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Japan

Japan's Inflation Hits 40-Year High as Weak Yen Fans Import Costs (nikkei.com) 13

Japan's core consumer inflation accelerated to a 40-year high in October as a weak yen pushed up the cost of imported commodities, which were already surging due to global supply constraints. From a report: The data suggests Japanese companies may be shaking off their deflationary mindset as they gradually raise prices of everything from fuel to food while coming under pressure from cost-push inflation. The nationwide core consumer price index (CPI), which excludes volatile fresh food prices but includes energy, rose 3.6% year on year in October, versus a 3.5% rise expected by economists, and accelerating from the prior month's 3.0% gain. The jump marked the fastest gain since February 1982.

It also confirmed CPI growth remained above the Bank of Japan's (BOJ) 2% inflation goal for a seventh straight month. Despite broadening price pressures, which are a growing concern for households, however, the BOJ would not join a global trend of tightening monetary policy through rate hikes. BOJ Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda reiterated on Thursday a pledge to maintain monetary stimulus to support a fragile economy facing still weak inflation and reeling from the COVID downturn.

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Japan's Inflation Hits 40-Year High as Weak Yen Fans Import Costs

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  • Argh (Score:3, Funny)

    by mobby_6kl ( 668092 ) on Friday November 18, 2022 @10:44AM (#63061096)

    Why would Biden do this!?!

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      Damn beat me to it!

      Well the good thing is the first order of business for the new House is to investigate Hunter Biden's laptop. You know the guy who doesn't even hold a political office. Because that's currently the most dire issue the country is facing now. https://thehill.com/homenews/h... [thehill.com]

      *Why won't Biden do anything about inflation!*

      Then they proceed to immediately do nothing about inflation.

      Meanwhile, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/0... [cnbc.com]

    • Do what? Print an extra $2.2T? Because he needed to spend some money to make sure his Party won the elections.

      Isn't it interesting that the US inflation for this year matches up nicely with the $2.2T? Except, of course, that the 2.2T is there for the government to spend, not for the citizenry, of course....

  • by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Friday November 18, 2022 @11:44AM (#63061285)
    In the US, inflation for the previous 12 month period hit 9.1% in June of 2022 (6.6% if food and energy are excluded) and is still 7.7%, so Japan's 3.6% sounds OK to me!

    Meanwhile UK inflation just reached a new high of 11.1% in Oct 22 [bbc.com] which means it may go even further, so, ouch... (This is driven largely by food and would be a bit lower if you exclude that like, as 3.6% does for Japan).

  • The US has massive reserves. Lowering the commodity oil prices would reduce inflation for every country. It would also reduce Russia's oil earnings [wsj.com], making Putin more amenable to coming to the negotiation table.

    • If you are referring to the US' strategic petroleum reserve, at its peak it held about 650MM barrels and it sits just below 400 now. The US consumes about 20MM barrels a day, so the entire reserve would last only about 20 days. Emptying the entire thing wouldn't make much difference to the price in the short term, and would be disastrous in the long term.

      If you are referring to further development of the oil we have under the ground, that would be a good long term strategy but politically tough to pull of
      • If you are referring to further development of the oil we have under the ground, that would be a good long term strategy

        Found the guy who wants to watch the world burn

  • The US central bank (aka, "The Fed") tightened too quickly in their effort to control US inflation. Result? Over the past several months all the other major currencies are down vs. the US Dollar. This would logically include the Yen.

    In other words, there's a limit to how fast the Fed can move without impacting global trade. In theory a long term weak Yen makes Japanese exports more attractive, but with everything except $ weak that means it only helps the US buy more Japanese goods; but since it's happe

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