Financial Times (July 2)
Prime Minister Noda took a step in the right direction by increasing the consumption tax. “It was right of Mr Noda to push for the reform, which lifts the 5 per cent consumption tax to 8 per cent, then 10 per cent by 2015.” By achieving the increase, he has defied “impressions that Japan’s politicians cannot get anything done.” The increase will help to narrow the revenue gap. It will also begin to redistribute wealth from older generations to younger generations.
Financial Times (August 29)
How long will Japan’s new Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, the sixth in 5 years, last? “To do better, Japan badly needs political stability,” and yet “Japan’s recent crop of leaders has underwhelmed.” Thankfully, the bureaucracy does a competent job of managing the country, but Japan remains “strategically adrift. The big questions of how it rebuilds after the tsunami, how it manages its debt, how it eradicates deflation and how it deals with China have been postponed or fudged.”
