{"id":1908,"date":"2011-12-26T20:53:27","date_gmt":"2011-12-26T11:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2011-12-26\/1908"},"modified":"2011-12-26T20:53:27","modified_gmt":"2011-12-26T11:53:27","slug":"from-what-i-can-tell-the-japanese-economy-is-heating-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2011-12-26\/1908","title":{"rendered":"From What I Can Tell, The Japanese Economy Is Heating Up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\nNOTE<\/b>: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.\n<\/div>\n\n\n

On paper, the Japanese economy is in the dumps, but from what I can<\/span>\ntell, it's really cooking.<\/p>\n\n

As I noted last month, I've been using my own feet<\/a> as a\nmode<\/span> of transportation lately. Having had errands near the corner of\nKyoto's Sanjo and Karasuma streets a few<\/span> times in the last week, I've made\nthe almost-three-mile round-trip stroll down Sanjo Street at various times\non various days, and have been astounded with how busy and vibrant\neverything is. Every shop seems full, every restaurant doing brisk\nbusiness, every traffic light accompanied by a throng<\/span> of shopping-bag-laden\npedestrians waiting for the green.<\/p>\n\n

To be fair, this was a three-day weekend (not because of Christmas, mind you,\nbut because Friday was the emperor's birthday) and some of the area I walk<\/span> through\nis a prime<\/span> spot for domestic tourism (that is, for Japanese from other parts of Japan\nvisiting Kyoto). Still, it was astounding how hopping things have been.<\/p>\n\n

Two years ago I posted a shocking<\/span> comparison of the\nJapanese vs.<\/i> US economy during the last 20 years<\/a>, describing how\nin those two decades the Japanese national stock index had shrunk to a mere<\/span>\nthird of what it had been, while during the same span the American stock\nindex had quadrupled. Since I wrote<\/span> that post, the American stock index has\ngone up 20%, but the Japanese down about 15%.<\/p>\n\n

But with the economy in the dumps for so long, then the agony of the earthquakes<\/a> earlier\nthis year, I'm wondering<\/span> whether people have simply had enough and have\ndecided to rebel by enjoying themselves.<\/p>\n\n

The strength of the Japanese yen makes the rest of the world relatively\ncheap to those who earn in yen, particularly when they're spending it in US\ndollars: spending in US dollars with Japanese yen five years ago cost 50%\nmore than it does now! That's shocking (and, incidentally, really horrible\nfor people like me spending US-dollar-based savings in Japan.) Yet even with that\nkind of incentive to spend abroad, Kyoto seems to be really hopping.<\/p>\n\n

I don't know how it all fits together or what it all means, but it certainly seems to bode well.<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On paper, the Japanese economy is in the dumps, but from what I can tell, it's really cooking.<\/p>

As I noted last month, I've been using my own feet as a mode of transportation lately. Having had errands near the corner of Kyoto's Sanjo and Karasuma streets a few times in the last week, I've made the almost-three-mile round-trip stroll down Sanjo Street at various times on various days, and have been astounded with how busy and vibrant everything is. Every shop seems full, every restaurant doing brisk business, every traffic light accompanied by a throng of shopping-bag-laden pedestrians waiting [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1908"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1908\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}