The curse of primary balance has been lost for 30 years, and now is the time for fiscal spending.
2021-12-30
Category:Japan
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The lost 30 years were born from the curse of fiscal surplus
The curse of a primary balance surplus has become an excellent material for opposition parties to appeal to the government for fiscal austerity. Yoichi Takahashi has said that he does not mind fiscal stimulus, or printing money, up to the inflation target of 2%.
Both Prime Minister Abe and Policy Research Council Chairman Takaichi have set an inflation target of 2%. In the first place, the topic of primary balance became popular after the bubble burst.
Why not use fiscal stimulus to address the national crisis?
As many large companies go bankrupt, the government repeatedly imposes fiscal stimulus, resulting in deficits and financial bankruptcy. The bursting of the bubble was a national economic crisis.
So when is the government going to do something about the national crisis without spending money? In 1989, 32 of the 50 companies in the world by market capitalization were Japanese companies, but by 2019, there was only one Japanese company, and that number had disappeared. Ta.
Japan used to be the same as today's China
During the bubble period, Japan was to America what China is today. It is true that growth was not based on illegal business like in China, but there is no doubt that it was a threat to the American economy.
The United States should have predicted Japan's bubble would burst. Or maybe it's a country that can play a role in triggering this.
Why did Japan go for austerity?
If Japan had been able to implement bold fiscal stimulus after the bubble burst, it would have been possible to quickly overcome the aftereffects and return to a growth trajectory. Japan is among 11 countries subject to currency manipulation monitoring announced by the U.S. Treasury Department on December 3 of this year.
MEMO Trade friction is at the root of the current U.S.-China relationship. In addition, the defense of East Asia was also involved, and Japan at the time was also experiencing trade friction between Japan and the United States.
30 years of innovation, only to be robbed
Even after the bursting of the bubble economy, Japanese companies have continued to innovate in a variety of ways. i-mode was the world's first mobile phone to connect to the Internet, the all-in-one concept of integrating a camera, calculator, memo pad, etc. in a bag into a mobile phone, and mixi was the original social network.
These ideas became the exclusive domain of American GAFA. Even though Japan was in the bud of creating a new industrial structure, it ran out of water and nutrients.
Only Councilor Sanae Takaichi was able to clearly answer these questions
So why or who put a stop to it?
Internal pressure, external pressure, various things can be imagined. Japan's balance sheet shows that its finances are sound, and fiscal stimulus will not cause a national fiscal collapse. This is exactly what was at issue in the last presidential election. There are two points: fiscal spending and national defense.
Councilor Takaichi was the only one who clearly answered that question, and I had no idea what the other candidates were saying.
POINT Japanese economy continues to fly low. We need a rocket engine to get back on the growth track.
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Which country did Japan invade? - Japan invaded European - controlled areas - Asian liberation and colonial policy.
When considering the aspects of Japan's war of aggression, first of all, the Korean Peninsula was made an independent state by the Treaty of Shimonoseki and was annexed by the Treaty of Annexation, so it is not included in the invasion. Taiwan was also formally ceded under the Treaty of Shimonoseki, so it was not included in the invasion. Southeast Asian countries are already Western colonies and do not have administrative powers. To be honest, Japan invaded Britain, the Netherlands, France, Portugal, and the United States. Would you call this an invasion of Asia? Viewed in this way, if China had dared to invade, it would have been China that was barely maintaining its administrative power.
Now, regarding what Japan's purpose was, if we say that Japan is no different from Western colonies in terms of increasing its national power through colonial rule, the reality is different. Japan did not adopt racist policies and developed laws, and eventually Southeast Asian countries grew to the point where they were able to fight against whites and protect their own countries on their own. War operations are meaningless unless they are linked to national interests. So these things are always related to Japan's national interests.
Historically speaking, Japan was isolated from the rest of the world until the Meiji Restoration. It took only 27 years from the establishment of the new government to its victory over the Qing Dynasty, which was said to be a world power. It would be 37 years until Japan again defeated Russia, which was said to be a world power. Next, it was in 1919 that Japan won World War I and became a permanent member of the League of Nations, so Japan isolated itself from developing countries that had never seen a steam engine, and only 51 In 2019, I will be sitting on a chair at the table at the center of the world. Japan proposed the ''Racism Discrimination Elimination Bill.''
There is probably no one who has not seen the vast area called Asia on a map. On top of that, over a long period of 400 years, the white maritime nation colonized Asian countries one after another. Japan is an island nation floating on the farthest east coast. Japan's opening to the world was related to this movement of white people. The colonization of the vast area of Asia was already approaching Japan.
Japan's Restoration and opening of the country, as well as the energy of the industrial revolution and modernization, were explosively generated during these global movements. If one country or one ethnic group in such a vast region of Asia, where so many ethnic groups live, were to unite and confront the white countries, the white people would never come to such a farthest island nation. It would be a good thing if there was even one country that could stop the invasion of white people, but unfortunately there was not a single country in Asia like that.
The main focus of Japan's colonial policy in Asia is to build a collective security system for people of color in Asia and to spread the results of Japan's Restoration to Asia. This is clearly stated in the Greater East Asia Joint Declaration, which is signed by the participating leaders from each country. If we look at history from a myopic perspective, we will not be able to understand this era.This may seem obvious, but no matter how many times you hear about former comfort women or visit coal mine sites, you will never understand this era.
Just because there is a labor shortage doesn't mean it's okay to collect labor from anywhere - let alone anti - Japanese countries.
Even if we overcome deflation and restore international competitiveness through the fiscal stimulus advocated by the late Mr. Abe and Mr. Takaichi, and even if the total amount of money increases and wages rise, if the economy becomes rich, this means that domestic production will rise. , it is said that even with the current production volume, it will no longer be possible to make things as the population declines, so if the production volume increases, there will be an even greater shortage of personnel.
The current dual wage structure for dispatched workers is simply a measure to compensate for the domestic unemployment rate by relocating production bases to emerging countries due to the strong yen. On the other hand, if the yen depreciates, it will become possible to move production bases back to Japan, and some companies have actually returned to Japan amid the current depreciation of the yen. If production bases return, GDP and tax revenue will increase.
In other words, this is the economic growth that the people want, but what is crucially lacking is human resources. It is difficult to believe that Japan's industrial structure, which is dominated by manufacturing, will be easily replaced by AI. While Japan's competitiveness will increase if Abenomics and Mr. Takaichi's economic policies are implemented, I imagine that it will also lead to a shortage of labor in Japan.
Although there was a shortage of soldiers during the Greater East Asia War, it is said that only about 1.6% of recruited soldiers from the peninsula were able to join the Japanese army. If they don't understand the Japanese language, Japanese culture, or the purpose of war, the entire unit will suffer. Even Japanese women were able to work under the Women's Volunteer Corps Ordinance after passing various hurdles, and those who passed were given the approval of the local governor at the time.
There are people in Europe and America who think it would be a good idea to make immigrants and illegal immigrants work, but do they want to make the same mistakes and go down the path of creating social unrest? If human resources are absolutely necessary, the host countries should be limited by considering cultural background, historical and diplomatic compatibility, and Japan should even be involved in the education of Japanese language and culture. It would be better to abandon ideas such as procuring labor from countries that provide anti-Japanese education now.
Study abroad boom in Japan at the end of the Qing Dynasty - The Korean peninsula missed the chance to modernize, and China failed to inherit the revolutionary spirit and plunged into civil war.
Japan study abroad boom in China
Studying in Japan begins with 13 students
Korea became an independent nation in the Sino-Japanese War
The Korean Peninsula missed the chance to modernize
Even after the Qing Dynasty fell, the revolutionary spirit was not inherited
Wang Zhaoming government established after the Sino-Japanese War
In China, a boom in studying abroad in Japan arose after the Sino-Japanese War. The purpose of studying abroad was to learn about Japan's modernization and policy of enriching the country and strengthening its military. Emperor Guangxu, Kang Youwei, and other Chinese intellectuals carried out the Restoration movement of ``transformation and self-strength,'' but it was thwarted by the pressure of conservative forces. Subsequently, educational reforms at the time were modeled on Japan, including the abolition of the imperial examination system (1905), the establishment of the modern school system (1904), the promulgation of the "Educational Philosophy" (1906), and the trial of compulsory education (1907). This is what we sought.
In 1896, for the first time, 13 young people were sent by the Qing Dynasty government to study in Japan, where they studied Japanese, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and other subjects for three years at the Tokyo National Higher Normal School's cram school. It is said that approximately 20,000 international students had come to Japan by the time of the Xinhai Revolution in 1911.
Political figures include Zhou Enlai, Li Dabei, Chen Duxiu, Wei Bei, Dong Yiwu, Chiang Kai-shek, Man Zhongshi, and Wang Zhaomei. Sun Yat-sen came to Japan as an exile in 1895. Cultural figures included Lu Xun, Guo Muruo, Tian Han, and He Xianggong.
While Joseon Dynasty was aiming for Chinese-style modernization, the Sino-Japanese War broke out in the wake of the Gongbo Peasants' War, and with Japan's victory, the Korean Peninsula became an independent nation. Kim Ok-gyun, who called for Japanese-style modernization, was assassinated about four months before the Sino-Japanese War began.
The movement of modernization on the Korean Peninsula was actually faster than in China. However, it did not become a big sensation and was crushed by the Joseon Dynasty, which had an old political system. Ironically, this was also due to pro-China policies. On the other hand, immediately after losing the Sino-Japanese War, China changed its policy toward Japanese-style modernization. Koten Miyazaki describes Kim Ok-gyun, who was exiled to Japan and was assassinated in Shanghai, as a person who should have become the Sun Yat-sen of the Korean Peninsula. Miyazaki, along with Takeshi Inukai and others, supported Sun Yat-sen's Xinhai Revolution. The Korean Peninsula has failed to modernize on its own.
As a result, in 1911, Sun Yat-sen succeeded in the Xinhai Revolution and founded the Republic of China, but as a condition of Emperor Xuantong's abdication, he made an exchange deal in which Yuan Shikai, a Beiyang warlord, became president, and the Qing dynasty ended. became increasingly authoritarian. A second revolution will begin to overthrow this. Even after the Northern Expedition was completed and Chiang Kai-shek became the president of the Nationalist Party, the division of China in the West continued. The spirit of Sun Yat-sen's revolution was to learn from Japan's Restoration and to stand together with the West and maintain our independence.
As the partition of China progressed, the Sino-Japanese War broke out, and the spirit of revolution was inherited by Wang Zhaoming's Nanjing Provisional Government. He was a close aide to Sun Yat-sen, had the experience of studying abroad in Japan, and participated in the Greater East Asia Conference. Over a long period of time, China failed in its revolution. On the contrary, the civil war between the People's Republic of China continued, and the People's Republic of China with a completely different ideology was born, not to mention Sun Yat-sen's revolution. The Japanese Restoration that Sun Yat-sen aimed for was not only about modernization, but also about achieving a rich nation and strong military in Asia, and protecting its independence from becoming a Western colony.
Japan is the only country with people of color that has succeeded in modernizing itself. It was only natural for Asian countries to learn from Japan in order to modernize.
National debt is not the people's debt - The country is not a company - Breakdown of government bond holdings that still do not penetrate public opinion.
The image at the beginning shows the breakdown of Japanese government bond holdings. I sometimes see people say that national debt is the nation's debt or that it is the same as corporate debt, but national debt is the government's debt, not the people's debt. Even if a country is compared to a company, companies do not borrow money from their employees. Debt comes from outside the company, and in this case, it involves purchasing Japanese government bonds from overseas. If most of the debt is overseas, it is natural that the company will default if it cannot be repaid. Purchases of Japanese government bonds from overseas account for 7.3%.
If you really want to say that it is the same as a company, would you say that purchases in Japan are borrowed and borrowed within the company or within the group company? Yoichi Takahashi considers the Bank of Japan to be the same as a subsidiary of the government, and explains that it is the same in terms of consolidation, regardless of whether interest is charged. The Bank of Japan holds 53.2% of Japanese government bonds. He is well known for introducing BS to show that the country holds government assets equivalent to the government's debts (excluding the holdings of the Bank of Japan). The total amount of government assets ranks first in the world, exceeding both the United States and China. Below is the balance sheet (BS) of Japan.
Furthermore, Japanese government bonds are mainly traded in yen, which means that there is no change in value based on foreign currencies. In the case of foreign currency transactions, if the value of your home currency plummets, the face value of your debt will rise accordingly. Suppose your country's currency drops to half its value. Alternatively, if the foreign currency used when trading government bonds doubles, the debt will also double, but since the transaction is in Japanese yen, there will be no effect at all. In an extreme case, former Prime Minister Aso said that repayment would be possible by increasing the number of yen bids. In this case, there will be inflation and the value of the yen will fall, but the theory is that the debt can be repaid because it is the face value of the yen. This was actually said by Taro Aso, a former Prime Minister and former Minister of Finance.
Secondly, the Japanese government is also the world's No. 1 creditor country. In other words, they have foreign bonds and foreign assets. The fact that we are currently talking about national debt as a problem is actually making a fuss about only the debt part, and in fact, Japan has the most foreign assets in the world. This assumes that the government bonds are denominated in yen as mentioned earlier, and if more yen is printed, the value of the yen will fall and the yen will become weaker. If you do this, overseas assets purchased in dollars or euros will increase in value when converted to yen, so the difference will be a large income. Even with the current depreciation of the yen, a large profit margin was generated due to the increase in the valuation of overseas assets.
Representative Sanae Takaichi has advocated the ``Japanese Economic Resilience Plan,'' which calls for a temporary freeze on primary balance (PB) regulations and calls for industrial investment through the issuance of government bonds. She says that even if inflation were caused by printing more yen, it would not have a big impact if the inflation rate was less than 2%. Currently, the yen is depreciating due to the difference in interest rates due to the Fed's interest rate hikes, but the original goal is to induce a depreciation of the yen through the issuance of government bonds and increase the number of bonds, strengthen international competitiveness, and increase wages and tax revenues through rising prices. If the manufacturing industry returns to Japan due to the weak yen, GDP and tax revenue will increase, and government debt can be reduced. For now, this is just the effect of a weaker yen due to interest rate differences, but we are already seeing significant results.
In other words, those who claim that government debt is bad have the completely opposite idea. What ruined Japan after the bursting of the bubble was rather the primary balance discipline, the inability to focus on single-year income and expenditures and to make long-term investments. Japan tightened its finances in the most critical economic situation. If it is the same as a company, when the company is in crisis, the company's safe is closed like a shell, and for the past 30 years, the company has been operating in a state of poverty and not being able to make long-term investments. This is the so-called curse of PB by the Ministry of Finance.
Three years of Japanese and Russian people living together in the Northern Territories - Return of the territory and current residents
Japan's territorial issues include Takeshima, the Senkaku Islands, and the Northern Territories. These three regions are completely different geopolitically, historically, in the relationship between the two countries, and in the process by which problems arise. To put the issue of the Northern Territories simply, Japan announced its surrender on August 15th, but it was officially announced on September 2nd that the Soviet Union later ratified the Potsdam Declaration, but it was not accepted internationally outside of the United States, Britain, China, and the Soviet Union. April 28, 1952, the day the San Francisco Peace Treaty went into effect. During that time, the former Soviet Union invaded and annexed the Northern Territories.
It was in 1948 that the Soviet Union ordered deportation to the Japanese islanders, so there was a period of about three years from 1945 when Soviet soldiers, Soviet immigrants, and Japanese people lived together. It is very interesting to hear the testimonies of Japanese islanders from that era.
``Russians were big and scary.'' ``Soldiers came to my house with shoes on and guns, and they said, ``Watch, watch!'' So I thought it was something, so I handed him the watch, and he said, ``Harasho, harasho,'' and was happy. So I went home.
Russian children were cute and cute and looked like angels. Her eyes were so white and big, and her green eyes were cute like a cat's. Japanese and Russian children played together, going back and forth to each other's homes. This is the testimony of former islanders and Japanese people.
I believe that former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was the first prime minister to ask the Japanese people, who are demanding the return of the Northern Territories, where about 17,000 people currently live, whether they should expel the Russians currently living there. The Japanese people living in the Northern Territories at the time continued to demand the return of their territory, but the Russians living there never asked them to leave or take away their homes.