Bonfire of the Absurdities in News New Format

Abenomics crucified with lowest GDP since Abe, worst current account deficit on record

Abenomics crucified with lowest GDP since Abe, worst current account deficit on record. “Monetary debasement does NOT result in an economic recovery, because no nation can force another to pay for its recovery.” No, but the political cronies are gettin’ rich and that’s all that really matters.

Next Read: Richard Branson tells climate skeptics-get out of our way »

Bonfire of the Absurdities: After 35 year career writing software for IBM mainframes, am now self-employed contractor thinking of joining a union and striking for higher wages. Cured morbid fear of heights when I learned to look at them as lengths standing on end. Uncompromising in refusal to accept browser cookies. Amateur investor who has accumulated a small fortune in the market after starting out years ago with a large one. For recreation, I run, hike, kayak and play tennis but will not consider synchronized swimming under any circumstances.

View Comments (3)

PsychoDad says:

March 12, 2014 at 2:22 pm

Ohhh......I've been wondering what poor old Lincoln was getting blamed for.
poppajoe49 says:

March 11, 2014 at 7:03 pm

OK BOA, the point is what? That we're going to be Japan soon? I think we're worse off than they are, because we have exponentially more debt than them. In the end, we're going to be Greece x 100,000,000.
- Bonfire of the Absurdities says:
  
  March 12, 2014 at 5:43 am
  
  Japan has done what Krugman and the other Keynesians urged and it failed. This will not, of course, shut them up because like socialism the excuse is always "the ideas are sound but you're doing it wrong."
  
  Japan may be in an economic death spiral. Japan, the US and Greece all have different problems. Like the US, Japan's debts are denominated in a currency, the yen, that they can print, so they technically can never go bankrupt - they just create the yen to pay off their debts. Greece's is debt is denominated in Euros, which they are not able to print, which is why they can be bankrupted by them. The best way out for Greece would probably be to renounce their debts and leave the Euro, but there is a lot of political pressure from Brussels to NOT do that because it would open the flood gates, so to speak. So Greece struggles with the problem, for now.
  
  Japan has a different problem than us in that they import a lot of stuff, especially energy, which currently trades on international markets in dollars. As their currency weakens against the dollar, imports will become more and more expensive to the citizens. But Japan is in a bind with an aging population (the birth rate is perhaps the lowest of all the industrialized countries) which spends little but requires much social welfare spending.
  
  We have a number of advantages over Japan and other countries. Our biggest disadvantage is we are "led" by a bigger bunch of sillier fools than everybody else. But a lot of folks have predicted the end of the fiat money system is coming (http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424053111904346504577531052271788084.html?cb=logged0.1912315487071209#articleTabs_article%3D1) and Japan's current problems may mark the beginning of the end.