Yen to hit ¥78 to the US Dollar!? Thank you Japanese politicians

By Mike in Tokyo Rogers

AS I wrote last night, I am shocked that Naoto Kan was reelected as President of the DPJ and, hence, remains as Prime Minister of Japan. Most everyone else I know is also stunned at this news.

How could that have happened?

How could the DPJ members have voted to keep a guy that got them so badly beaten in the last general election? How could they have reasserted their backing to a guy that sits back and does nothing while the Japanese yen continues to rise and damage japan's export economy?

There are now reports that predict a yen rise to as high as ¥78 to the US dollar. As Bloomberg reports:

The yen is poised to rise as high as 78 per dollar as the victory of Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan in a ruling party election damps the likelihood of intervention, Bank of America Merrill Lynch said.

I used to think that Japanese politics were much better than American politics as, in America, when we have an election for president, we get stuck with some fool who raises our taxes and starts wars and gets us farther into debt and we can't get rid of that guy for at least 4 years. In Japan, the merry-go-round that is Japanese politics has our prime minister changing every few months.

This is much better as, since the Japanese Prime Minister always changes, they haven't the time or chance to raise taxes and enact too many new laws.

This allows Japanese politics much more inertia. This is much better.

If we cannot abolish government, then the next best thing is government in deadlock or government that doesn't survive for long enough to pass any new laws or taxes.

It's too bad that, perhaps finally, Japanese politics are becoming more and more like America's.

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Keywords: Politics, Naoto Kan, Prime Minister, president