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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   919 thread views

Transnational Thursday for May 2, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Japan

It appears as though the value of the Yen is currently in free fall. I can't say I know enough economics to explain the causes or potential implications of this, but it seems concerning nonetheless.

Saudi Arabia

Apparently the Saudis have secured funding for their rather adventurous future city concept, or at least a toned down version of it. While I'm all for innovation in the field of architecture, I certainly hope for things that are a bit more practical.

Armenia

The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan are scheduled to meet in Kazakhstan to presumably formalize the Armenian loss of Nagorno-Karabakh and probably handover of some additional territory in return for economic concessions. Or maybe the talks will break down and we'll have another genocidal war on our hands. Hard to tell.

Canada

The Canadian police have arrested three Indian nationals over the killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, continuing the Canada-India dispute that has bemused and disinterested onlookers around the world going "...huh?" and "what the fuck is Khalistan?"

All 3 of the killers have steretypical sikh first and last names. I'm guessing news media avoids calling them Sikh since that makes it look like Sikh infighting.

Japan

It appears as though the value of the Yen is currently in free fall. I can't say I know enough economics to explain the causes or potential implications of this, but it seems concerning nonetheless.

Noahpinion had a good (paywalled) article about this: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/is-japan-having-a-currency-crisis

The gist of it was that they're stuck in a hard spot. Nobody wants Japanese bonds because their interest rates are so low. And they can't raise interest rates because they have so much government debt and also a fragile employment situation. Still, "freefall" is an exaggeration. It's low but not that low. They have options, including if necessary, currency controls (forbidding people from selling the currency).

My contraversial opinion is they could solve this through immigration. There are a lot of weebs/retirees/weirdos who would want to move and live in Japan, but can't get a visa. Just let us buy a golden visa and go buy one of the abandoned houses there.

Japan's interest rates sticking in the negatives while everyone else's are soaring seems like the biggest factor there. You can just borrow yen at 0% and sell it to buy US treasuries for 5%, and if the bank of japan wants to keep rates low they just have to suck it up and subsidize it by burning through their reserves (I think? It's been a long time since int finance)

Whoever in the LDP kept up the pressure to get the reactors back online deserves a medal. They're still importing 10bcf of LNG per day last I checked, but thats 30% less than a decade ago. Plus coal imports are down from the quarter billion ton peak. That'd be absolutely crippling at 150 yen to the dollar.

Japan has structural factors to do with their debt to GDP ratio and demographic pyramid which incentivize them not to prioritize keeping inflation down, doesn't it?

Japan is so weird I hate speculating about it. Just the strangest behavior by consumers and companies. I want to find a reliable expert on the subject, so please let me know if you find one.

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