Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
Stock Market Volatility (VIX) - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Investor Sentiment - 25th Mar 24
The Federal Reserve Didn't Do Anything But It Had Plenty to Say - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Breadth - 24th Mar 24
Stock Market Margin Debt Indicator - 24th Mar 24
It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - 24th Mar 24
Stocks: What to Make of All This Insider Selling- 24th Mar 24
Money Supply Continues To Fall, Economy Worsens – Investors Don’t Care - 24th Mar 24
Get an Edge in the Crypto Market with Order Flow - 24th Mar 24
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

The Insidious Economic Effects of Japan's Nuclear Disaster

Economics / Global Economy Mar 23, 2011 - 11:30 AM GMT

By: John_Browne

Economics

While the world's attention has been focused on the physical destruction wrought by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, the desperate attempts to contain the fallout from the shattered Fukushima Daiichi plant, and the daunting problems that Japan faces in rebuilding its infrastructure, few have truly illustrated how long-lasting and widespread the radiation's effects may be. There has also been little mention of how large radiological events affect economies of countries outside the immediate fallout zone. In truth, the disaster could make as much of an impact on investors in New York, London, or Sao Paolo as it makes on an investor in Tokyo.


The world's most significant nuclear accident occurred 25 years ago at Chernobyl, Ukraine. Although its effects are now well-documented, many forget how thoroughly the damage was covered up at the time. To avoid panic, the Soviet authorities grossly downplayed the risks to those living near the plant, as well as those who lived hundreds, and even thousands, of miles away. In the months that followed, high levels of radiation were detected as far away as Scotland!

While we can hope that the present-day Japanese are more prone to candor than the Cold War-era Soviets, a series of botched and contradictory communications from Tokyo Electric Power, the operator of the plant, and the Japanese government have given us reasons to worry.

As higher levels of radiation are found in Japanese fish and vegetables, there is a growing suspicion that the full effects of the radioactive release have been downplayed to the public. It is becoming increasingly impossible to keep the concern from spreading beyond the islands of Japan. Pacific fishing companies and mainland Asian agricultural concerns are under heavy scrutiny.

The accident will inevitably alter long-term energy planning around the world. The growing political traction that nuclear power has gathered over the last decade or so, as the price of fossil fuels has climbed, may be irrevocably damaged. With so-called "green" energy unable to replace the wattage that will be lost by a waning nuclear sector, look for the traditional fossil fuels to fill the breach. But the effects of Japan's nuclear accident go beyond health and energy policy.

After the EU, US, and China, Japan has the fourth largest economy in the world. Japanese industry provides many of the high-tech systems that are essential for producing relatively low-tech products such as automobiles. Already the US computer industry is being affected by shortages of vital parts manufactured in Japan.

But the financial fallout from the crisis looms even larger than the health, energy, or industrial issues. The Japanese people are stoic, disciplined, and very hardworking. Recovery in Japan is likely to be faster than many expect. However, in order to repair the flood, quake, and nuclear damage, Japan will likely need to spend trillions of dollars (hundreds of trillions of yen). This is the crisis that may sink the developed world.

For decades, Japan has deeply indebted itself through central banking strategies pioneered by America and Europe. Faced with successively deeper recessions, it has prevented industrial restructuring by funding industrial failure. By reducing interest rates to near zero and boosting government spending, Japanese governments have progressively transferred the unserviceable debts of the country's private sector to the public ledger. The result is that Japan's debt, currently standing above 200 percent of GDP, is heading for 300 percent by 2020, or some 20 times its tax revenues. Facing such statistics, the rating agencies have placed Japan on "credit watch." This leaves Japan with few options for raising the money to repair its industry and infrastructure.

If the Japanese start to draw on their national savings by selling part of their $882 billion of US Treasuries, they risk igniting a dollar-selling stampede and a damaging spike in US interest rates. To avoid this, it is highly likely that Japan will yield to American pressure not to sell any of its Treasury holdings. It is likely Japan has already been assured covertly, by the Fed and other G-7 central banks, of massive currency swap arrangements to come. This technique would allow for a more orderly repatriation of funds but would send many confusing signals into the financial markets - and lead inevitably to dangerous speculations.

For a world awash in debt, the Japanese destruction comes at an inopportune time. Unfortunately, authorities on both sides of the Pacific are as dishonest about these debt problems as Tokyo Electric Power has been about the severity of the crisis at Fukushima Daiichi.

Subscribe to Euro Pacific's Weekly Digest: Receive all commentaries by Peter Schiff, Michael Pento, and John Browne delivered to your inbox every Monday.

By John Browne
Euro Pacific Capital
http://www.europac.net/

More importantly make sure to protect your wealth and preserve your purchasing power before it's too late. Discover the best way to buy gold at www.goldyoucanfold.com , download my free research report on the powerful case for investing in foreign equities available at www.researchreportone.com , and subscribe to my free, on-line investment newsletter at http://www.europac.net/newsletter/newsletter.asp

John Browne is the Senior Market Strategist for Euro Pacific Capital, Inc.  Mr. Brown is a distinguished former member of Britain's Parliament who served on the Treasury Select Committee, as Chairman of the Conservative Small Business Committee, and as a close associate of then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Among his many notable assignments, John served as a principal advisor to Mrs. Thatcher's government on issues related to the Soviet Union, and was the first to convince Thatcher of the growing stature of then Agriculture Minister Mikhail Gorbachev. As a partial result of Brown's advocacy, Thatcher famously pronounced that Gorbachev was a man the West "could do business with."  A graduate of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Britain's version of West Point and retired British army major, John served as a pilot, parachutist, and communications specialist in the elite Grenadiers of the Royal Guard.

John_Browne Archive

© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in