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Comment by creakingstairs | Hacker News Reader

Govt has been intentionally weakening yen (perhaps too much) so that big companies can export more thanks to cheaper prices. This also introduced inflation which would be fine if wage went up as well. But wage has remained stagnant while corporate profit / nikkei soared. It also doesn’t help that foreigners are flooding into the country while yelling “omg everything is so cheap!”

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My naive googling shows me that Japan imports more than it exports, so it would seem like a weak yen would reduce corporate profits too, so weakening the yen being proof that Japan prioritizes corporate profits more than other countries seems pretty weak to me.

How has the government been intentionally weakening the yen? Zero interest rates? Was the US doing zero interest rates a ploy to weaken the dollar?

Have they specifically said they're trying to weaken then yen?

This really sounds like it's ascribing too much control and intention to the japanese government to me, when in reality hanlon's razor seems like it might apply to me

When you say Japan imports more than it exports, for who? Corporations? Because major Japanese corporations export, Toyota, Honda, Sony, Nintendo etc. We're talking about favorable conditions for corporations here.

Personally, I didn't say the government is "intentionally" weakening the yen, but when the yen is weak, the people who "matter", don't complain or try improve the situation because it's good for exports. If the biggest companies in Japan are happy, I'm sure those who keep them happy are well looked after too.

If you care about a poor old lady in her house, you wouldn't want to see the price of everything go up.

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