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…just so that Toyota and a few other major manufacturers could sell more products overseas The strong yen was hurting any and all export industries in Japan, n

by po 12y ago

…just so that Toyota and a few other major manufacturers could sell more products overseas The strong yen was hurting any and all export industries in Japan, not just a few companies. The ability to export at competitive prices is extremely important to the Japanese economy. A devalued yen does drive up the price of imported goods (like fuel) but it also drives demand for jobs. The price of locally produced goods are largely unaffected.

ekianjo 12y ago
Do you go shopping? Because i have seen most of my bills go up. Including food. And not just a little. EDIT: I have been in companies making products in Japan for years and I can tell you the petrol price impacts everything and a weak yen is very detrimental to your product cost structure. If you dont see the prices move much its because the companies are taking the hit as they do not want to raise prices too much and therefore keep prices more or less the same but reduce quantities, or remove ingredients or parts of the products to make it cheaper to produce. But do not kid yourself into believing increased petrol prices because of a weaker yen have no effect on the economy or prices. They clearly do.You basically get less for your money as a consumer.
- po 12y ago
  Yeah, I readily admit rising fuel costs drive up the prices of most consumable goods. It's likely that the closing of nuclear plans was a significant contributor to that as well. My point was that given the situation, it is better to have prices rise across the board due to fuel costs than to have whole industries and major employers collapse due to lack of export competitiveness. If the price rise was due to fuel costs, then it will even drive efficiency gains. I don't think you can fairly cast it as favoritism to industry lobbies on behalf of a few major companies. I think at the time, all of Japan was at risk of losing competitiveness and once you lose an industry, it's quite hard to get it back.
  - ekianjo 12y ago
    > My point was that given the situation, it is better to have prices rise across the board due to fuel costs than to have whole industries and major employers collapse due to lack of export competitiveness. If the price rise was due to fuel costs, then it will even drive efficiency gains. There's tons of companies in Japan who only deal with the Japanese market and do not export anything outside. Because they can survive and proper on the Japanese market size. So effectively for these companies the rising fuel costs are making things harder from them every single day. Major employers only employ a small amount of people in Japan, everything considered, and therefore it's clearly the work of powerful industrial lobbies which fail to see that rising fuel costs are going to kick them back in the ass in the next coming year and bring things back to normal again. With the depreciation of the Yen they just achieved some gains for a few quarters but in the end it will even out no matter what. Japan has lost competitiveness a long time ago and even when the yen was weak back in 2006-2007, so the yen getting stronger was actually quite positive for the Japanese consumer as a whole: prices were stable and even decreasing for several commodities post 2008-crash. What you see here is just Abe doing his magic trick, trying to look like Harry Potter while he's just a clown from a local fair who understands nothing of Economics. Hey, that's why they invented the word Abenomics, because it does make any sense for anyone else.

by po 12y ago

ekianjo 12y ago

Do you go shopping? Because i have seen most of my bills go up. Including food. And not just a little. EDIT: I have been in companies making products in Japan for years and I can tell you the petrol price impacts everything and a weak yen is very detrimental to your product cost structure. If you dont see the prices move much its because the companies are taking the hit as they do not want to raise prices too much and therefore keep prices more or less the same but reduce quantities, or remove ingredients or parts of the products to make it cheaper to produce. But do not kid yourself into believing increased petrol prices because of a weaker yen have no effect on the economy or prices. They clearly do.You basically get less for your money as a consumer.

po 12y ago
Yeah, I readily admit rising fuel costs drive up the prices of most consumable goods. It's likely that the closing of nuclear plans was a significant contributor to that as well. My point was that given the situation, it is better to have prices rise across the board due to fuel costs than to have whole industries and major employers collapse due to lack of export competitiveness. If the price rise was due to fuel costs, then it will even drive efficiency gains. I don't think you can fairly cast it as favoritism to industry lobbies on behalf of a few major companies. I think at the time, all of Japan was at risk of losing competitiveness and once you lose an industry, it's quite hard to get it back.
- ekianjo 12y ago
  > My point was that given the situation, it is better to have prices rise across the board due to fuel costs than to have whole industries and major employers collapse due to lack of export competitiveness. If the price rise was due to fuel costs, then it will even drive efficiency gains. There's tons of companies in Japan who only deal with the Japanese market and do not export anything outside. Because they can survive and proper on the Japanese market size. So effectively for these companies the rising fuel costs are making things harder from them every single day. Major employers only employ a small amount of people in Japan, everything considered, and therefore it's clearly the work of powerful industrial lobbies which fail to see that rising fuel costs are going to kick them back in the ass in the next coming year and bring things back to normal again. With the depreciation of the Yen they just achieved some gains for a few quarters but in the end it will even out no matter what. Japan has lost competitiveness a long time ago and even when the yen was weak back in 2006-2007, so the yen getting stronger was actually quite positive for the Japanese consumer as a whole: prices were stable and even decreasing for several commodities post 2008-crash. What you see here is just Abe doing his magic trick, trying to look like Harry Potter while he's just a clown from a local fair who understands nothing of Economics. Hey, that's why they invented the word Abenomics, because it does make any sense for anyone else.