Chris Zell <[email protected]> wrote: But this money printing (or the creation of monetary reserves) does not > produce inflation automatically. After living thru the '70's, this came as > a shock to me. It still looks very weird for Japan trying to trigger > inflation and finding it more difficult than they thought. >
They find it kind of weird too. This is despite the fact that their national debt is a much larger fraction of GDP than anyone else's, I believe. Wikipedia says it is 214% compared to 74% for the U.S. An economic expert on NHK described the debt as "a pit from which there is no escape." I cannot understand why they can't escape it by printing money, but I don't get economics. Japanese leaders resemble the Germans in that they still fear hyperinflation. The Germans had it in 1920s and Japan in the 1940s, after the war. They cannot bring themselves to print money, I guess. - Jed
