The Abenomics have started a year ago now (Happy Birthday !), but still faces harsh critiscism.

First, a definition from lexicon FT :

Abenomics is the name given to a suite of measures introduced by Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe after his December 2012 re-election to the post he last held in 2007. His aim was to revive the sluggish economy with "three arrows": a massive fiscal stimulus, more aggressive monetary easing from the Bank of Japan, and structural reforms to boost Japan's competitiveness.

So, you're going to say "But, this definition is amazing, why critiscize such a great idea ?"

The first and second arrow were shot right away, with the massive devalue of the yen. While the yen was devaluated by 20%, Nikkei was up 20%.

And it didn't stopped there, japan's growth is still on ! But people are still waiting for the third arrow.

Despite the growth, wages didn't went up. So the average japanese doesn't see the difference.

Let's also remember that Japan is world's 3rd greatest economy, with most woman not working !

And that, also, didn't change. Didn't change yet, that is.

Let's face it, it's only be one year ! Culture doesn't change in one year.

Minimum wages was slated to be increased. Structural reforms will come in time ! But nor today, nor tomorrow.

I can see you coming :

"You're saying bullshit, I read on the internet that growth forecast as fell from 3.8% to 1.9%"

1) Japan is on growth while the whole world is on crisis. That's amazing.

2)They just recovered from a tsunami and a lot of nuclear shutdowns (foreign electricity is expensive)

So after one of the biggest natural catasprophe of the decade, and while the world is on crisis, Japan's economy is still growing !

So what does VGC thinks ?

Eh. Would be my opinion.
Too early to make any judgements.

Abe has yet to show he has any of the backbone required to institute his third arrow, and none of his policies really deal with Japan's crippling demographics problem....

and his second arrow may end up being one of those Haweke boomerang arrows that comes back to shoot him in the ass as it will be near impossible to achieve the second step of it.

shutting down their nuclear plants was probably a mistake.

Back to the demographic problem, Arrow 1 is only achievable due to the Japanese legendary local market for it's own debt... and due to demographic issues, it's questionable how much longer that demand will be around.


Also, while i'm all for women in the workforce, I don't see how that's supposed to cause a big growth spurt. If this were the Japan of 10 years ago when companies like Sony and Sharp were the dominant market players sure...

More workers with less demand is just a recipe for higher unemployment.

"Despite the growth, wages didn't went up. So the average japanese doesn't see the difference."

That's bubble teritory. Only a matter of time when it pops.

this is just part of currency wars =devaluation of own currencys to kick the can a little bit longer down the road before the inevitable collaps(or hyperinflation) happens as a crash systemic/integrated therefore unavoidable
in an interesst-interesst system+fractional banking.

or as voltaire once said
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrensic value=0"

USA are doing the same with QE and Europe will 100% do something similar in the next two years.

I think it was unavoidable for Abe to push the economy and to simulate/stimulate growth and weaken the yen as Japan needs to import a lot energy as the atomic power plants are out of order since fukushima.
A weaker yen should be better in the long run to stay competitiv in the export-business

The huge mistake Abe had made was: he/goverment should have taken controle over Fukushima long ago instead of letting tepco do the job as corporations only do as little as possible when they know there is no profit.

I'd actually say Fukushima and the closing of nuclear plants is a reason why they SHOULDN'T follow abenomics.

They're trying to lower the yen vs the dollar, which has big advantages in making their products cheaper for export, and makes import prices more expensive.

HOWEVER, this beomes a hiderance when you import a lot of needs like food... and energy....

and Considering that energy is built in to the price of every product, you'll see energy costs biting into the advantage that infation is supposed to provide in providing cheap goods.

Yen devalue create more opportunities for exporting, wich is likely to create more jobs. The benefits on export taxes could be used by government to create employement too (less taxes if corporation employs new people, more if women etc).

About nuclear he didn't have a choice. He has to listen to the people, and after the tsunami people were quite mad.

Plus japanese electronic giants are back on track, of course they still have a long way to go to beat coreans, but this year financial results are gonna be huge compared to the last 2. At least I hope.

I think cheap energy is a short term problem. And doest looks like being reflected on companies financial result.

Well, if it ain't austerity, it's got to be better.

I would of though Japan would directly benefit from China's industrialisation as a way to grow if possible

I agree with Kasz, though i'm slightly more optimistic about the whole thing. I don't think arrow 1 or 2 are flawed, but arrow 3 is going to take a lot of political capital to muster, especially since Abe would be confronting his own base more than anyone to overcome Japan's structural problems, since the LDP is the one that caused them, and party leaders often have far less luck confronting their own diehards than in working with the other side (see also: the American government shutdown. The LDP is even more unwieldy as a party than either of America's)

don't agree:

At the first view you are right

but looking deeper you will get the opposite:

Strong Yen:=less exports=decining economy=less comsumption=less jobs=job outsourcing=less liquidety=less tax for goverment=more debts(eg unemployment+ social security money): all this has to be paid by the government and in the end all this will be more expensive than to pay 20%+ for imports because of devalued yen.

If japan wants to buy cheaper energy they just need to avoid the petro dollar.(right now it is pretty hard to do so as all countries who are/were selling oil without petro dollars(iraq,lybia,syria,iran) have "coinceidentally " lots of trouble with the USA

Bolivian energy ? =D