Japan, At Last Some Sense

This article about the extent to which the Japanese treasury is dependent on company profits for income is interesting, but beyond that I'm not sure how to interpret the fact since I am not sufficiently knowledgeable about the Japanese fiscal system.

However, a number of points do stand out. Corporate profits now fund the revenue:

Japanese corporate profit tax receipts are poised to overtake personal income tax contributions for the first time in 18 years, a shift that could influence debate among contenders vying to succeed prime minister Junichiro Koizumi.

Wages seem to be flat:

The figures highlight the strong return to profitability of Japanese companies, which have retained most of their gains without passing them on to workers in the form of higher wages. Although the labour market has become tight - with more jobs than job-seekers - wages have hardly risen, although bonuses have improved.

Consumption taxes are soon set to rise:

The finance ministry wants to rebalance the tax system largely by increasing consumption taxes. A central plank in the prime ministerial campaign platform of Sadakazu Tanigaki, finance minister, is a doubling of the sales tax to 10 per cent.

Although not everyone agrees:

Shinzo Abe, who is likely to win the leadership contest, is influenced by policymakers who argue that raising taxes could damage consumption and harm overall economic activity. His policy is to cut spending and try to increase the government’s tax take through promoting growth.

But funding through growth is just what has been tried and failed, that's why the debt is where it is. This view rings hollow.

Most Lopsided Economy in the G7

And then along comes Andrew Smithers:

Andrew Smithers, an economist at London-based Smithers & Co, has said in a recent report that the swing in corporate profits might need to be reversed in the interests of domestic consumption. He argues that Japan is the most lopsided of the G5 economies - the US, UK, Japan, France and Germany - with the lowest consumption and highest investment ratios; the largest current account surplus and budget deficit; the worst demographics and the lowest interest rates.

“These oddities are almost invariably ignored,” he says. “They illustrate how far the economy is from any likely equilibrium and this conflicts with the conventional wisdom which holds that Japan has corrected the past distortions of its economy and is now set on a path of balanced growth.”

Moreover the household savings rate has been falling steadily: from nearly 12 per cent of GDP in 1997 to just over 2 per cent last year. This is also perplexing, does this mean that, following the Life Cycle Theory people do finally get to dis-save in the end. I have long entertained doubts about this, but household saving in Japan is definitely something to watch. But what this seems to suggest is that after the reforms the Japanese are not only not spending, they aren't even managing to save like they used to.