JК
Dogs and Demons :: Керр Алекс
Страница: 67 из 270The original purpose of a stock market is to provide a forum for companies to sell equity to the public, but the TSE abandoned this role for ten years; for most intents and purposes, it was shut down.
Remarkably, in spite of all this, very little has changed in Tokyo. It is important to realize that as Japan enters the new millennium its financial system remains essentially intact, with only a nod to what Americans and Britons would consider universal reality. Banks and real-estate companies continue to keep properties on their books at exorbitant values; the stock market remains high when measured by P/E ratios, and the big players stay obedient to the system and never blow the whistle. It might seem that Japan has gotten away with it. Western theorists, convinced of certain invariant laws of money – like the laws of physics – find themselves baffled.
The paradox lies in the fact that money is to a great degree determined by society and its belief systems. If everyone agrees that Japan's failed banks are still functioning, then they function. If everyone agrees that unrealistic land and stock values are acceptable, then this is indeed so. And this explains the paralysis, because all these artificial values are linked, each propping up the other.
One must also remember that the collapse of the Bubble was slow, not fast. When it began to deflate, MOF officials took the situation in hand and did their best to manage events, and so controlled was the deflation that some have even speculated that MOF itself initiated and directed the entire crisis. While the theory of MOF invincibility is unrealistic – during most of the 1990s the ministry was fighting one long rearguard action – the fact remains that Japan escaped with remarkably little apparent pain.
Or did it? Japan's success over several decades shows that the laws of money are not immutable; they can be altered to a great degree by such systems as Japanese-style credit ordering. However, post-Bubble paralysis shows that the laws will reassert themselves if such systems are carried to an extreme. Most interestingly, the pain may come in unexpected places. Japan protected its system on the surface: bankrupt banks kept their doors open for business, and the stock market appeared to have stabilized-but the trouble, driven underground, surfaced elsewhere.
The authorities are in a position similar to a player of the Whack-a-Mole game in arcades a few years ago. In front of you is a big box punctured with little portholes out of which a mole pops up now and then. You grab a rubber hammer, and your job is to hammer the mole. As the game goes on, the mole moves faster and faster-when you hammer the mole over here, it pops up over there.
Remarkably, in spite of all this, very little has changed in Tokyo. It is important to realize that as Japan enters the new millennium its financial system remains essentially intact, with only a nod to what Americans and Britons would consider universal reality. Banks and real-estate companies continue to keep properties on their books at exorbitant values; the stock market remains high when measured by P/E ratios, and the big players stay obedient to the system and never blow the whistle. It might seem that Japan has gotten away with it. Western theorists, convinced of certain invariant laws of money – like the laws of physics – find themselves baffled.
The paradox lies in the fact that money is to a great degree determined by society and its belief systems. If everyone agrees that Japan's failed banks are still functioning, then they function. If everyone agrees that unrealistic land and stock values are acceptable, then this is indeed so. And this explains the paralysis, because all these artificial values are linked, each propping up the other.
One must also remember that the collapse of the Bubble was slow, not fast. When it began to deflate, MOF officials took the situation in hand and did their best to manage events, and so controlled was the deflation that some have even speculated that MOF itself initiated and directed the entire crisis. While the theory of MOF invincibility is unrealistic – during most of the 1990s the ministry was fighting one long rearguard action – the fact remains that Japan escaped with remarkably little apparent pain.
Or did it? Japan's success over several decades shows that the laws of money are not immutable; they can be altered to a great degree by such systems as Japanese-style credit ordering. However, post-Bubble paralysis shows that the laws will reassert themselves if such systems are carried to an extreme. Most interestingly, the pain may come in unexpected places. Japan protected its system on the surface: bankrupt banks kept their doors open for business, and the stock market appeared to have stabilized-but the trouble, driven underground, surfaced elsewhere.
The authorities are in a position similar to a player of the Whack-a-Mole game in arcades a few years ago. In front of you is a big box punctured with little portholes out of which a mole pops up now and then. You grab a rubber hammer, and your job is to hammer the mole. As the game goes on, the mole moves faster and faster-when you hammer the mole over here, it pops up over there.