Japan's Budget Mess

Tweet

It is sometimes hard to make heads or tails of the political bickering in Japan's parliament, but matters look like they are getting serious. And seriously against prime minister Noda's intentions to raise consumption tax. A few lawmakers have already left his party (the DPJ) in protest against the tax hikes under consideration. At the same time the government's fiscal position is only getting worse, with a record 49% of next year's budget to be financed by bond issuance. Clearly raising taxes would hurt the already stagnant economy, so what can be done?

In some sense Japan has a problem that many countries wold love to have - strong currency and no inflation. A central bank can can always print more of its own currency - the constraints are only that this makes it weaker against other currencies and stokes inflation. But for Japan both of those in moderation are what it needs. So the BOJ should follow the Swiss Central Bank and weaken the yen, which should give a boost to the economy and automatically increase tax revenues.