business

Consumer prices fall for 5th straight month

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Japanese officials are under intense pressure to deliver, as many economists increasingly write off Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s faltering bid to fire up the world’s number three economy, dubbed Abenomics.

Under pressure? really? http://media.allday.com/hKdzLxFkFjn3tWn6EJHYFrOUA34=/0x0:4198x3148/1200x900/smart/etch-production.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/posts/1d/7b/00/1d7b000000000000.jpg?gid=162786905

Stimulus package upon stimulus package and no real plans on budget cuts etc. It's pretty amazing Japan is still worlds number 3.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

If the Uk economy is anything to go by maybe some austerity and debt cuts along with less wasted "stimulus" might be the ticket

1 ( +2 / -1 )

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun calls this 安値ミックス (Yasunemics) -- a play on words from Abenomics referring to falling consumer prices.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

Seasonal veg and fruits selling at unreasonably high prices...and complaining about falling prices? If they provide a list of items that they feel are selling cheaper...i will try find good buyers for Boj or Abenomics !

6 ( +7 / -1 )

Seasonal veg and fruits selling at unreasonably high prices...and complaining about falling prices?

Bingo. This .5% drop does not include fresh food.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

The Bank of Japan disappointed markets at its late July meeting when it opted to leave its..annual bond-buying programme...unchanged.

This article fails to mention that at its July meeting the BOJ increased its annual purchases of stocks (via ETFs) to 6 trillion yen, from 3.3 trillion yen previously. So I wouldn't say it disappointed markets, given that its equities purchases are falsely inflating stock prices, particularly those of the 255 companies that make up the Nikkei average.

The BOJ is now the only central bank in the world that buys stocks, and is posed to become the biggest buyer of stocks on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

I'm no expert, but "stimulus" just sounds like the artificial propping up of the stock market. If your economy is dependent on this, it's not sustainable, and you're distorting the principles of the market itself. Just let it shrink to more natural levels, which the market will dictate.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Skint, flat broke that's me. How do you expect me to spend?

6 ( +6 / -0 )

People,

Please remember that this is also after the BOJ and Japanese government changed the components of the indices in 2015, so that the inflation figures would look stronger.

If they had kept with the original components, before the 2015 change, the deflation figures would be in or around 1%.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

The helicopters are coming , I can hear them in the distance, loaded with freshly printed cash from Kuroda, please drop the first load on my house so I can run to the shops and get things before prices skyrocket.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

It's kinda disturbing how the world turns on these invented numbers, from Japanese company profits (proven over and over to be fixable or whatever the company thinks it can get away with distributing to shareholders) through inflation figures that are widely known to be massaged one way or another and don't seem to include butter or shrinking carton sizes to growth (which is provisional when first released and will be revised several times).

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Yeah, veg prices are out of control. It's like midwinter prices in midsummer. And this is in Hokkaido, Japan's breadbasket.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

descendent: "I'm no expert, but "stimulus" just sounds like the artificial propping up of the stock market. If your economy is dependent on this, it's not sustainable, and you're distorting the principles of the market itself. Just let it shrink to more natural levels, which the market will dictate."

Where do you draw the line between artificial and natural? Currency itself is an artificial item used to prop up entire economies. I get the feeling that you see "principles of the market and the invisible hand" as intangible things, much like god and having faith in his plans.

As you say yourself, the market IS dictating how things are going according to market principles - namely by supply and demand. Furthermore, ALL money in circulation is an artificial creation that was supplied by either the government or the central bank. So then why would you think that the amount of cash currently in circulation is natural while any further addition of supply is artificial?

Situation where an economy's demand for currency surpasses its supply exists just as legitimately as situations where the opposite is the case. Adjusting the money supply to optimize is only as artificial as the introduction of the use of currency itself.

You acknowledging that you're not an expert, but from there on you go full assertion mode.

-4 ( +1 / -5 )

I always find here in Kansai that veg prices are cheaper in winter since there are more imported ones. When Japanese produce comes on stream in spring the price of everything goes up, even the very same imported ones that a week before were much cheaper.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Japanese inflation continued to disappoint in July

The 0.5% decline in July was worse than the 0.4% average fall expected by economists.

Once again we see not even a pretense of objectivity from the article writer, who takes the side of Abe/Kuroda/the BOJ, instead of the 127 million Japanese consumers whose savings are being diluted, from the very first sentence.

That's almost as dispiriting as the continued rise in prices at the supermarket, which the government and their media pretend isn't happening.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

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