9/8/2013: PM Abe: a fella who makes history, quickly...

Roger, we have a problem... or rather - we now have a historic-level problem. Swept by Abenomics - the latest Japanese policy craze that believes in simultaneous borrowing and printing of excessive amounts of cash as a form of economic development, the Japanese economy is drowning in the sea of Government debt. This week, the Government has announced that its official debt levels have surpassed Yen 1,008,600 billion or Yen 1,008.6 trillion or Yen 1.0 quadrillion.

Never fear, this for now amounts to just USD10.42 trillion - a mere 230% of GDP. Abenomics has some room to run, yet... stay tuned and buckled up.

Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/node/477408 via @zerohedge

19/2/2013: Japan's Woes: 3 recent posts

Some excellent blogposts on Japan's problems via Economonitor:

1) All exports and money printing can't offset Japan's debt, ageing and domestic demand woes: http://www.economonitor.com/edwardhugh/2013/02/12/japans-looming-singularity/?utm_source=contactology&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EconoMonitor%20Highlights%3A%20End%20Games

2) Does end of growth (Japan's example) spell end of high quality of life? http://www.economonitor.com/dolanecon/2013/02/15/growth-and-quality-of-life-what-can-we-learn-from-japan/

3) Japan's forgotten (but not fully unwound) debt bubble: http://www.economonitor.com/blog/2013/01/the-setting-sun-japans-forgotten-debt-problems/

All worth a read.

I can add that in 2011 Quality of Life Index by International Living magazine, ranking 191 countries around the world, Japan was in 7th place (rank range is between 7th and 10th), whilst Ireland was in 20th (rank range between 20th and 26th) in terms of overall quality of life, with Japan outperforming Ireland in 4 out of 9 categories of parameters on which the rankings were based and tying Ireland in one category. (link to full rankings)

Note: the above rankings did throw some strange results, so careful reading into them.