I live in Japan. On the whole, average people here don't want to learn about crypto, even at most regional banks you can open an FX account, people don't want to learn how to do that. They do. not. care. It's a communitarian society. They have the right to not care at the cost of their community dues--which means becoming a debt slave sometimes. Japanese citizens will take the brunt and tap into their cash savings in their house--people have tons of cash savings under their mattresses here. Remember during the earthquake when safes with millions of dollars floated up to LA?
Japan is also the largest financier of foreign countries, for something like 30+ years. That means they lend money to developing countries at low interest rates, and then slowly get them to pay back over time. They use developing countries to sustain their safety bubble. At the same time, as the JPY cheapens, exports will increase--which means, yes, less international purchasing power for Japanese citizens--but it means more job demand here in Japan.
Most people here don't give a shit about foreign products (new products don't take off here until a Japanese company makes a Japanese version, usually 5 years or so after the innovation happens in some other Western country), or are happy to pay a premium for a few products (designer shit) and, for example with clothes, have like a couple thousand dollar (10 man yen) pairs of clothes they wear all the time (European style).
I'm not saying markets won't experience turmoil, but "collapse" sounds ridiculous given the cultural context--collapse to what? More of what they're already doing? It's already collapsed. No one has kids here (600K minus population in 2021), there's no hope for the future really among young people (jaded pessimism about humans is at the core of culture), no risk, only safety and stagnation for like 30 years. Stagnation and slow depopulation is what safe collapse looks like, the old Japanese men who run this country and are the main opinion portrayed in the media will be fine, nothing will change (slow collapse will continue).
So, here's what I think happens. The JPY devalues further, the recession continues, exports rise (Warren Buffet is betting on this, he owns a bunch of the neo-Zaibatsu Mitsubishi), eventually the economy "recovers" (5-10 yrs), nothing fundamentally changes long term for most people.
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Thanks for the great insights on the ground, to tap into JPN having so many deflationary forces such as the population decline, what you mentioned JPN corporate culture too of being willing to work so much they don't spend as much, don't holiday as much, they are avid savers and that's not going to change regardless of market forces, which gives the central bank more room to keep devaluing the yen
Inflation is a psychological issue not really monetary, If japans economics where extracted and placed on any other country you'd see loss in the currency on a massive scale and inflation.
It really is fascinating to watch, I am only recently learning about it, reading Princes of the Yen and a few other books and love to hear these personal takes on what its like to live there
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Thanks for the insight
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fascinating, thank you.
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Systemic collapse aka people free to work and entitled to the fruits of their labor or systemic collapse as in they now even more enslaved aka systemic petrification?
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Japan has printed excessively for a long time and BOJ has bought essentially all Japanese government bonds since years. I've waited for years on the coming Japanese collapse and it seems to start now. It might indeed be very ugly, in particular for retired people in Japan. As someone said, it's a fly waiting for a windshield.
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Italys government bonds yields also rose to 4% yield today.
Things might become really ugly. Of course we knew that there was going to be economic hardship in the lifecycle of fiat ... but now that I see it on the horizon I am worried although I'm probably more prepared than most people...
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