The expansion of the BOJ asset purchase program was timed to start with the end of the Fed’s asset purchase program.  I mean, come on. Could it have been any more obvious?
There is no big question that the Bank of Japan has been acting in concert with the Fed for the better part of this century at least. And politically, Japan is a client state of the US.
And reader know that I have a long standing observation that one of the great difficulties in recovering from the long period of Japanese economic stagnation since the collapse of their great real estate and stock market bubble has been the inability to clean up their interlocking financial system dominated by industrial combines called keiretsus and a closely associated political system run by a surprisingly well connected minority of insiders.
Beyond that I wondered why was Japan pursuing the purchase not only of domestic equities and non-sovereign paper, but foreign equities as well with their very large pension fund? Are these intended as ‘investments?’ Or are they a form of cross subsidies in support of a more global agenda?
It makes me wonder if the policy being pursued by the BOJ is not designed to help the people of Japan now, so much as to support the requests of the international banking concerns, more specifically the US Federal Reserve.
This made me wonder if Kuroda is pursuing the same type of trickle down stimulus in buying large amounts of financial paper by printing money, rather than engaging in policy actions to stimulate aggregate demand.
And there is that nasty consumption tax hike in April which tends to have a regressive effect on lower income households. A weak yen is good for the exporters and multinationals, but is hard on small businesses and consumers.
Although the Japanese GINI coefficient for economic equality is lower than that of the US, in terms of power Japan is a very top heavy, insider dominated society.  Their incorporation of University pedigrees into the success ladder would make the Ivy League envious.
