Japan, Japan, Wherefore Art Thou?

Hi everyone. Just to say that I have been a bit erratic recently since I have had a lot of work on my plate, and a lot of concentration to be doing. I hope sometime soon I will have some results from this to show here.Meanwhile the Japanese economy has been far from idle. Japans labour market continues to tighten:The closely watched jobs-to-applicants ratio rose to 1.00 in December - meaning

Tokyo Stock Exchange Temporarily Closed

Gosh, I certainly hope this isn't anything too serious:Japanese stocks plunged on Wednesday after the Tokyo Stock Exchange announced that it would suspend trading of all stocks because volumes were too high. The news panicked investors, who had already sent the Nikkei down heavily in the wake of Monday evening’s government raid on Livedoor, the internet services company, over possible violation

Japan: The Third Way?

As its population ages, Japan should carve out a middle way between the social security systems of Scandinavia and that of the US, this at least is the opinion of finance minister Sadakazu Tanigaki, one of several contenders to replace Junichiro Koizumi as prime minister.At the moment, benefits and tax payments were out of kilter ..“Japanese people are enjoying excessive benefits with a low [tax

This Seems To Be Important

The Japanese finance ministry seems set to unveil plans to cut new government bond issuance by more than 10 per cent - to below Y30,000bn ($258bn) - in the year to April 2007. The Financial Times has the story. They had better hope they are reading the situation aright, since if they aren't they are heading straight back into recession. This is what all the battle with the BOJ is about. 2007 is

Right Royal Row Over the BOJ

Things down at the Bank of Japan are hardly calm these days. On one version of events (see yesterdays Tankan) Japan is about - finally - to emerge from deflation, and the BoJ naturally enough wants to 'normalise' monetary policy. The politicians however are non-too clear about this:"Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic party will on Thursday urge the Bank of Japan to tie its monetary policy to

Japanese Third Quarter Growth

Well here it is, all coming home to daddy. The Japanese data I mean. Third quarter annual growth in Japan has just been revised down from 1.7 to 1%. This is coming home to daddy, since I continue to believe that - for demographic reasons - we will not see a self-sustaining Japanese recovery. Japan will continue to be dependent for growth on China, the US and Europe. Hence weaker than expected

Japan and the US Yield Curve

Understand why the US yield curve may be about to invert and you've understood a lot IMHO.Brad Setser picks up on the FTs Steve Johnson, and earlier here. Johnson makes one extremely revealing point:"The chief problem for the yen is that the flattening of the US yield curve has made it uneconomical for Japanese investors to hedge their ongoing purchases of US Treasuries, but a falling yen