We just got back from Tokyo and the prices for everything were crazy low. Ordered a bunch of sushi at a mall sushi place in Kyoto for what it would cost for Chipotle in DC. It was a huge shock when we flew back through SF and paid $13 each for a taco truck burrito in Millbrae.
The Japanese folks I’ve spoken to are pretty grumbly about the weak yen, though.
In the last ~12 months I have been floored how expensive life in the US is now. I was just down two weeks ago, and everything was either the same dollar number as Canada or higher, but it's in US dollars.
I don't know how people are doing it.
Your money losing half its value in about a year tends to do that.
Import-dependent companies - different story. Export-oriented companies: Yeehaw.
Worth noting that the Yen was much stronger back in 1989. These peaks are not the same.
Mall sushi has always been cheap in japan
It’s too bad China is still hard to get to by plane (Russian airspace being closed really hurts).
Assuming you're flying from eastern US, taking the pacific route to bypass RU airspace instead of the polar route doesn't add that much distance to get to coastal China.
And Chinese airlines can still overfly RU.
https://www.focus-economics.com/country-indicator/japan/inte....
Japanese public education curricula do include "English", but it's largely "English-Japanese document translations" classes than actual English, which is good for research papers and bureaucratic letters, works like any 2000s machine translation in conversations. The majority won't bring that technique out and employ it well to win an Internet pub fight, especially on societal-macro-economical problems, so you likely will not hear anything from actual Japanese people on this topic or anything else.
Japanese people also don't like talking about wages and not everyone compares what they are making to the dollar. I have heard plenty of colleagues, friends, and family complain. It's more about how the number of diapers in a bag has decreased steadily from 72 to 56 than boy my life is getting ruined by weak yen.
The more prevalent complaints are from fellow mortgage borrowers. Variable rates in Japan have been steady for nearly 30 years, meaning a substantial number of borrowers are watching the central bank's moves like a hawk and are terrified of even any talks of rate increases.
TLDR: We are just not loud complainers (and frankly, if any Japanese person you know is hopefully very lucky, they might be earning just enough to not notice it all)
Things are getting more expensive slightly over the years and that is nothing disastrous unless your life was already quite disastrous and made it even worse or you're purely an importer or rely on natural resources to see weak yen ruin your business.
Otherwise, it's mostly life as usual.
If you look at the actual returns they recovered years ago (tho not so long).
Remember, kids, dollar cost averaging is usually the way to go.
The advice is to invest as broadly and globally as possible, which has resulted in very good return during the last 35 years.
Also, nothing "always goes up". Index investing over long periods of time simple gives you the best risk adjusted returns.
Japan has been in an economic stasis for decades, some believe this to be triggered by the 1985 Plaza Accords which devalued the Dollar against the Mark and the Yen.
Germany recovered from that shock by absorbing East Germany and pushing EU integration. Japan did not have this options, but the new multipolar world order might give them an opportunity.
This will probably be to the detriment of Germany and the US, which both probably would like to increase the value of the yen.
But given that the American are not perceived as a reliable partner right now, I do not see something like the Plaza Cords coming again any time soon.
Plaza Accords: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaza_Accord
Impact on Yen and Mark: https://www.macrotrends.net/2550/dollar-yen-exchange-rate-hi... https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/312004/umfrag...
Perhaps do a little research than believe whatever you want to believe?
Just searching for "german economy" would yield the world is saying the opposite.
So, it seems like they're at least starting to offload their stock holdings.
I was very surprised when I learned that their central bank was purchasing stocks. I'd heard about it first in 2020, but apparently it had been going on before the pandemic.
It makes me wonder if the US stock market crashed hard enough if the Fed would start buying up stocks on the major indexes. Are they even legally allowed to do this? If so, what other assets can the Fed acquire? REITs? What about direct real estate purchases? I wonder if corporate real estate crashed hard enough from remote work if they'd prop it up.
Price of gold in 2024: 9,800 yen/g
Price of gold in 1989: ~$370 USD/oz
Price of gold in 2024: ~2000 USD/oz
You should choose one of those two, not both.
Except it's not the same yen to yen comparison on account of inflation.
Still, I also prefer global indexes.
Sure, at a given time and place, an index may be better. At other times one or two stocks may be better. But I think the "time in the market beats timing the market, always" is kind of negated by Japan's lost decades.