Japan’s Deflation Persistence
John Aziz | Jun 08, 2013 08:09AM ET
One in four people in Japan will be older than 65 in 2014, compared with 9.6 percent in China and 14.2 percent in the U.S., according to data compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Now, because they have had longer to accrue weal the older people tend to have more savings, or have retired and live in a fixed income, and therefore benefit from deflation But correlation is not causation. Certainly, Japan’s older population loves deflation. But the issue is the love of deflation, not the age of the population, per se. More than 80 percent of respondents in a 1% inflation, and 3% income growth — and have a clear plan to hit those targets. But fighting against the widely-desired status quo — that is, deflation — in a democratic state is difficult. If Japanese people love deflation, they will vote for it at the polls. If Abe and Kuroda are to succeed in reigniting inflation, they need to convince Japanese savers to change their minds about inflation, and challenge the idea that saving in Yen is a desirable thing. After all, saving is not confined solely to the state-backed fiat currency. In a more inflationary environment, savers often choose to save through ownership of assets whose prices are increasing — land, real estate, commodities and currencies other than the state-backed fiat currency. In principle, there is no reason why Japan’s ageing population may not prove capable of moving its desire for savings into different media, and letting the Yen inflate. In practice, deflation and saving in Yen is cemented as a norm. That may prove extremely difficult to overcome.
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