China, Japan diverge on US Treasuries, too on February 19, 2018Japan versus China intrigue now extends to US Treasury holdings, too. In 2017, Japanese holdings of dollar-denominated government debt fell roughly $30 billion. China, meanwhile, couldn’t seem to get enough of Uncle Sam’s IOUs, adding about $127 billion – the biggest jump since 2010. What gives? In China’s case, it’s all about capping a rising […]
How the Bank of Japan can get really crazy on July 31, 2017Bank of Japan (BoJ) Governor Haruhiko Kuroda is watching his back even more than he’s surveying for hints of inflation in the world’s third largest economy. The knives are out for the most famous economist in Tokyo, and why isn’t hard to figure out. With Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s approval ratings lower than Donald Trump’s, […]
Why Japan just can’t quit the ‘deflationary mindset’ on July 30, 2017FOR nearly two decades, Japan has struggled to generate inflation. Any will do, even the bad kind – from higher oil prices to surging food-import costs. Rising consumer prices, Tokyo officialdom says, will restore Japan’s pre-1990s greatness and position it to take on China. But a government that thinks inflation is the answer to everything […]
Is Asia ready for a more assertive Fed? on July 10, 2017Janet Yellen giving big banks a passing grade in the Federal Reserve’s latest stress tests is cold comfort for Asia. It’s grand that the Fed chair thinks bankers are on top of risks to the largest economy, and that she doesn’t expect another financial meltdown “in our lifetimes.” Coming days before Asia commemorated the 20th […]
Kuroda bashing time, again on July 9, 2017It’s that time of year again, already, when Tokyo turns to blaming the Bank of Japan for every economic sin imaginable. Haruhiko Kuroda is the latest BoJ governor in the lurch. Before he started in 2013, it was Masaaki Shirakawa’s turn as punching bag for not easing enough for the liking of politicians. Shirakawa succeeded […]
A US-China currency deal can avert trade war on March 12, 2017Donald Trump, as we’re all learning in graphic detail, is a creature of habit. Old haunts, old feuds, old ideas. The global community should play into this predisposition and coax him back to the New York hotel he once proudly owned. The Plaza Hotel isn’t just an important episode in the real-estate-mogul-turned-US president’s history. It […]
Toshiba underlines why Abenomics is failing on February 19, 2017Sixteen Airbus A380 jets, 263 Sanlorenzo yachts, 11,250 Hong Kong apartments, 31,500 Mar-a-Lago Club memberships, 1.2 million Rolex Submariner watches. All purchases you could make with the mountain of cash Toshiba just blew. In fact, the $6.3 billion the Japan Inc. icon with roots dating back to 1875 and telegraphs wrote down equates to Kosovo’s […]
Trump owes everything to the Bank of Japan on January 29, 2017Of all the rhetorical battles Donald Trump is engaged in at the moment, the one with central bankers may be the dumbest. They, after all, got the U.S. president elected. Trump fans may love his verbal assaults against women, civil rights leaders, Chinese officials and offending CEOs. But his broadsides against the Federal Reserve ignore […]
Japans zero growth nightmare on January 16, 2017It’s the rare economic tale that involves suicides, robots and arms dealers. Welcome to Japan, where science fiction may begin to trump economic fact in ways the global audience has yet to realize. That’s not what the financial headlines suggest. As the press put 2016 to bed, the narrative was of fresh vigor: a weaker […]
Chinas dangerous 2017 dominates the region on January 9, 2017Will 2017 be the year China’s President Xi Jinping finally tolerates sub-6 percent growth? Few questions matter more to North Asia’s year than machinations within the region’s biggest – and most fragile – economy. The B-word came up often in 2016, as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump set his sights on what his team views as […]