Good morning, Fiat Nam!
Thanks to Dave and Denali Guide for suggesting that greeting.
In case you were wondering what happened overnight, Kuroda and the Central Bank of Japan decided to significantly increase their Quantitative Easing.
As you may recall, the Fed and the Japanese Central Bank did a tag team of money printing in the 'recovery' in the 2000's as the US pumped up a housing bubble.
The Japanese said that in addition to buying more official debt, almost as much as the government can issue which is an overt money printing machine, the government has also indicated that they will use their substantial pension funds to buy more equities and REITs, including those of other countries.
I think Japan may eventually provide a good test of the theory that a sovereign that prints its own money can never default. Japan's problems involve significant demographics, but a great portion is some of the worst crony capitalism and opaque government by insiders in the OECD nations. It is this kereitsu corporatism that put the FU in Fukushima.
One thing that works in the people's favor is a favorable attitude towards the group backed by peer pressure, rather than a dog eat dog economy based on serial fraud, and commensurately a decent public safety net. Or at least there has been.
Stock futures soared in the US and the Nikkei futures were limit up.
Overnight the Russia central bank had to raise its interest rates to 9.5% to defend the ruble which was under pressure on the forex markets.
And in what appears to be a somewhat counterintuitive move despite Dollar strength on Yen weakness, gold and silver were slammed down hard in thinly traded markets.
The pressure from the US and its client states is now shifting heavily to Europe and especially to Germany, to permit a similar move to quantitative easing in Europe.
China remains remarkably quiet for now. Eurasia is large enough I think to break away from the threat of financial repression. One wonders how far they can be pushed before they make that choice. Or perhaps it is already being made.
Interesting times.
