Japan is in danger!

Author: lukewarm source: official account: lukewarm studio has been authorized to reprint

To say that Japan is in danger is either a headline party or a literal meaning.

The tipping point of the crisis in Japan is the trade deficit for ten consecutive months.

In the past may, Japan had a deficit of 2.38 trillion yen, or 119.2 billion yuan, which was the second largest deficit in recorded history, only slightly lower than the deficit of 2.79 trillion yen in January 2014.

A continuous deficit is a very bad economic signal. For example, when your family has saved 1000 yuan, you often sell leeks to your neighbors and earn 10 yuan a day, while your neighbors sell cucumbers to you every day and earn 20 yuan a day. You have a deficit of 10 yuan a day. If you go against 100 days, you will have no money. Your children will have no money to study, and your guests will have no money to buy cosmetics. They all have to make trouble with you, saying that you can’t run a family and scold you every day, Life will not go on.

The Opium War was that when the British did business with the Qing Dynasty, they liked to buy Chinese porcelain and tea, while the Qing Dynasty was a self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy, and did not buy their piano glass. The British trade deficit with China every year made the British desperate, so they wanted to sell opium to the Chinese in exchange for a surplus. The Chinese did not want to buy it, so they opened the door with cannons, pressed the head of the Qing Dynasty on the ground for friction, and forced China to accept the import of opium, Relying on the surplus of opium trade, China’s finance was gradually hollowed out.

The colonists created many words to package the legitimacy of their aggression. For example, the word “close the country” actually means that they want to sell opium to the Chinese people. It also means “middle-income trap”. The economic trap of developing countries is deliberately dug by developed countries, but they say it is your own responsibility. You developing countries fell into the trap.

This is the colonists’ PUA to other countries. If I beat you, you should reflect on it. All the people who don’t reflect on it are populists.

Chinese scholars should keep a clear head when reading the knowledge of Contemporary Humanities and economics. Don’t believe what foreigners say in the book. They should really think independently. What they say should pass through their own minds first.

Back to Japan, the current deficit of Japan was not just caused by the Russian Ukrainian war. Before the Russian Ukrainian war, Japan had a deficit of fourorfive months.

Since August 2021, Japan has had a deficit, but at that time, the monthly deficit was only hundreds of billions of yen, that is, tens of billions of yuan less. No one paid attention to the lack of money.

After the Russo Ukrainian war, the world energy prices soared, and Japan’s trade deficit was getting worse day by day. The data in recent months could not be stopped, and there were signs that the entire Japanese economy would be brought down.

How did this deficit come into being?

I went to the Japanese website to check the data, and found that there were two main points. One was that the Japanese couldn’t stand the rise in energy prices, and the other was that their industrial structure had problems.

Japan has no natural resources. It imports all the oil, natural gas and coal necessary for industrialization, as well as grain. 88% of its energy and 63% of its grain come from other countries, so it is very easy to get stuck.

Japan’s stranglehold is not the same thing as China’s stranglehold. China’s stranglehold will prevent us from developing and our lives can be maintained. If Japan gets stuck, it will immediately be a problem of survival. There will be a major power outage and famine, and a batch of dead people will die worse than North Korea.

Although Japan is a rich and developed country, the lifeline of Japan has never been in the hands of the Japanese themselves. Their geographical environment determines that it is easy to collapse, and if it collapses, it will collapse and cannot be stopped.

Therefore, Japan can only be obedient to the United States. The United States, which has the sea power, is as easy to crush Japan as to beat its son. It can beat Japan out of shit at any time.

If the United States forces Japan to express its opposition to China, Japan will always push an influential person who is not in a high position of real power to come out and shout for two voices. For example, Shinzo Abe, who retired from the platform last time, can try to satisfy the United States without stimulating China.

In fact, they can’t afford to offend either side. If they can cushion it, they can cushion it.

Of course, Japan does not want China to be strong and prosperous. This is the same reason that Britain never wants the unification of the European continent. A strong continent will suppress the development of these two island countries.

How much does Japan depend on foreign energy? We speak with data.

In fy2021, Japan’s import volume increased by 33%, of which crude oil, coal and other bulk commodities almost all rely on imports.

In May, 2022, Japan’s import volume increased by 49%, reaching a record high of 9.63 trillion yen, of which crude oil increased by 147%, liquefied natural gas increased by 154%, and coal increased by 267%.

Before the Russo Ukrainian war, energy was rising slowly, and Japan’s deficit was still small. Once the war began, the global oil and natural gas soared. In order to cooperate with the United States’ sanctions against Russia, Japan stopped exporting products to Russia, but Russia dared not stop the oil and natural gas contract. After stopping, Japanese industry would be finished. Only the import did not go out, and the prices of the incoming goods also increased. Can it not have a deficit?

Another reason is that Japan’s industrial structure is gradually aging, which is in danger of being eliminated by China at any time.

Japan is no longer Japan at its peak in the 1980s-1990s. After they missed the Internet industry in the 2000s, they have been eating the old capital of automobile, animation, new materials, steel, machinery manufacturing, optics and tourism. We often hear how powerful Japan is in a certain sub category, but this is not the key point. The sub category can not feed many people. The key point is to destroy the automobile industry, Japan will fall by half.

Automobiles not only refer to finished products, but also include upstream and downstream products such as automotive glass, metal materials and automotive electronics. Automobiles and related industries account for 50% of Japan’s industrial exports. I don’t know how many people they feed.

But now there is something wrong with this industry.

Japan used to export a large number of auto parts to South Korea. However, on June 14 this year, the Korean automobile association released data that in 2021, the auto parts imported from China increased from 1.8% in 2000 to 34.9%, while the auto parts imported from Japan decreased from 45.5% in 2000 to 11.6%.

The root cause is that electric vehicles are replacing fuel vehicles. Each year, South Korea imports 83% of positive materials from China, more than 60% of negative materials, electrolytes and diaphragms, and 100%, 93%, 82%, 65% and 59% of graphite, manganese, cobalt, nickel and lithium respectively.

Many people don’t know that the electric vehicle industry is disintegrating the old world pattern. Japan and Germany can’t keep up with the development of the times. Toyota Volkswagen has to kneel down. BYD and Geely should dominate the global automobile market in 2025-2030. Many people just don’t believe it. Their brains are rusted by the noble Cherry Blossom rain. They will only follow outsiders to laugh at their poor and rustic family and ask their own people to reflect every day, So we can wait for the Oriental people to give him a little leftover food, let him live in Tokyo for two years, or get some poor royalties to give the Oriental people an image package to boast about their old cooking man and the ghost of tempura.

The two major reasons of energy price and old industry attack Japan in both directions, making Japan’s trade deficit larger and larger.

The war between Russia and Ukraine will stop one day, but the industrial renewal is irreversible. The electric vehicle industry in China and the United States is the most deadly. The Chinese army composed of BYD, Xiaopeng, ideality, Weilai, Chang’an and Geely will create a large number of high paid jobs and gradually recover the economic losses of the Chinese nation.

Of course, Japan’s economic players know what caused the deficit, but against this unfavorable background, when the Federal Reserve began to raise interest rates substantially, Japan actually reversed its operation, kept interest rates loose and steadfastly refused to raise interest rates.

As mentioned in the previous article, Erdogan was the only one in the world who dared to raise interest rates in the opposite direction and cut interest rates sharply. As a result, Turkey’s inflation exceeded 70%. Is Japan blind?

Tokuhiko Kuroda, governor of the Bank of Japan, sighed: Japan has its own national conditions here!

Japan has entered the era of zero interest rate since 1998. Only in 2007 did it raise interest rates slightly. They have been lying flat on the road of monetary easing for more than 20 years.

Other countries worry about inflation, while Japan worries about deflation.

It is normal for a developing country to maintain appropriate inflation. If deflation falls and the total social demand is less than the total social supply, investment and consumption will be reduced, the economic situation will be depressed, and wages will be reduced, prices will fall, and the unemployment rate will rise.

In the golden age of the economy, the Japanese popular “blink of an eye”, spending money and having fun in time. Everyone is spending crazily. The streets of Tokyo are full of famous scenes of calling taxis with ten thousand yuan bills. Even European and American girls go to Japanese nightclubs to make money.

When the economy entered a period of slowdown, a large number of borrowers sold their kidneys to pay off their debts and carried on their mortgage for a lifetime to death. Terrified young people started “breaking up their homes” and prepared to be single-minded, not married, infertile and obscene. They were determined not to spend money. The country has entered three decades of deflation.

Japan’s economic circles have been worried by Japan’s deflation. If the interest rate is raised, it will impose a loan burden on Japanese enterprises that are mainly export-oriented. Enterprises are unwilling to invest, and more Japanese will lose their jobs.

Another important reason for not raising interest rates is that civilians cannot afford high interest rates, which will lead to the collapse of real estate.

A large number of Japanese office workers rely on low interest rates to buy their houses. We are familiar with the crayon family. His house was returned from 1990 to 2022, and it took 32 years to pay off.

Although it is a cartoon, the family economic situation of crayon Xiaoxin is grounded. His father, Hiroshi nohara, is the head of the sales department. His monthly salary is 300000 yen, about 15000 yuan (before the devaluation, it should be about 18000 yuan). The living expenses, housing loans and car loans of a family of four all depend on the income of Hiroshi nohara. Hiroshi nohara absolutely dares not to resign. If the central bank raises interest rates, his company may have high repayment of bank loans, To save money and lay off workers, as soon as Hirohito noghara is laid off, Xiaoxin’s family will have to eat dirt.

Raising interest rates is also a scourge, which will make small new families unable to repay their housing loans. Large areas of their families’ supply will be cut off, and the banks will have to collapse, thus triggering a financial tsunami.

In order to protect employment, finance, real estate and banks, the Bank of Japan has to continue to relax tearfully and gnash its teeth under the background of the US interest rate hike.

Kuroda knows the consequences of the US interest rate hike.

The biggest consequence is the crazy depreciation of the Yen we saw today.

At present, only China in the world dares to cut interest rates slightly when the United States raises interest rates because of its special national conditions. All other countries that do not raise interest rates together with the Federal Reserve are falling apart.

The exchange rate of the yen against the US dollar has dropped sharply from about 100 to 1 in 2020 to 135:1 today. Since 2021, it has fallen by 25% in this year.

By the end of this year, Japan’s per capita GDP in US dollars may plummet by 20%, which is simply a financial disaster.

I see a lot of information saying that the United States is reaping Japan. In fact, the biggest reason for the depreciation of the yen is that the Bank of Japan maintained a loose monetary policy and stubbornly refused to raise interest rates.

International investors who engage in carry trade sell the low interest rate currency yen and buy the high interest rate currency dollar to strengthen the depreciation of the yen.

According to the speculative fund position trend released by the commodity futures trading commission of the United States, in the Chicago currency futures market, the net selling volume of yen against the US dollar by speculators remained high at about 100000 contracts, resulting in the accumulation of yen selling positions.

The sharp depreciation of the yen has produced another bad result. Japan will pay more for overseas oil, natural gas and coal.

The trade deficit then widened.

This is like an endless loop:

High energy prices and old industries cause trade deficits. The trade deficit indirectly causes the depreciation of the yen. The depreciation of the yen makes the purchase price of energy higher and causes a more serious trade deficit.

The only way to solve this problem is for the central bank to raise interest rates. However, raising interest rates will lead to the bankruptcy of more export dependent enterprises, the unemployment of more workers and the failure of more people to repay their housing loans.

I dare not raise interest rates even if I die.

In the Japanese forum, I saw a Japanese netizen lament that even if the yen depreciated to 200 yen to 1 US dollar, the Bank of Japan would not dare to raise interest rates to fight against the depreciation.

If we do not raise interest rates, we will die slowly. If we raise interest rates, we will die quickly.

Kuroda could only look up to the sky and sigh: Japan has its own national conditions here!

Japan can only solve the short-term dilemma by begging the Russian Ukrainian war to end as soon as possible and the world energy prices to fall as soon as possible. It can also solve the long-term dilemma by begging the complete failure of the electric vehicle revolution between China and the United States.

In the final analysis, this is determined by Japan’s land and resources and caused by Japan’s geographical dilemma.

This is not the case in China, because China is vast in territory and resources and has a large number of mineral resources. It does not need to rely on imported raw materials to develop its industry as much as Japan.

What is national talent? This is the national gift.

Japan’s national fortune has come to an end.

The peak of their whole history appeared in the 1980s, and they can still survive more than 30 years of peaceful and rich life. God has given them more than enough food.

When the industrial revolution first entered Asia, Japan took the lead and completed the anti superpower against China. After the end of World War II, it was originally transformed into an agricultural country, but because of the unexpected resurrection of the Korean War, it enjoyed decades of blessings.

However, a country’s resource endowment is there. Japan’s natural resources and population resources can never be compared with China.

An export-oriented country with a high dependence on raw materials of 88%, a country that needs to import 75million tons of natural gas every year and 3million barrels of crude oil every day to maintain its basic survival, has finally hit its ceiling.

The best outcome for Japan is to become today’s Portugal, the Netherlands and Spain. By mastering the industry and tourism of some sub categories, Japan is living a life of low-end developed countries. It has to sell cute every day and live a good life with a face of peace with the world.

The worst outcome for Japan is that it overstates its capacity to join the Anti China alliance led by the United States and becomes an anti China pioneer in Asia, which has been photographed in thin pieces in the tide of history.

But no matter which way, it is the way that Japan, a country, falls down rapidly.

Finally, say it again, BYD, Xiaopeng, ideal, Weilai, Chang’an, Geely and other Chinese auto enterprises, please rush to break down the Japanese auto industry and set a century old foundation for China to move towards a moderately developed country.