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Hatoyama lays out growth strategy

Earlier today, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama unveiled his economic growth strategy, which is intended to…

…never mind, Hatoyama’s plan is a complete and utter farce, a sick joke with no punchline delivered to a nation of people who need real leadership. Here’s the first paragraph of the Kyodo article:

The government unveiled Wednesday a basic policy for its growth strategy through 2020, aiming to achieve an average economic growth of 3% in nominal terms by boosting demand in the environmental, health and tourism fields and creating a total of 4.76 million jobs in related industries.

The rest of the article is there, but the first paragraph already tells you how stupid, short-sighted and disconnected from reality this government is, and there’s not much need to read the rest. But if you’re in a masochistic mood, here you go: Bumbling fools reveal idiotic policies Gov’t seeks nominal 3% growth through 2020 by demand in key areas.

Massive Fiscal Stimulus Spending Project Proposal #2: Changing Lanes

Back in May, I laid out a plan by which the Japanese government could waste tremendous amounts of public money by simply issuing brand new bank notes of radically different sizes and shapes, while outlawing the use of current bank notes.

While the previous plan could potentially pump billions of yen into the economy, the next plan should cost much more. To do this, Japan simply has to switch driving from the left to the right side of the road. Of course, other countries have pulled this off without spending huge sums of money, such as Sweden, but Japan can avoid falling into this trap by ensuring that the process be as expensive and wasteful as possible. Here’s how it works: Read more

Ishihara: Tokyo to bid for 2020 Olympics

Those who felt that Tokyo’s failed bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics was a colossal waste of $48 million are surely going to groan at today’s headline: Tokyo to bid for 2020 Summer Olympics: Gov Ishihara.

I wonder how this works now that the DPJ is in charge of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly. Do they have the power or desire to stand up to Ishihara?

No change for now at Narita or Haneda

After transport minister Seiji Maehara announced on Sunday that Tokyo’s Haneda Airport (formally known as Tokyo International Airport) should become a 24 hour hub for domestic and international flights, the governor of Chiba Prefecture and the Mayor of Narita City spoke out strongly against the idea. Maehara’s proposal would alter the longstanding situation in which Haneda primarily serves domestic flights to Tokyo, while Narita handles international flights for the Kanto region.

For anyone living in Tokyo, Maehara’s reasoning is sound; Narita is simply less convenient for many travelers. At the same time, the lack of a domestic hub for connecting domestic flights to international means that South Korea’s Incheon airport has become a de-facto hub for Japanese travelers heading overseas. Read more

DPJ President Yukio Hatoyama: Japan must shake off US-style globalization

A translation of an opinion piece entitled Japan must shake off US-style globalization by Democratic Party of Japan leader Yukio Hatoyama appears in this week’s edition of the Christian Science Monitor. As Hotoyama is widely expected to be the next Prime Minister of Japan after the results of next Sunday’s election come in, the article offers some important insight into what opinions Hatoyama feels will curry favor with the Japanese public in the run-up to the election.

Hatoyama starts the essay with this: Read more

Is Cool Biz bad for the economy?

A Bloomberg article published today suggests that the government-led “Cool Biz” campaign might actually be bad for the economy. Under the Cool Biz guidelines, the government is recommending that firms set their air conditioners at 28 degrees Celsius during the summer. 28 degrees, of course, is hardly cool. To make up for the higher air conditioner temperatures, workers have been encouraged to go without jackets and ties during the summer months.

In truth, one does see more open necks and more short sleeves and more guys carrying their jackets on the subway, but many firms (and workers) are reluctant to change their dressing habits. Read more

DPJ to push for sale of Shinginko Tokyo?

Yesterday, Bloomberg published a piece quoting Yasunori Sone, a political science professor at Keio University in Tokyo, as saying, “The DPJ, which takes a different stance than the governor, will liquidate Shinginko Tokyo…It was clear from the beginning that its business model didn’t work.”

The second part of that statement is very true. Troubles at the publicly funded bank have been documented here before. As a quick reminder: Read more

Japan not banning cash any time soon

The foreign media recently seems to have pounced on a story concerning plans to ban the use of cash and push nominal interest rates down to -0.4% in an attempt to fight deflation in Japan.

It won’t happen.

While electronic cash payments will continue to grow as a proportion of transaction settlement methods, the idea of banning cash altogether is impractical. At the same time, the idea of creating negative nominal interest rates is political suicide. In such a situation, the yen itself would be essetially worthless.

To be honest, I had a lot more ideas on this topic, but the proposal seems so absurd that it’s better treated as a media oddity.

Tuesday morning headlines: Food producers moving into China, TV sales and the Aso Cabinet

The Nikkei’s Tuesday morning edition is reporting more moves by Japanese food producers into the Chinese market. First, Maruha Nichiro intends to begin farming trout in the Philippines later this year and shipping the fish live to China. The firm is hoping for sales of around 1 billion yen within a few years. On the beer front, Kirin is now selling its brew to watering holes in Shanghai, and is hoping to sell 150,000 cases of 12 500ml bottles this year. Finally, House Foods and Ichibanya aim to increase the number of their joint-owned curry shops in China from the current 13 to to 41 by the end of March 2012. Read more

Peter Schiff on Yosano’s bizarre comments about US Treasuries

This morning I saw a Bloomberg article with a not-so-surprising headline: Purchases of U.S. Treasuries will continue, Yosano says.

When I started reading the article, however, I thought it was reporting on a different universe. Here is part of what Yosano had to say to reporters in Tokyo prior to leaving for the G8 meeting of finance ministers in Italy: Read more

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