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Assassinated Japan Finance Chief Invoked in Rebuilding Debate
ที่มา : Bloomberg
By Toru Fujioka and Takashi Hirokawa - Mar 24, 2011 10:01 PM GMT+0700

Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa is under fire for refusing to consider 1930s-style purchases of government bonds to fund reconstruction from the nation’s record earthquake.

Shirakawa yesterday repeated his attempts to quash direct buying of government debt, a measure allowed in extraordinary circumstances with the permission of the Diet. The policy would undermine confidence in the yen and provoke a surge in consumer prices, he said at parliamentary fiscal and finance committee hearings the past two days.

“If this isn’t a special situation, what is?” Kozo Yamamoto, a Diet member with the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, said in an interview this week. Yamamoto advocated a 20 trillion yen ($247 billion) reconstruction program funded by BOJ debt purchases. A group of ruling-party lawmakers submitted a similar proposal to Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda on March 18, according to a web log posting by DPJ member Yoichi Kaneko.

The debate parallels discussions last year in the U.S. and Europe, where the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank adopted bond-buying programs. In Japan, the world’s most- indebted country, some lawmakers have also proposed tax increases for the first time since 1997, when such a step helped tip the economy into a recession.

Shinichiro Furumoto, the director general of the DPJ’s tax committee, has floated a 1 percentage point increase in the consumption tax.

Yields Retreat

Benchmark 10-year government bonds yielded 1.215 percent late yesterday, down almost 10 basis points, or 0.1 percentage point, since the March 11 magnitude-9 temblor and ensuing tsunami devastated the northeast of the nation. Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s government said two days ago that the damage amounted to as much as 25 trillion yen.

Noda said yesterday he wants to pass a supplementary budget to fund rebuilding next month. Using public bond sales to pay for the package would add to a debt that the finance ministry projected in January would increase to a record 997.7 trillion yen in the year starting April 1.

“Japan’s fiscal situation means the government can’t increase spending for reconstruction without being clear about how to fund them,” said Takero Doi, a professor of economics at Keio University in Tokyo and a member of an advisory panel to the Ministry of Finance.

Tax Proposal

Raising Japan’s income tax may be the best option, Doi said. An increase in the 5 percent national sales tax should be reserved for social-security costs dealing with the country’s aging population, while the corporate tax shouldn’t be lifted because Japan’s levy is already the second highest among developed nations, he said.

Australia is also considering taxes to pay for its rebuilding efforts after floods and a cyclone hit the state of Queensland, with Prime Minister Julia Gillard proposing a A$1.8 billion ($1.8 billion) levy.

Politicians including Yamamoto and Kaneko oppose tax increases to fund the reconstruction because it could sap private demand that’s already hurt by the quake. Japan’s gross domestic product contracted at a 1.3 percent annualized pace in the fourth quarter and Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities Co. predicts it may shrink as much as 12 percent in April to June.

“There’s no way that taxes can be increased when there’s deflation,” the LDP’s Yamamoto said. The proposal submitted by the DPJ’s Kaneko called for no tax increases for several years and reductions in some levies.

1930s Example

Kaneko’s group cited Japan’s experience of the 1930s as evidence that BOJ purchases of public debt are an effective means of ending deflation. Some lawmakers last year had already pushed the central bank to step up its monetary stimulus to bolster the recovery from Japan’s deepest postwar recession.

“Bank of Japan bond underwriting is a policy that is evaluated highly worldwide because it helped Japan recover from the Great Depression before others,” when the policy was implemented by then-finance minister Korekiyo Takahashi, the Kaneko group’s proposal said.

Takahashi boosted spending by 34 percent in the 1932 fiscal year, financing it by doubling bond issuance, according to a report by the Japan Center for Economic Research. The BOJ’s underwriting continued for 14 years until the end of World War II, with the ratio of bonds bought by the central bank peaking in 1933 at 89.6 percent, according to a 2001 paper by the bank.

Out of Depression

Takahashi’s efforts helped lift the economy out of deflation at a time when the U.S. was still in the midst of the Great Depression, the Japan Center for Economic Research’s Yuji Kuronuma said in his 2009 report.

“In 1933 and 1934, personal spending and business fixed investment once again fuelled a growing economy,” Kuronuma wrote.

Japan has again been fighting to end deflation. Consumer prices excluding fresh food fell for the 23rd straight month in January. Prices probably declined 0.3 percent in February from a year earlier, according to the median estimate of 23 economists before the statistics bureau releases the data today.

The BOJ has purchased JGBs through the secondary market, and includes the securities in its 10 trillion yen asset- purchase plans. The Fed and ECB’s programs are also done through the secondary market.

“If a central bank starts to underwrite government bonds, there may be no problems at first, but it would lead to a limitless expansion of currency issuance, spur sharp inflation and yield a big blow to people’s lives and economic activities,” as has happened in the past, Shirakawa said three days ago. The BOJ also has a separate self-imposed rule of not holding more JGBs in its portfolio than banknotes outstanding.

Takahashi Killed

Japan’s fiscal spending in the 1930s was used to build up the military in the run-up to World War II. Takahashi later made enemies when he attempted to cut military expenditures to reduce inflation. When military officers revolted during the so-called Feb. 26 Incident of 1936, they assassinated Takahashi along with other top officials.

“The policies that Korekiyo Takahashi took were abnormal, but he was at heart someone who wanted to rebuild Japan’s finances,” then-Japanese finance minister Hirohisa Fujii, said in December 2009.

Create Date : 25 มีนาคม 2554 Last Update : 25 มีนาคม 2554 9:37:02 น. Counter : 562 Pageviews.		0 comments
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