And you suggest that they deplete this non-renewable resource faster ?
Strategically/rarely buying and dumping excessively cheap grain would bolster farmers' livelihoods, prevent price collapse, and... some fish get fed one time.
You solve permanent overproduction with mobbing people together and demanding that the government stops mandating it. Because it only exists when the government mandates it.
If you want to soften the blow into people that have to learn how to grow some completely different crop. You go and do that, you don't create an entire class entitled to permanent societal support for not working.
You don’t want the global markets determining that you have a competitive disadvantage relative to peers and thus want to import all of your food and abandon your domestic production.
You also don’t want farmers hitting the prisoners dilemma issue of producing as much crop as possible because then farms die from competition. And again letting them die is not good for a critical industry like food.
Paying farmers to underutilize their land is a less insane idea than it sounds.
With what money?
Japan already has some of the highest debt-to-GDP ratios in the world, the Yen is increasingly unstable, and much of the budget is spent on the Japanese Welfare system that cannot be messed with or you are committing political suicide along with rising defense expenditures that are now required due to North Korea's military buildup.
The existing status quo is good enough to keep farmers happy (and not switching their vote) while leaving money on the table to be used for social spending, defense, and debt payments.
Japan has very low wages compared to other OECD countries (the average wage in Japan is only around $25,000), so inflation - especially the kind you are proposing - is catastrophic, especially given how a significant proportion of the population is on a fixed income due to retirement or social subsidizes due to un- or underemployment.
This is why the Japanese government tries to limit inflation to 2%.
> because Japanese prices have barely nudged since 1990
Because of significant government intervention.
Interest rates have been negative for nearly 2 decades. What significant government intervention has there been to keep inflation low?
Personally I don't know why they didn't just raise the minimum wage.
Nope.
Only since 2015 when the Japanese economy entered a recession and CPI rose to 4%.
> What significant government intervention has there been to keep inflation low
Negative inflation rates, impacting the ability to borrow further.
The expansive welfare system that allows 2% of the poorest Japanese to get direct benefits transfers (it's a great program, but very expensive, so other priorities are lower).
Price controls on utilities and some crops like Wheat.
> I don't know why they didn't just raise the minimum wage
Because Japan has a very extensive set of FTAs, and before 2015 a very high youth unemployment rate (8-12%).
If Japan raised the minimum wage, employers would leave for South Korea, Taiwan, China, ASEAN, and India.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/18/business/japan-boj-negative-i...
First rate hike in 17 years this year.
> Negative inflation rates, impacting the ability to borrow further.
Government doesn't set the inflation rate.
> The expansive welfare system that allows 2% of the poorest Japanese to get direct benefits transfers (it's a great program, but very expensive, so other priorities are lower). Price controls on utilities and some crops like Wheat.
Those would lead to higher inflation, not lower.
That does NOT mean interest rates were negative.
Negative interest rates were only applied in 2015 [0]
> Government doesn't set the inflation rate.
Typo. I meant interest rates.
You're being pedantic. Your graph shows interest rates have been essentially under 0.5 for 30 years. At no point is that a hammer being used to curtail inflation, which was the point.
Wages increase with government spending (and inflation), unless productivity falls a lot or there's a huge wealth transfer from labor to capital. When the government prints a bunch of money and uses it to purchase a bunch of rice from Japanese farmers, that money ends up as higher wages for farmers and their supply chain, and this in turn circulates throughout the economy, as one farmer's spending is another retail worker's wages.
This doesn't help retirees of course, who aren't earning any more, but the government can choose to hand them more money too if necessary; inflation-indexed pensions are a policy choice. (Although I would say that they should be handing more money to young children, in the custody of their parents).
With what money?
Not as much as if they were subsidizing the cost directly.
In this case the loss is on the consumer's end.
The Japanese Budget for FY24 and FY25 was made before the sudden appreciation of the Yen suddenly made a number of calculations moot.
Plenty of countries have subsidised or even free food programmes. (EDIT: Nvm, missed “to developing countries.”)
Welcome to policy dependency hell.. its getting heated.. but gradually..