For a while there it looked like Japan had the answer. A strong new leader comes in and cuts through all the indecision, orders the central bank to flood the system with cash to depreciate the currency now rather than later – and boom, the stock market soars, exports rise and the economy starts growing again.
The entire left-of-center world eyed this process hungrily, sensing both vindication of their views and the coming economic nirvana when their governments finally accepted the truth about debt (it doesn’t matter) and easy money (a free lunch that always creates wealth). If Japan’s success proved sustainable, within a matter of months the European Central Bank would have no choice but to join the money creation orgy. And with the euro and yen both falling like rocks, the US Fed would soon have to follow.
But Japan’s success, to put it mildly, didn’t turn out to be sustainable. Just as Austrian economists and common sense predicted, interest rates on Japanese bonds soared, as the global markets subtracted the 2% target inflation rate from the 1.5% or so yield on long bonds, and decided that a negative real interest rate probably wasn’t the best deal. They sold, bond prices plunged, yields rose, and Japan hit the wall that Kyle Bass and others have been predicting it would hit for, it seems, ever. Japan’s stock market, now unsure exactly what is going on, has sold off in huge, bloody chunks. (The following chart does not show today’s 518 point drop.)
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