

Japan’s mythical debt crisis  - cwan
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8c72d612-3025-11df-8734-00144feabdc0,s01=1.html

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hga
" _The rationale for a Japanese debt crisis is clear. This year, for the first
time ever, the Japanese budget will be more reliant on bond issuance than tax
revenues. The ratio of Japan’s gross government debt to GDP has breached two
hundred per cent. A Godzilla-sized rollover of Y210,000bn – equivalent to the
entire public debt of Italy – will take place over the next twelve months._ "

(210,000 billion yen is 2,320 billion dollars.)

Whatever their ability to finance such a crushing burden now---the author
cluelessly comments that " _Bizarrely, Japanese policy-makers have been more
concerned with minimising the current interest rate on public debt than
reflating the economy and generating higher tax revenues and lower social
costs over the long haul._ "---it's hard to see how this doesn't end in tears
with a very rapidly greying population (a very deflationary thing) and the
younger people just not being willing and/or able to have families.

Yeah, the bond market is sanguine now, but "something that can't go on forever
won't".

