Yahoo Finance on 29.5.2020 reported the following:
Japan Is Going for Broke. Minus the Broke Part
Bloomberg Daniel Moss,Bloomberg 3 hours ago
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(Bloomberg Opinion) -- In putting a
floor under the world's third-largest economy, Japan is going for broke. Minus
the broke part.
The central bank has
effectively pledged to do almost anything to contain the cost of borrowing,
even entertaining proposals that challenge its independence. The rest of the
world, including the Federal Reserve, is watching with great interest. Far from
being a policy outcast, Japan may be writing the future.
Tokyo's stimulus barrage this week
was replete with superlatives suited to the gravity of the coronavirus
pandemic. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe unveiled his second package in two months
worth about 117 trillion yen ($1 trillion), each installment dwarfing the
response to the Great Recession. The extra budget required to fund this fiscal
expansion will be a record 31.9 trillion yen. Tokyo's debt load, already the
greatest among major economies, will climb.
Even allowing for the padding that
typically swells Japanese fiscal headlines — guarantees and money held over
from previous budgets — the numbers are impressive. Abe says efforts to combat
the deepest global dive since the 1930s will amount to about 40% of gross
domestic product. This fiscal onslaught won't prevent a big dip in Japan's
economy; it will probably mitigate it. Bloomberg Economics anticipates GDP will
shrink 3.8% this year, compared with a forecast decline of 4% before
Wednesday's turn of the faucet.
The salvo recalls the halcyon days of Abenomics in 2013,
when newly appointed Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda dramatically
expanded the central bank's balance sheet and declared war on deflation. This
time, it’s fiscal policy on the offensive. Tokyo's monetary stance has been
ultra loose for a while and may get easier still.
That brings us to the consequences of this aggressive
budget. In theory, a big jump in spending pushes up the government’s cost of
borrowing. But this is unlikely because the BOJ pledged a few years ago to keep
the yield on 10-year sovereign bonds near zero. It's even less plausible given
that Kuroda has recently emphasized his commitment to so-called yield-curve
control.
In a rare joint statement last week, Kuroda and Finance
Minister Taro Aso pledged to work hand in glove. “The Bank of Japan and the
government must send the message to the world that we are coming together as
one.” You don't often hear words like this from a minister and a central
banker, who tend to guard their institutional separation zealously.
The specific context is a special lending program for small
businesses whacked by the virus, which was announced a few hours earlier. Yet
the broader message is powerful. Once you get these kind of statements,
monetization of debt might not be far away. Kuroda
recoils from the term, as do policy makers the world over, even if he
acknowledges that the BOJ greatly influences Japanese rates.
This is what makes its posture so intriguing. New York Fed
President John Williams told Bloomberg Television on Wednesday that he's
thinking about yield-curve control. The Fed needs to write a formula that keeps
rates down well after the economy begins growing again, given the recovery is
likely to be long and slow. We might not see a joint press conference between
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Fed Chair Jerome Powell pledging love and
happiness, but American officials may be on the cusp of a new era. Monetary
veterans have tut-tutted the blurring of divisions. Central banks free of
political interference are better equipped to respond to the threat of rising
prices. But inflation is yesterday's story; it had been trending lower for
decades and now deflation is the predominant issue. The world hasn't faced an
economic crisis like this since the Great Depression when few, if any, central
banks were as independent as they are now.
That means it’s time to stop seeing Japan as a poster child
for policy gone awry. It may be on to something. The Fed leadership certainly
thinks so.
(Note: Daniel Moss is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering
Asian economies. Previously he was executive editor of Bloomberg News for
global economics, and has led teams in Asia, Europe and North America.)
Translation
（彭博社觀點）-
世界第三大經濟體日本在冒險地全力以赴打基礎。去減除破產的部分。
中央銀行實際上已經承諾要採取一切措施來控制借貸成本，甚至接納一些可能會損其獨立性的提議。包括美國聯儲局在內的世界其他地區都懷著極大的興趣注視著。日本可能不是政策異類，而是在書寫未來。
本周東京的刺激攻勢充滿了最卓越性、它適當地對應冠状病毒大流行的嚴重性。日本首相安倍晉三（Shinzo Abe）在兩個月內宣布了他的第二輪一籃子計劃，價值約117萬億日元（合1萬億美元），以前大衰退的反應相對今次的每輪計劃都是相形見拙。財政擴張所需的額外預算將達到創紀錄的31.9萬億日元。東京的債務負擔已經是主要經濟體中最大的，亦將會繼續上升。
即使考慮到通常會增加日本財政頭條的填充物 - 即重複在先前預算案已經作出過的承諾以及資金，這些數字也令人印象深刻。安倍晉三說，為打擊自1930年代以來最深的全球下挫,
現在所做的氣力將約佔國內生產總值（GDP）的40％。這種財政衝擊是不會阻止日本經濟大幅下滑,
但可能會減輕它。彭博經濟預測，今年的GDP將下降3.8％，相比之下，在週三扭轉水龍頭前的下降預測是4%。
這次萬砲齊發今人勾起2013年安倍經濟學的寧靜時期，當時新任命的日本央行行長黑田東彥（Haruhiko
Kuroda）大大擴大了日本央行的資產負債表，並向通縮宣戰。這次，它是進攻形的財政政策。在過去一段時間東京的貨幣立場已經是超寬鬆，現在可能會變得更加寬鬆。
我們要面對這項激進預算的後果。從理論上講，大幅的支出增長會推高了政府的借貸成本。但這不太可能，因為日本央行幾年前曾承諾將10年期主權債券的收益率保持在接近零的水平。考慮到黑田東彥最近強調了他對所謂的收益率曲線控制的承諾，這似乎更没可能。
在上週罕見的聯合聲明中，黑田東彥和財務大臣麻生太郎承諾攜手合作。
“日本銀行和日本政府必須向世界傳達我們要團結在一起的信息。” 您通常不會聽到部長和中央銀行這樣的說話，他們往往會熱心捍衛他們個別的機構獨立性。
目前是個别情況, 是針對一個受到病毒感染的小型企業的特殊貸款計劃，該計劃已於數小時前宣布。然而，絃外的信息是有力的。一旦您獲得了這些聲明，債務貨幣化就不會遙遠了。黑田東彥從這個詞退縮, 世界各地的決策者都是這樣，即使他承認日本央行對日本的利率有重大影響。
這就是它的姿勢如此吸引人的原因。紐約聯儲主席約翰·威廉姆斯
(John Williams)週三對彭博電視台表示，他正在考慮控制收益率曲線。鑑於經濟復甦可能是漫長而緩慢的，美聯儲需要寫出一個方程式，在經濟再次開始增長後,
將利率保持在低的水平。我們可能不會看到財政部長史蒂芬·姆努欽（Steven
Mnuchin）和美聯儲主席杰羅姆·鮑威爾（Jerome
Powell）承諾愛與幸福的聯合新聞發布會，但美國官員可能亦正處於一個新時代的轉折點。貨幣老兵們不满模糊分裂。不受政治干預的中央銀行是有更好的能力應對價格上漲的威脅。但是通貨膨脹是過去了的事。它已經趨向勢較低方向幾十年，現在通貨緊縮是主要問題。自大蕭條以來，全世界甚至從未遇到過這樣的經濟危機,
也沒有或少有像現在這樣獨立的中央銀行。
這意味著是時候不要再將日本視為錯誤政策的象徵了。它可能意圖着某樣東西。美聯儲領導層當然也是這麼認為的。
So, everyone
is betting on a deflationary world. In the US and Japan, the relation between the central bank and the government is going to change in the future. Japan is doing something new to deal with its post pandemic new economic situation.
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