Maybe after a couple generations the Japanese have finally had enough. Perhaps QQE was large enough so as to leave no doubt that not only did it fail, but that it was the same result registered time and again before. The Bank of Japan has promulgated eleven QE’s dating back to 2001, but this last one might have done so much damage as to settle the issue. Central banks and monetary policy work only on psychology, so with potentially a huge shift in opinion the true end of “stimulus” might mercifully be on the horizon. As suspected, NIRP might only accomplish the confession of QE’s failure and in a way that repeated QE’s couldn’t.
The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda “has run out of ammunition”, receiving in part hostile reception from the Japanese parliament coupled with decidedly negative public reaction. From this, as always, the central banker was stunned that people might not like to be directly taxed for not spending as central planners desire. It didn’t help that the yen only measured in the “right” direction for the briefest of moments, leaving Kuroda like a duck hit on the head (to borrow, appropriately I think, Lincoln’s phrase).
The criticism has come as a surprise to central-bank officials who thought their efforts to spark lending and faster economic growth would gain more public support. “Those who understand this policy are criticizing us, and those who do not are also criticizing us,” said one official this week.
While the Wall Street Journal will likely never write it, people are correct to be criticizing. QQE was supposed to leave no doubt but in the affirmative. Everything about it was meant just for that purpose, the monetary “shock and awe” that would force Japan to give up its “deflationary mindset” if not willingly then forcibly upon yen devaluation. To three years later have none of that and now the prospect of open NIRP is utterly damning.
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