UnNews:Japan gives away free money
UnFair and UnBalanced | ✪ | UnNews | ✪ | Thursday, November 21, 2024, 11:47:59 (UTC) |
Japan gives away free money |
5 October 2010
TOKYO, Japan -- The Bank of Japan's policy board voted on Tuesday to reduce interest rates to zero as it tries to revive a faltering economy.
"Japan's recovery is slowing down, perhaps because people are not spending a lot of yen," the central bank said in a statement. "So we are giving out all you want for free." To illustrate the effects of the new policy, the monthly payment on a loan of ¥100,000,000 would now be zero; whereas the payment on a loan of ¥200,000,000 would be--zero.
Japan followed the same policy of zero interest rates during the "lost decade." The resulting flood of yen banknotes enabled citizens to conduct searches for the decade, which could not have gone far on the tiny island nation.
Christian Carrillo, an economist at Société Générale here, said "We view this policy move as classic Japanese imitation of the United States. We expect that Japan will use the new, free money to repave highways unnecessarily and erect gaily colored signs telling the nation how the government is putting people back to work."
U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner agreed. "The only way we are going to avoid a complete collapse of the dollar after shoveling so much loot to construction crews is for all the world's other currencies to collapse faster." This week, European nations joined the U.S.'s longstanding push for China to devalue the yuan.
When all the world's currencies cease to function as stores of value, economists believe that citizens of the world will use cabbage as money. Anticipating this trend, speculators have already driven up the price of cabbage. A single head now costs $8 in South Korea, where they care about that sort of thing.
Sources[edit]
- Tomoko A. Hosaka "Zero interest rates back in Japan". Associated Press, October 5, 2010
- Sangwon Yoon "Soaring cabbage prices hit kimchi-loving SKoreans". Associated Press, October 5, 2010