At the end of last year, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe fired a loud salvo. In a forceful attempt to kick start Japan‘s economy from its decade-long stupor, Abe leaned on the Bank of Japan to set a 2% inflation target. He threatened to pass a law to limit the central bank‘s independence if it […]
Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is proposing a bold departure for his country’s economy. He’s mostly right. Japan continues to underperform, and bad macroeconomic policy has been the main reason. Abenomics isn’t riskless or easy, however. The government will have to be wise as well as brave. Abe advocates what he calls a “three arrows” […]
The sequel seldom improves on the original. Yet Shinzo Abe, Japan’s newly re-elected prime minister, has already displayed more conviction during his second spell at the Kantei than in the entire year of his first, unhappy premiership. Political energy is a plus only when it’s wisely deployed however, and some fear that Abe is picking a […]
FOR 35 years the steel bolts holding up the ceiling of Sasago Tunnel, on a busy toll road west of Tokyo, were never checked. On December 2nd more than 600 of them had worked themselves so loose that a 130-metre stretch of the roof collapsed, crushing nine motorists. The disaster played into the hands of […]
An Xinhua editorial that also appeared in the U.S. edition of the China Daily asserts that the impending premiership of Japan’s Shinzo Abe would “destabilize” East Asia. Yet the piece in reality makes a case for why Abe’s next term in office would be a good thing. To quote from the article: “…Abe has called for an increase in Japan’s defense spending, easing constitutional […]
Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party is on the verge of reclaiming power in Japan, giving him seven months to convince voters he can revive the economy before another round of elections in July. The LDP is forecast to crush Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s Democratic Party of Japan in the Dec. 16 election for the lower […]
For Shinzo Abe, it isn’t enough to see Sony Corp. and Panasonic Corp., two icons of industrialJapan, reduced to junk-debt status. The man who probably will become prime minister next month might do the same for the yen. That is the upshot of his desire to browbeat the Bank of Japan into unlimited easing. Granted, his Liberal Democratic […]
Japanese leadership, it’s often said, is a revolving door, one that spits out a new prime minsterevery 12 months or so. You know something’s wrong, though, when it’s spun so far around that it begins churning out yesterday’s castaways. Such is the case with Shinzo Abe, the man poised to replace Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, who will […]
looking beyond borders 