43 trillion yen in 5 years. First of all, it is a large military expansion with a budget amount. However , the problem of securing financial resources, which will be short of 1 trillion yen in fiscal 2027 , has been straying, and the concrete plan for financial resources has been postponed. Corporate tax, income tax, tobacco tax, and even a special income tax for reconstruction were discussed . It would be great if there was a surge of public opinion that would force the government to give up on a significant increase in the defense budget, and that the massive military expansion itself could be made into a joke, but ... Now that public opinion is in favor of military expansion, there is no more medicine for this country. Dare to step into the resource issue. Why is there no talk of selling US Treasuries, which is estimated to be worth 1.2 trillion dollars, or 150 to 160 trillion yen when converted to current yen? The shortfall of 1 trillion yen can be secured, and sales of less than 10 billion dollars will be enough. Alternatively , 1 trillion yen can easily be procured if part of the budget for purchasing US bonds (foreign exchange reserves) is used. The Japanese government is like a frog staring at a snake. I'm afraid of punishment, so I can't complain even if the loan is virtually overturned. no longer a slave.
“The reason why Japan and China hold a large amount of US Treasuries is that they invest their trade surplus with the US in the safest US Treasuries. ."
This is called "common sense theory", and it has been said as if US bonds acquired by the Japanese government are not subject to trading. However, a private think tank said, ``The Japanese government was in the position that US bonds could not be sold when there was a valuation loss due to the weak dollar . He said that the unrealized loss would disappear if the market progressed. Now that the dollar has risen above 130 yen, it is a great opportunity to sell."
Even though the “unrealized gains” are huge, neither the government nor the ruling Liberal Democratic Party have talked about US Treasury bonds. In short, it is a taboo.
The Bank of Japan conducts foreign exchange intervention by selling the yen = buying the dollar in order to prevent the yen from appreciating. But that's not the main reason I own US Treasuries . As a loyal vassal state of the United States, Japan has been forced to buy US Treasury Bonds (US Treasuries). However, US bonds are virtually unsold, but since they hold more than 100 trillion yen of US bonds, they have dollar-denominated interest income equivalent to several trillion yen every year. This interest income should be a candidate for defense finance, but it is silent.
Why is it taboo and why are the government and ruling party officials silent?
In June 1997, then-Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto gave a speech at Columbia University, saying, "I have been tempted several times to sell large amounts of Treasury bills (U.S. Treasury bonds) held by the Japanese government. ' said. Stocks and US Treasuries plunged on the New York Stock Exchange. Hashimoto's lecture in New York was generally received as a cautious wording, but touched on the wrath of the US power center.
The New York Dow fell $192, its biggest drop since Black Monday in 1987. Some Japanese media have launched a fierce Keiseikai/Hashimoto Oroshi campaign. Ten months later, the Liberal Democratic Party suffered a crushing defeat in the House of Councilors election, and the Hashimoto Cabinet resigned en masse and was forced out of power.
Eight years later, Hashimoto died in a mysterious way due to intestinal ischemia. His younger brother, Daijiro Hashimoto, said, ``It was an unprecedented disease in which blood suddenly stopped circulating in the intestines, and the cause was unknown.
Hashimoto's resignation as prime minister occurred in the process of the United States shifting the mainstream of Japanese politics from the former Tanaka faction's Keiseikai to the ultra-pro-American right-wing Seiwakai (Abe faction).
In September 2009, Rui Net posted the following list as ``The fate of Keiseikai in opposition to Seiwakai''.
Tanaka faction) Kakuei Tanaka arrested Lockheed case (← Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office special investigation department)
(Keiseikai) Noboru Takeshita downfall Recruit case (← Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office special investigation department)
(Keiseikai) Kanamaru Shin arrested for downfall Sagawa Express donations and tax evasion (← Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office special investigation department & national tax) (Keiseikai )
Kishiro Nakamura Arrest General Contractor Corruption (←Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office)
(Keiseikai) Keizo Obuchi (Sudden death) (←Mystery)
(Keiseikai) Suzuki Muneo Arrest Bribery (←Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office Special Investigation Department)
(Keiseikai) Ryutaro Hashimoto Resigned Japan Dental Federation Bribery Case (← Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office Special Investigation Department)
(Keiseikai) Ichiro Ozawa Nishimatsu Fraudulent Contribution Case (← Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office Special Investigation Department)
(Keiseikai) Nikai Toshihiro Nishimatsu Fraudulent Contribution Case (← Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office Special Investigation Department)
(Seiwakai) Nobusuke Kishi Antai
(Seiwakai) Takeo Fukuda Antai
(Seiwakai) Shintaro Abe Antai
(Seiwakai) Yoshiro Mori Antai
(Seiwakai) Hiroshi Mitsuka Antai
(Seiwakai) Shojuro Shiokawa Antai
(Seiwakai) Junichiro Koizumi Antai
(Seiwakai) Koji Omi Antai
However, Shoichi Nakagawa, who belonged to a different faction but was an ultra-rightist and close to Shinzo Abe, was overthrown at the famous G7 drunken press conference in Rome in February 2009 and died mysteriously. Nakagawa said, “We have announced that we will contribute 100 billion dollars in US bonds ( foreign exchange reserves ) to the IMF to help countries on the verge of financial collapse due to the Lehman shock . It means leaving Japan.It does not mean that it will be sold in the market, but the US government feared that the US government would become liquid due to the decision of the IMF, which caused a serious shock to the world economy.Nakagawa's remarks Hashimoto The impact was greater than what was said.
In the latter half of the 1980s, when the bubble economy was at its peak, there was a clear tendency to look down on the United States in Japan's government. The symbol of this was the purchase of US Treasuries. Japan was by far the biggest purchaser of U.S. Treasury bonds, and one of the bureaucrats of the Ministry of Finance at the time said, ``The idiot Americans who borrow money and spend a lot are being fed by Japanese people who are steady and have an extremely high propensity to save.'' . Some elite economists ridiculed the United States by comparing it to an ant (Japan) and a grasshopper (USA).
The addition was great. Even after the collapse of the bubble economy in the 1990s, the Ministry of Finance continued to buy U.S. Treasury bonds, which were loans that were overturned. The finance bureaucrats' ambitions are aimed at getting "good posts" in international financial institutions such as the US-controlled World Bank, IMF, Asian Development Bank, etc. They are not Japanese bureaucrats, but Americans. The number of career finance bureaucrats seconded to agencies in Washington far exceeds the number of foreign affairs career bureaucrats assigned to embassies in the United States.
In such a situation, there is no chance of pushing against the United States. The case of Hashimoto and Nakagawa is the ultimate lesson.