VOX POPULI: BOJ shifts policy; now we wait and see if it will affect our own money
“Just so you lot know, we are moneylenders who can scare even bawling brats into silence.”
That’s the tagline of loan sharks in the popular manga series “Naniwa Kinyu-do” (The way of Osaka financing) created by Yuji Aoki.
Those seedy characters pull every trick they can think of to make money.
One of their special skills is to manipulate interest rates to their advantage.
For instance, a young, smiling employee of such a financing company would sweet talk a client into signing up for a “very special, today-only plan with a 12-percent rate.”
If that makes the client happy, it makes everyone at the company even happier. Depending on how the loan is arranged, there are bald-faced ways to triple the real interest rate. Their boss would smirk and say, “That’s the magic of interest rates.”
Interest rates enable money itself to make more money. They bring out human greed to a “frightening level,” Aoki said.
In “Crime and Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881), that must have been why Rodion Raskolnikov murdered an elderly woman who was an unscrupulous moneylender.
But seen from a different perspective, interest rates are also convenient things that can enrich people’s lives.
When we take out a mortgage for a housing loan, or start collecting old-age pension, interest rates play an important role--good as well as bad. I suppose that’s the essence of capitalism.
The Bank of Japan has decided to end its negative interest rate policy. I understand this means the first interest rate hike in as long as 17 years.
Until now, we have been in a truly anomalous situation where interest rates didn’t function as they are really meant to.
Being told that the Japanese economy is finally taking the first step toward “normalcy,” I half nod in agreement.
I don’t know if the BOJ decision will “scare even bawling brats into silence.” But I am at least certain that this is bound to impact our daily lives.
What will happen to our money? With some anxiety, I will await developments with keen interest.
--The Asahi Shimbun, March 20
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*Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.