When something goes wrong, the New York businessman gets angry.
Old-Guard Japan
By Stephen Roach | New YorkIn a stunning blow to central bank independence, the Bank of Japan seriously bumbled its January 18 policy decision. After setting up the markets for the second installment of a “normalization-focused” monetary tightening, the BOJ buckled under political pressure and passed — electing, instead, to keep its policy rate unchanged at 0.25%. While this may end up being nothing more than a painful detour on the road to normalization, the incident speaks volumes about the Old Guard political dominance of Japan’s deeply entrenched LDP ruling party. It is a major credibility blow, with potentially lasting damage to the New-Economy image of a revitalized post-deflation Japanese economy.
But the Tokyo businessman says he’s sorry.
Our Apologies for Erring
By Takehiro Sato | JapanTo date, we had steadfastly maintained our view for an additional rate hike in January. The result, however, was a postponement. We would like to first apologize sincerely to all our readers for having misread the timing of the rate hike.
(Both quotes taken from the always-excellent Morgan Stanley Global Economic Forum)
Perhaps it would have been inappropriate for them to say that BOJ independence had been “murdered, dismembered and left to rot in front of Shinjuku station.”
Oh, and the best part of the WEF is that they have an RSS feed for easy access from Google Reader.
Stephen Roach is obviously not a hedge-fund manager. Those guys applauded the decision, all the way to Tantric. Or so I’ve heard.