Japanese Financial System Is Beginning To Spin Wildly Out Of Control

The financial system of the third largest economy on the planet is starting to come apart at the seams, and the ripple effects are going to be felt all over the globe.  Nobody knew exactly when the Japanese financial system was going to begin to implode, but pretty much everyone knew that a day of reckoning for Japan was coming eventually.

After all, the Japanese economy has been in a slump for over a decade, Japan has a debt to GDP ratio of well over 200 percent and they are spending about 50 percent of all tax revenue on debt service.  In a desperate attempt to revitalize the economy and reduce the debt burden, the Bank of Japan decided a few months ago to start pumping massive amounts of money into the economy.

At first, it seemed to be working.  Economic activity perked up and the Japanese stock market went on a tremendous run.  Unfortunately, there is also a very significant downside to pumping your economy full of money. Read more >>

Japan to experience long term drop in tourism and product ownership

Image via WikipediaJack Barnes
In the future, Japanese products will have to undergo extreme levels of product safety inspections. The radiation is not biased in what it infects. That is, it could be from a sub assembly part shipped out of the area, or it could be from airborne fallout contaminating a shipping container for example.

The reality is that Japan is going to experience both a long term drop in tourism, but also a long term drop in the public ownership of Japanese produced products. There will be a long term stigma to the events of March 11th, which have not been baked into the global supply chain yet. Customer choices is one that has not been touched on yet, but lets be honest. Do you want to buy a car that has a real chance of residual radiation? Even if it was only a 1-5% chance?

Over the medium term, I expect to see Japan export its business with employees, to seismically safe locations. The need for major rolling black outs this summer is going to hit home to the businesses that need a stable supply of electricity.

When you consider the true level of importance of the Kanto region on the Japanese economy, the implications sink in. The impact to the nation is going to be larger than most expected. The Kanto region was still an important bread basket for Japan. In a nutshell, 1 out of 3 Japanese lived in this area. More...