{Economy} What is happening in Japan?

[Husires]

I haven't seen a thread analyzing what's happening in Japan, despite all the recent changes that have taken place.
I will try to update the topic with good links, and I hope you can help me with that:


Japan's debt to GDP ratio FAR exceeds any other country in the world (it was okay in a deflationary environment)

Inflation in Japan maintained the same level. Even after the Fukushima disaster, Japan stopped relying on nuclear energy and replaced it with fossil energy and liquefied natural gas, which did not cause inflation.

Can this go on forever? Could Japan be "a deflationary island on its own?"

"Borrow at Yen %, invest at USD %"

Now the question is, HOW BAD is japan's situation?

https://www.mof.go.jp/english/policy/budget/statistics/IMFSDDS/index.html

NARA, Japan, July 8 (Reuters) - Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan's longest-serving leader, died on Friday hours after he was shot while campaigning for a parliamentary election, shocking a country in which political violence is rare and guns are tightly controlled.

Many thanks and source @genesisvol twitter account

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[Hydrogen]

Russia's debt to GDP ratio is an interesting statistic cited there. I hope people can compare russia's debt numbers to other nations and comprehend what it means.

Over the past few decades, many prime ministers of japan have unexpectedly resigned. As if they didn't want to be involved in the political agendas taking place. That was one key indication of something not being right about japan's future direction.

Japanese automakers like toyota tried to share industry knowledge to help american automakers improve the quality of their products. When americans refused to improve their methods, even after being shown better methods of production. Japanese automakers seemed to reduce the quality of their own cars and trucks, so they would no longer be distinctly superior to american made automobiles. There were many red flags and indications of behind the scenes dealings going against what was in japan's own best interests.

Japan's military and defense were crippled by post world war II restrictions. Once japan became dependent on the USA and others for protection, it was all downhill from there. A slippery slope of debt and reduced standards.

[countryfree]

I guess you need to travel to Japan to understand this country which is unlike any other.
The good and bad thing about Japan is that the country has very strong foundations, and that the people are trustworthy.
It's incredibly difficult for African countries, Albania or Russia (before the sanctions) to get a loan from a foreign bank. Banks are afraid they will default, but the bank of Japan can print money without any fear that the society would collapse, or it can borrow whatever money it wants because everybody knows they will pay back. And that has become a real problem, because governments do not care enough about balancing the budget.

Your title is very good, and there's an easy answer: nothing's happening in Japan.

[Jatiluhung]

Prior to the corona virus and omicron pandemic, from an economic point of view, Japan was one of the most developed countries in the world. GDP (gross domestic product, i.e. the value of all goods and services produced in Japan in a year) is the second highest in the world, and Japanese brands such as Toyota, Sony, Fujifilm, and Panasonic are well known worldwide.

but after being hit by inflation and the omicron, Japan's GDP contracted by 1%. namely in the first quarter of 2022 experienced a contraction. The rate of inflation as well as the surge in cases of the Omicron variant of the Covid-19 variant, turned out to be pressing the economy of the country of the rising sun quite deeply.

but I was so impressed with the discipline of the Japanese people and their government that I thought Japan would be fine.

[Uang_kartal]

referring to the thread, I personally think that this country has the power and perspective in regulating its economy. Whether it's the printing of the value of the amount of money in circulation so that it has such an impact (inflation) so that the performance of state revenues, both import and export, gains their economy.
I don't think a developed country like Japan will just fall down to share natural resource rights for a cooperation agreement (debt impact).
I think that such debt is used by Japan for other projects (maybe outside of infrastructure or something to do with it)
I think if this is a strategy then Japan will be able to reverse the situation as before.
maybe the current news is horrendous, but we'll see how prepared Japan is with this condition.

[Darker45]

Russia's debt to GDP ratio is an interesting statistic cited there. I hope people can compare russia's debt numbers to other nations and comprehend what it means.

A country's Debt to GDP ratio might not be what it seem. Its numbers do not immediately suggest whether a country is economically strong or not, or whether a country is prone to default on its loans or not. This is not a straightforward data. In which case, we cannot jump right into the conclusion that since a country like Russia has 19% Debt to GDP ratio, it is economically doing better than the US which has 134%, or even than Japan which has 256%. This isn't like comparing two similar bananas.

Much of Japan's and the US' debts are domestic debts. These are loans borrowed from themselves. These aren't debts that are owed to China or whatever country.

In other words, these countries are not really buried in debts as if they are having a hard time. We have to take note that the US has the largest economy in the world. Japan has the second largest in Asia. Singapore is also a very rich country and has one of the highest GDP per capita. The same goes to Bahrain. But they all have more than 100% Debt to GDP ratio.

[Husires]

The Yen is already down -20% this year

The country imports products from abroad, so to keep the same prices unchanged, the country must continue burning reserves in the Forex market.

but the bank of Japan can print money without any fear that the society would collapse, or it can borrow whatever money it wants because everybody knows they will pay back. And that has become a real problem, because governments do not care enough about balancing the budget.

Assuming that this was true in the past, it is impossible for this statement to continue to be true in the future. If interest rates on the balance sheet are less than 4%, then tax revenues cannot account for those costs.

referring to the thread, I personally think that this country has the power and perspective in regulating its economy. Whether it's the printing of the value of the amount of money in circulation so that it has such an impact (inflation) so that the performance of state revenues, both import and export, gains their economy.

According to my information about Japan, the Central Bank was charged with increasing inflation to about 2% from negative rates. It even tried to give negative interest to attract Japanese people to spend. Now, inflation will increase for reasons beyond the control of the state, which leads to reverse deflation on the part of the Japanese, which may increase the matter either.

[davis196]

The Debt/GDP ratio of Japan has been known for decades. Did you recently find out about this info?
I'm not familiar with the structure of the Japanese debt, but it seems that there's no major problem with it, since there's no attention coming from the mainstream financial media. I assume that Japan has lots of domestic debt and domestic debt isn't such a big problem, compared to foreign debts. I also assume that the debt has a pretty long term repayment structure. Most of the payments are postponed for several decades.
The biggest problem of Japan is not the national debt. The biggest problem is the bad demographics: less young people and more old people. This will cause a drastic change in the Japanese economy and social security system in the upcoming decades.

[Pesona1]

I guess you need to travel to Japan to understand this country which is unlike any other.
The good and bad thing about Japan is that the country has very strong foundations, and that the people are trustworthy.
It's incredibly difficult for African countries, Albania or Russia (before the sanctions) to get a loan from a foreign bank. Banks are afraid they will default, but the bank of Japan can print money without any fear that the society would collapse, or it can borrow whatever money it wants because everybody knows they will pay back. And that has become a real problem, because governments do not care enough about balancing the budget.

Your title is very good, and there's an easy answer: nothing's happening in Japan.

Japan still looks pretty great at the moment as a developed country, but according to some statistics, Japan economy is currently in a deteriorating condition due to high inflation and also the impact of the increasing spread of the corona virus and omicron in the country, according from BBC News media even now Japan economic growth in the third quarter of 2021 contracted 3.6% and in the fourth quarter of 2021 it contracted 4.6%, right now food prices in Japan to rise by almost 20% due to the increasing trade deficit.

[so98nn]

Interesting. Japan does have that management and spark to maintaining the same over the period of time. Japan has advantage of small demographic and geographical area thus easy to maintain the finances or at least keep up with the worlds inflation in their own ecosystem. I am not sure how much these factors can affect but it’s important one when you run whole country and maintain the finances. Japan is also very advance country and are capable of emphasising modern era problems in shortest way possible. This helps in reduction of costs, easy to adapt solutions and more. Could be one of these things to help maintain Japan it’s GDP like that.

[stompix]

Can this go on forever? Could Japan be "a deflationary island on its own?"

Yes, it can go like this forever as there is nothing anyone can do about it.
You rise oil prices, people will travel less, you raise food prices people will go only after staple food, the thing is that you can't have any of these commodities rise up in price only in Japan for example at 300% without impacting in the rest of the world, and form here it will be only a matter of who blinks first.
Let's assume gas prices double from now and it forces even Japanese people to spend more of their budget, by the time that happens the demand destruction in other places where others can't afford this will bring prices back in check.

I've always said, Japan is the perfect example of a country that highly depends on imports of both food and energy that goes against every global trend because of its people, if they don't want to there is nothing you can do, simple as that.

Japan's debt to GDP ratio FAR exceeds any other country in the world (it was okay in a deflationary environment)

It all depends on who owns this debt.
I owe 20 000$ to a loan shark, I'm fucked.
I have a mortgage of $20 000 over 20 years at 100$ a month.
My business owes my parents business 5000$ for different products, is that a problem?
I owe 5000$ to a guy that owes me 6000$, we both have a debt of 11k$ which can be settled with $1k.

Same here, who has all that debt?
Another nice example was the European debt crisis, you know, that things that was supposed to destroy Europe and send it back to the zerohedge , stone age!



Remember those?   

Japan has advantage of small demographic and geographical area

Yeah, the 11th most populated country in the world.

Japan still looks pretty great at the moment as a developed country, but according to some statistics, Japan economy is currently in a deteriorating condition due to high inflation and also the impact of the increasing spread of the corona virus and omicron in the country, according from BBC News

In April, the benchmark measure for consumer prices rose 2.1%, enough that inflation this year is expected to finally hit the Bank of Japan's 2% target, after three decades of essentially no rise at all.

High inflation? Lol!

[justdimin]

The Debt/GDP ratio of Japan has been known for decades. Did you recently find out about this info?
I'm not familiar with the structure of the Japanese debt, but it seems that there's no major problem with it, since there's no attention coming from the mainstream financial media. I assume that Japan has lots of domestic debt and domestic debt isn't such a big problem, compared to foreign debts. I also assume that the debt has a pretty long term repayment structure. Most of the payments are postponed for several decades.
The biggest problem of Japan is not the national debt. The biggest problem is the bad demographics: less young people and more old people. This will cause a drastic change in the Japanese economy and social security system in the upcoming decades.

I think I read somewhere that it was about how much of it needs to be paid asap, and how much money they had. So, let's make some numbers up, let's say you have 200 dollars in debt that you have to pay, and you only make 20 bucks, but only 10 bucks of the 200 will be needed to pay today, what do you do?

You pay that 10, and have 190 left, and use the rest of the money you have to build something. That is why Japan might be doing fine, because even though they have big debt, due to inflation and many other aspects, the amount they have to pay asap is not that big deal for them. Many nations have that, USA has that as well, it is quite ordinary to have debt.

[edgycorner]

In my opinion, Japan's situation is not bad at all. In fact, it's downright enviable! It's amazing how they've been able to get away with this for so long.

They should be more concerned about their aging population and low fertility rate. With how the things are, they might have to import male sperm too in near future lol
But yea, debt is a problem too. But Japan has a very strong industrial base, and its economy is very export-oriented. This has helped Japan to weather the global recession fairly well. Japan's economy is also very efficient, with a very low level of unemployment. This is where the difference comes   A developing country would crumble and won't be able to invest in its future. A developed country like Japan can enjoy a bountiful present & future because of its industrious past.

[Gyfts]

Japan was suppose to be a super power. There was speculation in the 90's that they could use their economy to propel them as a world leader, but their economic growth stalled out, plus they couldn't keep a large military. Their economy will probably continue to slow with their debt/GDP being unsustainable in addition to their growing elderly population. They essentially don't have enough young workers to subsidize the older folks. That causes an economy to collapse extremely quickly despite what their debt might look like.

[STT]

BOJ were the originators of this whole QE yellow brick road we're on and they are the first to meet the Wizard.    Its worth a discussion of what we will find behind the curtain, it could shock the world to find QE is a load of baloney when it was supposedly genius.   Seems already obvious to me we're in a trash situation but until the mainstream consensus comes to this unfortunate conclusion we move in circles not progress towards any resolution.

[Husires]

In the past 5 years...  JGB volatility was stable like this

But move above occurred in 3 -days

Now the BOJ has NO CHOICE but to hold rates down.
Can investors afford 0% investments? with about 9% USA CPI inflation

Source and thanks @GenesisVol twitter account https://mobile.twitter.com/GenesisVol/status/1536962330570809344

[Husires]

It seems that the situation in Japan is beginning to take a very dangerous turn, as the media reported that the Japan ex-PM Abe assassinated while making election campaign speech

NARA, Japan, July 8 (Reuters) - Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan's longest-serving leader, died on Friday hours after he was shot while campaigning for a parliamentary election, shocking a country in which political violence is rare and guns are tightly controlled.
A man opened fire on Abe, 67, from behind with an apparently homemade gun as he spoke at a drab traffic island in the western city of Nara, Japanese media reported.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-ex-prime-minister-abe-may-have-been-shot-taken-hospital-nhk-2022-07-08/


I do not want to talk about political changes because the news is still interacting, but let's see the impact on the economic situation.

USD/JPY fell -0.06% to 135.9 as foreign exchange traders sought out the Japanese currency, following the news about Abe

“Since Abe is probably more well known overseas than Kishida, reaction in currency markets maybe be bigger when London trading starts,”

,

[virasisog]

Japan was suppose to be a super power. There was speculation in the 90's that they could use their economy to propel them as a world leader, but their economic growth stalled out, plus they couldn't keep a large military. Their economy will probably continue to slow with their debt/GDP being unsustainable in addition to their growing elderly population. They essentially don't have enough young workers to subsidize the older folks. That causes an economy to collapse extremely quickly despite what their debt might look like.

That's also their hiring foreigners for their manpower. Japan's economy is suffering right now and lots of aspects are affecting it including the number of their population. However, Japan is a strong country and they have been through lots of economic and political crises yet it still survived and recovered. Even other Asian countries are affected by the global economic crisis but I believe that Japan still has an edge when it comes to the recovery period.

[Haunebu]

Politically, what's happening right now is that Abe was assassinated shocking the entire world primarily because of the fact that crime rate related to guns is very low in Japan at present.

Economically, they keep piling up pressure on workers like crazy creating a really bad work-life balance for majority of them leading to lower productivity in the long-term.

Japan was suppose to be a super power. There was speculation in the 90's that they could use their economy to propel them as a world leader, but their economic growth stalled out, plus they couldn't keep a large military.

World leader? Lol. This was the dumbest prediction ever. Japan is a tech giant, but their military strength lags behind several countries primarily because of their numbers.

[teosanru]

In terms of growth, if Japan continues to be a deflationary sland of it's own obviously it is going to lag behind many big economies in GDP growth sooner or later. To increase the pace of it's GDP growth it has to enter an inflationary scenario but that could be harmful for them considering the amount of loans that they are carrying also your country isn't a lucrative place for foreign investors as well if you are having a deflationary currency for a very long time.