"Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko KURODA's 黒田 東彦 shock-and-awe stimulus, launched in April 2013, fizzled after a short-lived spurt of growth and rising prices. Japan fell back into deflation last year. More recently, the inflation rate has been bouncing around near zero.
"In an era of central-bank improvisation, no other nation has pushed the envelope as much. The Bank of Japan was the first to lower its benchmark rate to near zero in 1999, long before Europe, the UK and the US did so in response to the 2008 financial crisis. In 2001, Japan began flooding its financial system with cash to try to spur inflation and growth, a practice called quantitative easing that was later adopted in the West. Mr Kuroda in 2013 began pumping so much money into the financial system—eventually around $700 billion a year [to no avail: ie, no inflation (deflation remains; in a nation whose GDP according to exchange rate is $4.73 trillion (2015 est.), per CIA World Factbook) ]
"In 1989, Japan initiated interest-rate hikes that popped real-estate and stock-market bubbles. [This hints that the 1985 Plaza Accord to appreciate yen was not the cause.] Since then, annual growth has averaged less than 1% amid periodic recessions. Prices began falling in the late 1990s.
My comment:
(a) There is no need to read the report, unless you are like me -- curious about Japan, or its failure to pull itself up by its bootstrap.
(b) "Frozen-dessert maker Akagi Nyūgyō [Co, Ltd 赤城乳業株式会社; named after neighboring 赤城山, which, at 1,828m (versus 富士山 3,776m], Japan lists as active volcano though its last eruption might be 24,000 years ago] ran an apologetic advertisement last year after implementing a 9 cent increase, its first in 25 years.