Japan Fires Up the Printing Press: New Central Bank Chief Vows to End Deflation
Submitted by Michael Nystrom on Thu, 03/21/2013 - 14:15By Leika Kihara and Stanley White
TOKYO, March 21 (Reuters) - The new governor of the Bank of Japan said the central bank is ready to use all means available, including buying longer-term assets, to achieve its 2 percent inflation target, underlining his resolve to beat nearly two decades of grinding deflation.
In his inaugural press briefing, Haruhiko Kuroda said bold action was needed to meet the inflation target in two years, supporting expectations the central bank will expand stimulus at its next regular policy-setting meeting scheduled for April 3-4.
Financial markets have speculated that Kuroda might even call an emergency meeting before April 3-4 to push through stimulus, after he had said during confirmation hearings that he would act with speed. But he gave few clues away on that score before a packed news conference.
"The BOJ has held emergency meetings in the past, so it's not impossible, but I shouldn't comment on whether there will be an emergency meeting," he said on Thursday.
The former top currency diplomat and his two deputies, former academic Kikuo Iwata and career central banker Hiroshi Nakaso, joined the BOJ on Wednesday with a mandate by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to pursue bolder, unorthodox policies to finally stamp out the deflation that the central bank has struggled to tame for years.
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Only in the twilight-zone
could deflation be bad for the people. Sure it may be bad for those TBTF multinational banks and corporations who control the markets, but who would complain that the paper they have in their pockets just increased their "value" by 2% per year? Deflation is only bad when it follows rampant inflation, and even then it is only bad in the short term for those who bought goods at an inflated price and have to sell at a lower price.
“When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.” – Dresden James
Deflation is also the natural
Deflation is also the natural result of technology and progress, where inventors, trying to make the world a better place, invent things that cause manufactured goods to be cheaper and for everyone to have more.
This is the real evil if you can wrap your head around it. Because people had about the same thing for many years, they assumed everything was alright, but everything should have been going down enormously and the banksters aand government have taken the difference.
And a little extra, so it's getting worse anyway.
What type of mind does it take to come up with this? Technology makes things better and causes deflation, so we will come up with a system to steal that away.
Oh yes. Unemployment. The federal reserve is also mandated to cause artificial unemployment.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
Not only that,
but by staving of deflation, they (monetary policy makers) herd people to invest in their banks (deposits / CD's) to gain a little interest (although making interest off of your deposits seem to be a thing of the past.)
“When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.” – Dresden James
There is a big article in the WSJ about it
The Japanese government wants to weaken the yen, which will make Japan's products more competitive on the global market. The yen has already fallen quite a bit with all this talk that has been taking place.
At the same time, the weak yen makes imports more expensive. Basically, they want to scare people out of savings. This is the same thing our Fed has done - apparently with much success - here. What is the point of saving if the interest rate is .5%. May as well spend it. Chase things that are going up: Stocks, housing, etc.
It is pathetic, because there is no true, underlying value. It is all built on another bubble that could pop at any time.