Business / Financial Markets | FOCUS Jan 25, 2021
Pandemic-era central banking is creating bubbles everywhere
In 2020, cheap money, gushing in from the world’s major central banks, inflated assets and reshaped how we save, invest and spend.
Business / Financial Markets Apr 2, 2019
Japan government bonds have a cute sales mascot, but there's only one buyer that matters
In the land that gave us Hello Kitty, it's no surprise the government employs an endearing mascot to sell its bonds. His name is Kokusai-sensei. A pint-size rendition of him welcomes visitors to the investor relations office at the Finance Ministry. Pudgy and professorial, ...
Business / Economy Feb 17, 2017
Japan quietly reflates, buying time for reckoning with debt
Hidden beneath the headlines about Japan's continual failure to reach its inflation target is a quiet reflation of its economy. It took almost two decades, but Japan finally notched a record for the size of its economy in 2016, one of the most significant signs ...