in debt and depressed Japan made efforts to overcome its economic crisis. However, the already protracted stagnation now threatens the country's creditworthiness.
Lutz Getzschmann
Published in: Jungle World, 21 October 2010
http://jungle-world.com/artikel/2010/42/41916.html
because Will anyone buy more auto parts and home electronics? At least Japanese export goods of this type are currently in demand, not much. The Japanese government is trying to remedy the situation. In recent months, she grabbed several occasions in the foreign exchange markets and devalued the yen to support the export sector.
also economic programs to bring the economy back on track. Half a million jobs will provide the Government with the latest "stimulus package" that includes a volume of over five billion yen, currently about 44 billion euros. It is part of a supplementary budget to the Parliament to be submitted later this month. Japan recently agreed similar measures, but their effects largely fizzled. Japan's gross domestic product (GDP) had grown in the second quarter compared to the first by only 0.4 percent. Reasons the weak consumption and strong export by the yen were more expensive.
In the first quarter GDP growth was 4.4 percent, what had been interpreted as signs that the country could be in the midst of the Great Depression in a position to overcome its now over 15 years of continued economic stagnation. Obviously, the growth of short duration and only a small exception was in a total of unbroken decline. For four years, made the country more foreign exchange earnings, dividends and interest from foreign investments than exports. The crisis has reinforced this trend drastically. Exports fell in about December 2009 compared to previous year by 35 percent, the same time, imports grew by 22 percent, which marked the recent low point of economic misery. Meanwhile, Japan has replaced China as the second-largest economy in the world.
has in the fight against the strong yen reduced Japanese central bank last week, the prime rate to virtually zero. It is thus returning to its de facto zero interest rate policy from 2000 to 2006. Main reasons for the additional relaxation of the already very expansive monetary policy is the continued strong currency, has long been falling consumer prices and continued weak domestic economy. The yen lost only temporarily in value against the U.S. dollar. Within hours after the rate cut, the Japanese currency already cost more than before the surprise move. The government had intervened in September for the first time in years with large dollar purchases in the foreign exchange market to halt the rise in the yen. This has won since May at about thirteen percent of its value against the dollar, which could reduce the already shrinking exports further.
is obviously a huge trend by, have struggled in vain against the different Japanese governments since the early nineties. As the only highly industrialized country, Japan has a long and of economic decline and subsequent stagnation accompanied through deflation. lost over a period of one and a half decades, stocks and real estate sharply, falling prices and decreased income. From the rapid growth of the eighties finally a standstill. The deflation was the result of a crisis in the stock and property markets: the Nikkei index, which had quadrupled from 1984 to the end of 1989 nearly broke by mid-1992 to 60 per cent by 2003 reached 80 percent loss. Land prices in Tokyo, which had doubled in 1986-1990 fell, then within ten years by 60 percent.
also decreased the cost of living, what the wage cuts and economic insecurity for the population at least tolerable made. Between 1998 and 2005, chicken meat was cheaper by seven per cent, vegetables by 20 to 45 percent and toilet paper. FR-A correspondent reported: "The Japanese railway advertised with the slogan of 'good deflation' for holidays, which were becoming cheaper. From the glass of beer on the taxi ride to electricity - many prices in Japan since the mid-nineties were frozen as "
From 1998 to 2005 while wages fell by 5.3 percent, a three-person household was after these seven. annual income losses of eleven percent. But because of falling prices, the purchasing power of the population remained about the same standard avoided for fear of bank failures, the Japanese stock purchases and other seemingly risky investments. Nearly 50 percent of 1 500 trillion yen of Japanese private assets (about 12.5 billion euros) in savings accounts. The home savings hoarded cash assets amount to an estimate by Richard Jerram, chief economist for Macquarie Capital Securities in Tokyo, at a level at a height of four to five percent of domestic product - that is about 233 billion euros.
The dramatic destruction of capital of the nineties led to a stagnation. First, the economy grew more slowly, finally, it declined. The economic decline was halted only with significant economic stimulus programs be, that the Japanese government promoted as public construction projects and thus prevented a fall into recession. The price for this stabilization policy is the world's highest public debt. End of March, the government had accumulated the equivalent of € 7.7 trillion in debt. By March 2011 the Japanese government debt is expected to grow by another ten percent, because the government can not do without a considerable debt. Almost half the budget has been financed, the interest rates currently swallow for more than half of the tax revenue.
So far the government has their loans procured almost entirely within the country. The Japanese commercial banks have local government bonds, worth the equivalent of more than one trillion euros. Just over half the debt is held by government institutions like the Post, the Retirement Fund and the Bank of Japan. In this way, the state has so far been able to borrow at least partly to himself - a strategy that works as long as the system remains stable. Only five percent of Japanese government bonds are in foreign hands. Also, why does hardly a hedge fund on falling prices of Japanese bonds speculation - it simply lack the profit motive. Two or three years could Japan go into debt even further, is the business editor of the FAZ, the forecasts significant economic recovery. "Optimists even speak of five to ten years. Then must also Japan borrow money from foreign investors and give up its isolation from global financial market, which has enabled the country to now, many years by keeping its low-interest rate policy without any problems. "
The high public debt and economic stagnation are also gradually a threat to Japan's credit rating in financial markets. The rating agency Standard & Poor's introduced in September officially established that decreasing the creditworthiness of Japan. While the former is AA-rated or unrated, but it now bears the stigma a negative outlook, suggesting again a possible devaluation. Or, to put it in the words of the authorities responsible for public finance ratings director of S & P, Takahira Ogawa, "The rating of AA is still valid, but the creditworthiness of the Japanese government is falling slowly"
With well. 70 percent, the industrial capacity utilization remains low. The unemployment rate rose to 5.3 percent unusual by Japanese standards. Before crisis beginning in 2007 it was 3.9 percent. Youth unemployment is 11.1 percent have the highest ever recorded in the statistics. Nevertheless, look for a survey by the Ministry of Finance Many companies have a "surplus staff," corporations are outsourcing their production to low wage countries.
Among the workers and employees of the disappearing been mediated by the repressive Betriebskorporatismus feeling of safety gradually. Affiliation with the company are no longer for life, what makes an internalized company and work ethic obsolete. This trend also has an impact as a psychosocial crisis for those in work. A common method of wage and welfare cuts has been the generational change in the premises, making more layoffs could be avoided. The newly created employment but see "Different from the previously unknown" plant communities. More than a third of younger employees work after an investigation by the competent Ministry is now in precarious conditions.
job stress, social pressure to perform in all areas, declining wages, increasing job insecurity and fears of a recession in recent years led to an ever-increasing suicide rate - one of the highest in the world. What is the cost of job security and predominantly in their social existence and operation of their identity shaken workers and workers as a personal failure and accordingly answer look now but the computer in the cool Japanese Ministry of Economy as a serious problem. By suicide and depression in the Japanese economy in the past year considerable damage has occurred. According to government estimates, the resulting total cost amounts to nearly 2.7 trillion yen (almost 25 billion euros). This sum is clear from the costs of social and medical services for depression patients, loss of income from patients and suicides as well as other factors, informed the government in its first calculation of this kind. Therefore took in Japan 2009, a total 26 500 people aged between 15 and 69 years of life. Had these one years lived and worked longer, they would have earned 1.9 trillion yen, reckons the government.
same time, but also the first signs are emerging of increased social conflicts and class struggles. For example, the Free Union Planters, based on a radical union for precarious, for years the supplying. Especially among workers and workers who have been deprived of their previous social security, a higher willingness to strike is recognized.
