How to tell the New York businessman from the Tokyo businessman

When something goes wrong, the New York businessman gets angry.

Old-Guard Japan
By Stephen Roach | New York

In 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 | Japan

To 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)

4 thoughts on “How to tell the New York businessman from the Tokyo businessman”

  1. Stephen Roach is obviously not a hedge-fund manager. Those guys applauded the decision, all the way to Tantric. Or so I’ve heard.

Comments are closed.