Abenomics defends

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday launched a spirited defence of his “Abenomics” reforms aimed at kickstarting the world third-largest economy, saying the policy blitz had yielded gerat results. The reforms, based on big government spending, central bank monetary easing and structural change, had been hailed internationally as an opportunity to reverse deflation and sluggish growth after Abe launched them in 2012 when elected for a second term. Abe said, “I believe it would be fair to say that Japan is now truly on the verge of pulling out of deflation,” he said.
“The Japanese economy is back,” he said.

Abenomics is trying to increase inflation to devalue the yen. And it is supposed to help the exports since Japan relies on them so much. Abenomics also focuses on increasing government spending by creating jobs. His strategy also focuses on increasing private investment.

(Japantimes.co.jp reports:)
The stock market is recovering. The bad news is that the austerity hawks and conservative pundits (often the same) still want to see Abenomics-the economic policies put forward by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on taking office last year-as a mere flash in the pan. Perhaps the biggest mistake of the bad economists was failure to realize how much the yen depreciation triggered by Abenomics can benefit an economy. They like to point out how any boost to exporters is cancelled out by losses to import-dependent industries. But even in Economics 101 we learn that currency depreciation benefits not just exporters.

Then I found this interesting article on the excessive debt Japanese government has. But there’s a way Japan can begin sloughing off its debt and growing its economy: by privatizing government assets. What looks like the collapse of Japan’s GDP since 1990 probably hasn’t been as bad as it seems. Meanwhile, much of the rest of Japan’s excessive debt comes from the government’s absorption of private-sector debt throughout the 1990s. (read more on quartz)