It wasn’t supposed to be the case that China would steal all the attention from Japan. We are only a few days away from QQE’s second anniversary and all expectations were purposely set to be a full-blown revival by now. The dedication and skill with which the Japanese economy was handled was meant to conclusively demonstrate with no debate that [...]
Despite all evidence to the contrary, an imbalanced ledger of data that grows more imbalanced by the month, commentary continues to describe QE as pro-growth stimulus. As usual, the purest form of rebuke to that sentiment can be found in Japan where QQE has performed a global service just not in the way its theorists and practitioners had envisioned. The [...]
With new figures on Japan’s GDP released, it is becoming increasingly clear the disparity between what is supposed to happen and what has actually taken place. The main operative theory by which everything has been supported takes “aggregate demand” literally; in that all demand is essentially a perfect substitute for itself. In other words, monetary theory posits that demand of [...]
There is still no evidence that the US economy is doing anything but continued sputtering. This is not news to the rest of the world, however, as the persistent lack of actual American “demand” has been felt nearly everywhere. Domestic economists, and a great many foreign counterparts, continue to see the US as the sole engine of economic hope. But [...]
Japan has faded from the front page, but the economic disaster continues to bother. The Bank of Japan has been forced back from its first target “against” the “deflationary mindset” that launched QQE back in April 2013. The goal then was not to achieve 2% “inflation”, but rather a stable and sustained 2% rate. Needless to say, oil prices are [...]
In commentary about Shinzo Abe’s overwhelming re-election last week, there was a growing sense of divergence between rhetoric and support. Clearly, Abe’s administration had the nearly full support of the Japanese people, a fact due more than anything to the manner in which “economics” is not just reported but understood. In describing the looming track of a worse recession from [...]
Like the initial or preliminary GDP report in Japan for Q3, the first revision caught almost every economist totally the wrong way. Expectations were for upward re-figuring which should have been taken as a contrarian signal. And sure enough, December’s revisions to Q3 GDP were in the opposite direction as expected, and for all the reasons that economists are “experts” [...]
Honestly, there really isn’t much to say now that hasn’t already been said. At what point can we expect convention and mainstream commentary to stop referring to monetarism as “stimulus”? If we are to have a unified and ubiquitous qualifying description of the idea, it is far closer to toxin or poison than anything that suggests positivity. Nominal is meaningless, which [...]
The October trade deficit for Japan turned out to be the “best” month since June 2013. While commentary has been quick and sharp about an export-led recovery path, actual analysis of what is taking place would lead to the opposite conclusion. This is revealed by simple geography. A full part of the problem starts with context, in that a ¥710 [...]
In what can only be an intentional trial balloon, the Abe government in Japan is making noise about delaying the next scheduled tax increase. Considered to be one of the important “arrows” in Abenomics, this is an especially stark admission that orthodox economics has not (yet again) delivered on its promise. When QQE was started in April 2013, there were [...]
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