Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama will announce on Monday that Tokyo and Washington took joint action in the currency market to arrest the yen’s slide to 40-year lows, two Japanese government officials told Reuters.
Katayama is likely to stress the two countries’ determination to combat what they consider excessive yen declines, said the sources familiar with the matter, on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.
One source, asked if Katayama would announce “joint action”, said yes, adding, “The operation is still ongoing.”
[...]
The expected announcement follows what market sources say were rounds of yen-buying in the market by the Japanese and U.S. authorities, the first joint intervention since 2011, seeking to boost the Japanese currency from its lowest levels against the dollar since 1986.
[...]
Tokyo’s initial intervention came hours before the BOJ decided on Friday to keep monetary policy steady while signalling a strong chance it would raise interest rates soon. A widening rate differential with the U.S., where the Federal Reserve has dramatically shifted to a more hawkish stance, has been a key factor in the dollar’s rise against the yen.
[...]
Critics have said Japan could face constraints to continued yen-buying intervention, as selling down its huge Treasury holdings to fund such action could trigger a selloff in U.S. debt and cause an unwelcome spike in U.S. yields.
Some uninformed questions: Sounds like travel to Japan is about as cheap as it's going to get? Unless this effort fails. Could this be partly due to investors finding US equity investments more...
Some uninformed questions:
Sounds like travel to Japan is about as cheap as it's going to get? Unless this effort fails.
Could this be partly due to investors finding US equity investments more attractive than Japanese investments? (Possibly due to AI.) So, Japan raising interest rates might be a way to counter that by being more attractive to bond investors.
Fundamentally, the Japanese economy is broken due to the demographic crisis. There is no political will among the most popular party, the conservative and nationalist Liberal Democratic Party...
Fundamentally, the Japanese economy is broken due to the demographic crisis. There is no political will among the most popular party, the conservative and nationalist Liberal Democratic Party (which has governed all but a few years since 1955) to make fundamental changes to how Japan's culture and economy functions. Given the dominance of the LDP, this means there is no chance to keep up with the changing landscape. It is notable that the only times the LDP was out of power (1993-1994/2009-2012) came on the back end of the initial gasps of the JP economy exiting the postwar economic "miracle," and then among the worldwide recession. It is also notable that the electorate did not reward the parties in control at those times for their stewardship.
Japan's national culture is Confucian. Respect for hierarchy, authority, and age are very significant there. The world has changed fast since Japan led the tech boom in the 1980s. Japan has not. Those who were in positions of authority then still have sway today. The policy solutions of then are still in force today. The aging population sees no reason for change, but the economy being left behind is ailing. Sounds familiar?
And they refuse even the slightest influx of foreign workers from Indonesia and other neighbors. The populist fury in response to what seems like much needed labor supply is cringe. I applaud...
And they refuse even the slightest influx of foreign workers from Indonesia and other neighbors. The populist fury in response to what seems like much needed labor supply is cringe.
I applaud Japan for being one of the few nations that hasn’t navigated the last 100 years of cultural change on pure autopilot. But between severe injury and change they seem to now choose injury.
This seems a little different: Japan has huge foreign investments that, if the yen falls, are more valuable domestically. (I asked ChatGPT to make a chart from official numbers. It's in yen so...
This seems a little different: Japan has huge foreign investments that, if the yen falls, are more valuable domestically. (I asked ChatGPT to make a chart from official numbers. It's in yen so that spike at the end is partially due to the weakening yen.)
So at least some Japanese investors are presumably pretty well protected financially. And if they decided that they needed to cash in foreign investments rather than holding them, it seems like that would strengthen the yen?
Which is what the central bank is doing by selling US treasuries.
The gains are centralized amongst a very few. This is one of those situations where the economy and the welfare of most folks are at a disconnect. The zaibatsu and their major stakeholders are...
The gains are centralized amongst a very few. This is one of those situations where the economy and the welfare of most folks are at a disconnect.
The zaibatsu and their major stakeholders are doing fine, because they are financialized, but all forms of imports are getting more and more expensive, including necessary global components. The folks who work for them, though, are struggling, because wages have not kept up and their day to day expenses have climbed. Rural Japan is dying, and not slowly, so there are expensive efforts to save these areas, as well. This is happening at the worst possible time, demographically, because the tax base is dwindling and the elderly population is exploding. Opportunities are disappearing, and there is less and less time available to respond.
The financial interventions discussed are only necessary because of these trends and lack of political will. There was effectively no inflation for 40 years, prices of all kinds were stable, and then the yen slid at the same time as cumulative inflation hit. A stronger yen will definitely have shocks to the export market, but it may help the domestic market by a greater amount.
From the article:
[...]
[...]
[...]
Some uninformed questions:
Sounds like travel to Japan is about as cheap as it's going to get? Unless this effort fails.
Could this be partly due to investors finding US equity investments more attractive than Japanese investments? (Possibly due to AI.) So, Japan raising interest rates might be a way to counter that by being more attractive to bond investors.
Fundamentally, the Japanese economy is broken due to the demographic crisis. There is no political will among the most popular party, the conservative and nationalist Liberal Democratic Party (which has governed all but a few years since 1955) to make fundamental changes to how Japan's culture and economy functions. Given the dominance of the LDP, this means there is no chance to keep up with the changing landscape. It is notable that the only times the LDP was out of power (1993-1994/2009-2012) came on the back end of the initial gasps of the JP economy exiting the postwar economic "miracle," and then among the worldwide recession. It is also notable that the electorate did not reward the parties in control at those times for their stewardship.
Japan's national culture is Confucian. Respect for hierarchy, authority, and age are very significant there. The world has changed fast since Japan led the tech boom in the 1980s. Japan has not. Those who were in positions of authority then still have sway today. The policy solutions of then are still in force today. The aging population sees no reason for change, but the economy being left behind is ailing. Sounds familiar?
And they refuse even the slightest influx of foreign workers from Indonesia and other neighbors. The populist fury in response to what seems like much needed labor supply is cringe.
I applaud Japan for being one of the few nations that hasn’t navigated the last 100 years of cultural change on pure autopilot. But between severe injury and change they seem to now choose injury.
This seems a little different: Japan has huge foreign investments that, if the yen falls, are more valuable domestically. (I asked ChatGPT to make a chart from official numbers. It's in yen so that spike at the end is partially due to the weakening yen.)
So at least some Japanese investors are presumably pretty well protected financially. And if they decided that they needed to cash in foreign investments rather than holding them, it seems like that would strengthen the yen?
Which is what the central bank is doing by selling US treasuries.
The gains are centralized amongst a very few. This is one of those situations where the economy and the welfare of most folks are at a disconnect.
The zaibatsu and their major stakeholders are doing fine, because they are financialized, but all forms of imports are getting more and more expensive, including necessary global components. The folks who work for them, though, are struggling, because wages have not kept up and their day to day expenses have climbed. Rural Japan is dying, and not slowly, so there are expensive efforts to save these areas, as well. This is happening at the worst possible time, demographically, because the tax base is dwindling and the elderly population is exploding. Opportunities are disappearing, and there is less and less time available to respond.
The financial interventions discussed are only necessary because of these trends and lack of political will. There was effectively no inflation for 40 years, prices of all kinds were stable, and then the yen slid at the same time as cumulative inflation hit. A stronger yen will definitely have shocks to the export market, but it may help the domestic market by a greater amount.