Japan’s nominal GDP has barely grown over the past 30 years, and the debt-GDP ratio is huge. This would help in two ways: reduce the deficit, and increase nominal GDP.
It incentivizes moral hazard along with policies that could trigger hyperinflation or inefficent allocation of capital.
Why bother evaluating a project's risk if that risk can be magically waved away by printing fresh money?
Thats not to say that doing so guarentees these things _would_ happen in the same way that walking into a pride of lion's with pork chops hanging on your ears means you wont be eaten but there's precedent that such schemes don't work well in the long run.
E.g. Weimar.
That "inefficient allocation of capital" results in Japan being one of the best countries to move around in (for both residents and tourists), with very affordable housing. I'd prefer if my country was a bit less "efficient" with their capital allocation.
The housing being torn down thing is a bit of a cliche at this point, but the biggest factor there was some seriously under-calculated earthquake risk that only got incorporated into the building code in the early 80s[1], so for buildings built before that cheapest to demo and rebuild.
[1] https://japanpropertycentral.com/real-estate-faq/earthquake-...
Yes. Sapporo has a population of 2 million; many of the rest of people going to Tokyo from the rest of Hokkaido will travel via Sapporo Station regardless (I know I always did - multi hour bus or train ride to Sapporo station, then another train to New Chitose, then flight to wherever). The flight route is incredibly busy (from one source, "The route between Sapporo and Haneda was the busiest in Japan and the second busiest domestic route in the world in 2019"). Work trips will likely pay for train rather than flights, while tourists mostly use JR passes and will choose the train as it's "free". Carbon intensity of electric shinkansen is dramatically lower than the excessive number of flights going between Tokyo and Sapporo. It'll be 4.5 hours city centre to city centre, which is easily competitive with flights unless you happen to live in Chitose and be heading to Chiba or Yokohama.
> the Tsuruga extension to a city of 60,000
This is disingenuous: the extension is an intermediate phase connecting Nagano (low population but huge winter tourism) with Kyoto/Osaka (idk, 25 million? and massive tourist destination).
> the greenfield Noto Airport that can't support two flights a day without heavy subsidies
Per the wiki article [1], it seems like the airport has been reasonably even (ANA subsidizing airport sometimes, prefectural govt subsidizing at other times). A lot of local governments in other areas (including north america) also subsidize their airports to ensure accessibility for residents.
> and a million minor construction projects damming up rivers and coating the coast in concrete tetrapods
They aren't all tetrapodal! Their work in this area is pretty singlemindedly focused on reducing flood/tsunami risk, with 0 concern for environmental effects.
As opposed to 60 - 80 year old wood-frame homes that are energy inefficient, falling apart, and barely worth the 750,000USD average selling price? Where you will either live with the design choices the previous owner made (regardless of how much or little you like them...nevermind efficiency or quality) or spend tens of thousands more doing renovations? And this is all considering that you don't get surprised with an electrical circuit or an HVAC layout that is not up to snuff for modern times.
At least in Japan, you can get a home built to specification to your reasonable desires, with all modern amenities, without the baggage of the past-owner's taste -- all for the great price of around 350,000 USD.
This, by the way, supports an entire ecosystem of builders, architects, and suppliers who must keep up with the times and are constantly exploring new innovations in house-building.
Just add the real: Houses aren't good unless you manually choose better one. Known one is that Japanese insulation standards are still quite bad. Aluminum single glass window is still allowed to use for new building. It's horrible to use a material for insulation that used for heat sinks. This is partially due to the window manufacturer is also a big aluminum manufacturer.
What would this accomplish, exactly? JGB yield zero, reserves yield zero, what's the effect of buying one with the other?
> Japan’s nominal GDP has barely grown over the past 30 years, and the debt-GDP ratio is huge.
Monetizing the debt has no impact on debt to GDP ratios. The debt is still there, just on the books of the BoJ.
> This would help in two ways: reduce the deficit, and increase nominal GDP.
The BoJ buying JGB has zero impact on either the deficit or nominal GDP.