Japan’s stock market plunged more than 3,200 yen in two days following the Bank of Japan’s interest-rate hike, which triggered a rapid yen surge. This essay criticizes the media’s misguided “bad weak yen” narrative, the financial authorities’ repeated policy blunders reminiscent of the 1990 total volume regulation, and the geopolitical factors behind the weak yen. It also highlights China’s use of SDGs and decarbonization as propaganda, and condemns the Kishida government’s excessive foreign aid despite domestic crises.

The mass media speak of a “bad weak yen,” and after the Bank of Japan’s decision to raise interest rates, the sudden sharp yen appreciation… a crash of more than 3,200 yen in just two days!
August 3, 2024

August 2, 2024
Today I was once again engaged in the task of introducing to the world excerpts from the late Susumu Nishibe’s Mass Media: A Theory of National Ruin.

A weak yen is not a problem at all for Japan, a trading nation.
On the contrary, it is something to be welcomed—this is an issue that even a kindergarten child could understand.
Moreover, this weak yen is not, in any sense, the intentional currency depreciation that South Korea or China once carried out continuously.
It is the result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and, in fact, of the foolish SDGs and low-carbon movements—no exaggeration to say they were instigated by China.
These SDGs and low-carbon movements are propaganda by China, fully aware that pseudo-moralism has engulfed the Western advanced nations, aiming at their decline and impoverishment.

Until very recently, editorial writers at newspapers—especially the Nikkei Shimbun—and news programs represented by NHK continued, unbelievably, to proclaim the childish argument of a “bad weak yen,” worse than kindergarten level.

Since the assassination of Abe, those who now control the Bank of Japan and the Ministry of Finance, along with the politicians who merely act according to their instructions, rule Japan.
They are simply exam-smart elite students raised on the Asahi Shimbun and Nikkei Shimbun, or inferior students whose abilities were insufficient to begin with.

They have once again begun practicing Nishibe’s Mass Media: A Theory of National Ruin.

Their behavior repeats the folly of the “total volume regulation” announced in April 1990—a measure that created the deflation that has tormented Japan to this day.

The Bank of Japan raised interest rates, resulting in a rapid appreciation of the yen.
Yesterday, the Tokyo Stock Exchange fell more than 1,000 yen.
And today—astonishingly—a crash of 2,216 yen.
(It was the second-largest crash in history.)

In just two days, a plunge of more than 3,200 yen.
It is no exaggeration to call it a recurrence of the March 11, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake shock.

Because I have been watching the Olympic broadcasts every day, I have been watching the news more often than before.
Images show houses still collapsed and blocking roads after the Noto Peninsula earthquake.
Meanwhile, Kishida—who cannot distinguish before from after because he thoroughly reads the above newspapers and watches television news programs—has been providing enormous aid to Ukraine and more than 18 trillion yen to foreign countries without hesitation.