are not alone. This time the case in point is Japan. I can't remember when I last saw anyone come out and say it straight as Richard Katz is doing here. His reasoning is fairly sound, the NPL problem is still there, structural reform has not gone as far as some claim, and the banking situation only seems

The Future of Japanese Savings


Well here's Eddie right on call with this week's Straits Times column, giving details on those Japan unemployment numbers, and some interesting and preoccupying background on Japanese saving: More and more Japanese are dipping into their savings to make ends meet, according to a survey by the Bank of Japan. A record 51 per cent of Japan's households said their

The Japanese 'Recovery' in Question

Blogging has been intermittent, not to say non-existent these last few days as I have been away on fieldwork. The world, however, has not stood still in my absence, and I have the feeling that some of the US data yesterday could turn out to be quitre significant. Certainly it seems that some of the underlying questions about where the principal OECD economies

The Economist and Japan's 'Dysflation'


I've been pretty quiet on Japan recently. This is because I think we need to wait and see what kind of reality there is behind the optimistic projections - and share prices - that we have been seeing recently. I don't think the problem, has gone away by any means. At best we are on the upswing of what remains of the business cycle in Japan. The economist