Yen went on a free fall to a 24 year low yesterday. It is the third largest fiat currency in the world. Japan is also the largest holder of US treasuries.
Reading this Zerohedge piece on it, it seems like Japan’s been buying back bonds by a large amount since 2013. Exactly one year after Shinzo Abe returned to Prime Minister. His Abenomics was basically an inverse of China’s 5 year plans where instead of investing in infrastructure and real wealth generation (i.e. productive capacity) it’s made it easier and necessary for companies to financialize and rip more value from workers in Japan and maybe a mild amount of automation of labour.
Specific image: https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/JGB purchases.jpg?itok=_d64GLzD
I remember reading dipshit Noah Smith try to defend it on the Japonisme website and even he couldn’t really make a good case for it outside the usual neolib doubletalk. According to some writing by Michael Roberts Japan’s income equality, etc. has all gotten worse over the past 2 decades, especially under Abe, and they can only ride the wave of western imperialism to buttress their consumption. The output of workers in Japan is half that of workers in the US or something. I don’t see how they can continue this system they have, it’s just constant decline and I don’t know if they can keep printing money to buy back bonds forever.
The output of workers in Japan is half that of workers in the US or something
That’s what happens when your country obsessively protects its dinosaur corporate entities to the point that they still use fucking fax machines in the country with the reputation as the most technologically forward-thinking place on the planet. Japan’s had an issue with being so hyper-focused on the idea of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” for so long that they rewrote what “broke” means to continue to avoid fixing anything.
I remember being glued to zerohedge back in 2011 when it looked like the sovereign debt crisis would be the big collapse. Remember the PIIGS?
