Gov't eyes at least Y10 tril yen in public works by end of September

Use some of this money to build a coast guard station on Senkaku Islands.

Fat lot of good that'll do. The companies that get the public works contracts will just hoard the cash.

Public works timely for aging infra safety and efficiency

Replace all the concrete and dirt in public spaces with grass and big un-pruned trees to offset the summer heat and to make this country a more pleasant place.

The increase in the tax was merely an excuse to further increase spending. If the government truly believes that taxes hamper economic growth (and they apparently do, hence the predictions of a downturn), then they should be cutting taxes and spending, not raising both. But it is through government spending that politicians buy votes, and get campaign contributions, so there was never any chance they would try to spend less.

set a target of spending at least 10 trillion yen by the end of September

This is just daft.

The only reason they are doing this is to temporarily boost the GDP numbers, so they can then "justify" the next 2% hike in consumption tax to 10%.

But this spending on public works does nothing for Japan's future, its money being allocated inefficiently. Once they build these useless public projects those then need to be maintained, which costs further money still. It's a black hole.

There are also worries that labor shortages will make it difficult to spend the public works budget as quickly as the government hopes.

And this is a good reason for them to cancel this insane waste of money. At the same time you've got loads of young mothers out there who can't get day care for their kids so they can't take jobs, thus depressing income tax revenues below potential.

The government would do better to take a longer term view and spend the money on boosting salaries for day care workers. This would surely have a more lasting impact, and guess what - it'd be popular with the younger generation, who are the future of this greying, aging country.

A better option still would be to CUT the size of government and REDUCE the burdensome regulatory restrictions, and let the people deal with it.

Replace all the concrete and dirt in public spaces with grass and big un-pruned trees to offset the summer heat and to make this country a more pleasant place.

Nice idea. What they'll probably do instead, though, is dig up the old concrete and replace it with brand new shiny concrete. Or they might dig some holes in the ground, move the piles of earth around a few times and then fill the holes in again. The important point is that all these people are seen to be doing something to justify spending so much money on them. Looking busy is all that matters.

What happened to the spirit of kaizen (self-improvement) and damedashi (getting rid of bad things)? In other words, why doesn't anyone say, "tried that, didn't work"!? Does Abe really believe that yet more concrete is just what 'beautiful' Japan needs? Or are there violent groups, who make their money by 'policing' public works cartels, with their hands around the politicians' necks?

Bring on the only budget cutting politician, Hashimoto.

marcelito,

Well that's just it, isn't it, vested interests... I have a sudden idea to buy a construction sector ETC, and at least try to get myself a cut of this action...

timtak, I'm with you, bring on Hashimoto. I'm convinced he's the best of a bad lot, for sure he doesn't have all the baggage attached that comes with the LDP, and his party has a far more consistent platform than the DPJ who are just a collection of all the losers. Of course he isn't perfect. He'd be a foreign policy disaster, and for some unknown reason he let Antonio Inoki into his party too. WTF was that! Ishihara is also a foreign policy disaster and over the hill too, would like to see him gone.

But one day I do hope to see a Small Government (Ishin) versus Big Government (LDP) election, this is really needed to save Japan IMO.

Fxgai - I agree with you, but of course your ideas would take away all the pork from the construction companies run by govt amakudari buddies and yaks and give to the common folk instead... Surely we can't have that.

Of course not. Common folk can only provide votes, they're no good for whopping great big piles of election campaign cash, expensive lunches or lucrative post-Diet careers. And elections can be fiddled in various ways so that votes don't matter so much anyway.

More hood winking while the majority of the people suffer? For a population that is unquestioning and allowing Shinzo Abe to do his worst for the country they truly deserved it. Announcing big projects and values are nothing if the wealth is not spread out and quickly to the population. They need a flood of free money to be dished out in the streets not the tiny tricle that comes from large projects where the rich and wealthy continue to cream off all the fat.

More hood winking while the majority of the people suffer? For a population that is unquestioning and allowing Shinzo Abe to do his worst for the country they truly deserved it. Announcing big projects and values are nothing if the wealth is not spread out and quickly to the population. They need a flood of free money to be dished out in the streets not the tiny trickle that comes from large projects where the rich and wealthy continue to cream off all the fat.

More hood winking while the majority of the people suffer? For a population that is unquestioning and allowing Shinzo Abe to do his worst for the country they truly deserved it. Announcing big projects and values are nothing if the wealth is not spread out and quickly to the population. They need a flood of free money to be dished out in the streets not the tiny trickle that comes from large projects where the rich and wealthy continue to cream off all the fat.

Build more train lines in / around east Tokyo! Absolute joke! Check a map of Tokyo if you're not sure what I'm on about!

Keynesian braindead economics hard at work. Break windows to create economic "stimulus". Stupid, stupid, criminally stupid.

Annnnd we are back to what has been done the last 22 years (except median standard of living is down and national debt is bigger than ever).

Abe and his "nomics" policies. Sick jokes