As I write this, Japan is once again in a funk. The yen has come ever so close to its post-WW2 high of JPY79.70/US$ seen in 1995, the Nikkei has touched 16-month lows, and now, the governing Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has become embroiled in an internal power struggle between Prime Minister Naoto Kan… [Read more]
Despite the historical significance of the DPJ’s landslide election victory on August 30, the new government will face the enormous challenge of reforming Japan’s bureaucracy. Yoel Sano from BMI’s Asia desk believes it will take a long time before the economy will reap the benefits of this historic change.
‘Change’ is a powerful message. Barack Obama made this his main slogan in his 2008 campaign. Rocky Balboa proclaimed this to the Soviet Politburo at the end of Rocky IV. UK girl band Sugababes called their fifth album Change. Now, even Japan has opted for change, after 54 years of rule by the Liberal Democratic… [Read more]
When a friend of mine asked me what was happening with the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)’s leadership race on Saturday May 16, I replied ‘the frontrunner is a 40-something Afro-Japanese woman, daughter of a US marine, who is a self-made nanotechnology business guru’. That was a joke, obviously, but it does underscore the… [Read more]
There’s a growing school of thought that it is time to buy into the Nikkei. The argument goes something like this: Japan is practically the only country in the world that is benefiting from rising inflation – because it has extricated itself from a decade of deflation. Japan is one of the most energy-efficient countries… [Read more]
