business

BOJ price goal a tall order, but Japan Inc not interested in more easing

9 Comments
By Tetsushi Kajimoto

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9 Comments
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But of course, it wasn't business that craves 2% inflation to cut the value of people's savings, it was the ivory tower economists and central government spending addicts' idea.

Deflation - where consumers believe declining prices are here to stay, restraining their spending

... cue outrage from astute Japan Today commenters. 

I must say, I was disappointed to see this claptrap from a Thomson Reuters article. AFP yes.

middle-class population worried about pensions hinders any exit

This is the true reality. People are worried about their future. And the government has enacted no reforms that will guarantee certainty for anyone, elderly, middle-aged, or young.

it's impossible as long as people are satisfied materially."

The key is to not make more TVs, but to make new innovative products. That's how you might stimulate additional demand.

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Thanks fxgai for your comments! I always look for your comments on financial matters!

With 40% of the workers on rubbish part time and contract positions, there' s no hope ever for any sort of recovery of the Japanese economy. These people don't spend.

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But they do spend. They spend all of their low wages on smartphones, cell phone provider costs and convenience store food.

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Can't escape deflation unless stoke consumption. With no pay raise and greying population it's an impossible task. Don't they understand they need more people spending money and paying into the system? Open up immigration. It'll be interesting to see where Germany and Canada( and other countries that took in a lot of immigrants) will be economically in 10 years time.

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If Japanese employers didn't spend 2 decades of routinely cutting wages and bonuses, we wouldn't have this deflation in the first place.

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Can't escape deflation unless stoke consumption.

I think very few residents of Japan stay awake at night worrying about the devastating impact that ever-so-gradually decreasing prices have on their lives.

The most practical way for Japan to stoke consumption is through improving incentives for the production of new, innovative products that consumers may like to purchase.

If Japanese employers didn't spend 2 decades of routinely cutting wages and bonuses, we wouldn't have this deflation in the first place. 

Not sure that statement stand up to careful scrutiny, but here's a good one for you, JeffLee!

http://bruegel.org/2016/04/japan-needs-labour-market-reform-not-just-higher-wages/

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@fxgai

Not sure that statement stand up to careful scrutiny....

Yeah, it does because it's an irrefutable fact. Bonus cuts were de rigeur after the financial crash in Japan until a few years ago.

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So show that wages were cut routinely for 2 decades, if you are going to claim it.

Japan's aging workforce has shrunk by about 10 million people over the past 2 decades. Lots of old well-paid workers have left the workforce. They didn't have their pay cut.

In the meantime a lot of the extra workers who have entered the workforce are women working part-time, and because of structural problems in Japan that ought to be reformed, they have incentives to not earn too much. They haven't had their pay cut.

Look for the true problems JeffLee! Blaming wage payers for everything is wrong!

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So show that wages were cut routinely for 2 decades, if you are going to claim it.

It's always odd, how the onus is always on me to provide empirical evidence that soundly proves my arguments, while you never feel the need to support your fantastical ideology.

Here you are. "Pay down below 1990 levels"

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-15/japans-economic-disaster-real-wages-lowest-1990-record-numbers-describe-hard-living-

Yet again, the numbers are on my side. sigh.

Blaming wage payers for everything is wrong!

Those "wage payers" are earning the highest profits in history....while refusing to give workers wages and imposing harsher, er, sorry "flexible," working conditions

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