Welcome to the logical statement.
I wonder if you have noticed it recently? Many financial big Vs often criticize Japan. Everyone’s common point is: Japan is about to collapse! Is this true? Judging from multiple signs, the Japanese economy is really at risk of collapse.
First of all, it is the exchange rate of the currency. We used to say that the value of a country's local currency actually reflects the basic economic status of the country. The Russian-Ukraine war lasted for four months, and the value of rubles and currency did not decrease but rose. The fundamental reason is that Russia's economy is like a fortress. Russia's economy is very strong, with food, energy, and nuclear weapons, to protect itself.
While the ruble continues to appreciate, the yen is constantly depreciating. Today, the Japanese yen has reached a low of 135 yen that can be exchanged for one dollar, and the Japanese yen and RMB can now be exchanged for more than 20 yen. This was simply unimaginable in the past. In just one year, the RMB has appreciated by more than 20% against the Japanese yen.
What will the yen depreciation bring to the Japanese economy? Some people say you don’t understand. The Japanese do it deliberately. After the depreciation of the yen can help export Japanese goods. Why? The reason is very simple. Your Japanese goods exports are denominated in US dollars. The Japanese yen has fallen against the US dollar, so Japanese manufacturers can lower the price when pricing. Although the price has dropped, it is calculated in US dollars, but it may even rise in Japanese yen. In this way, Japanese goods exports will be more competitive. But the question is, on the one hand, how many commodities are still exporting in Japan over the years? We can have a brief talk after a while.
On the other hand, your yen depreciates too quickly. Japan does not only export but not imports. Japan is a country with extremely scarce resources. All energy and raw materials need to be imported. Although you export a large number of industrial products, you can import all the raw materials and energy used to manufacture these products. Due to the sharp decline of the yen, the burden on your imports has increased, and it depends on the energy. The soaring international oil prices have forced Japan to spend more money to buy energy. So in the past nearly a year, Japan has experienced a trade deficit of for several months, and is unimaginable in the past.
Japan is an industrial country. Japan itself has no energy, so it must rely on a large amount of exports and a large surplus to make money. The situation is reversed. Not only can Japan not have a surplus, but Japan has accumulated a large amount of deficit every month, and the scale of the deficit is constantly expanding every month, which is a dangerous signal. shows that Japan can no longer make money in exporting goods, so its domestic market is extremely narrow and lacks energy and resources. It would be strange if the Japanese economy does not collapse.
, especially Japan, has a debt problem. In the past, we told you that Japan is the country with the most serious debt in the world. In the past, we often talked about the US dollar of debt of 30 trillion US dollars, but don’t forget that the total amount of GDP in the United States is about 22 trillion yuan, so the US debt accounts for about 130% of GDP. What is Japan? Japan's debt is 250% of GDP, and it has been increasing over the years. In the past month, due to the sharp decline of the Japanese yen, a large amount of funds fleeing, causing an sudden incident in two days ago, that is, the Japanese bond transaction was suddenly circuit-breaked.
Yes, a large amount of funds are not optimistic about Japan's escape from Japan. No one took over the bonds issued by the Japanese central government, and they could only be taken back by the central government, so that a monopoly emerged during the transaction process. So now many people are worried that if they continue to operate like this, Japan's total debt may account for more than three times its GDP. Even the large amount of bonds issued by Japan in the future will not be borne by foreign capital, and the Japanese central government can only eat them themselves, and the more circular the economy becomes worse.
Do you know? In the past, the yen was called a safe haven currency, what does it mean? When natural disasters of war occur in this world, capital has the keenest sense of smell. What should we do if we feel that I am in this place and everyone is in danger? I quickly went to Japan to invest in the yen. Because the yen is very stable, a large amount of capital will come to Japan for safe haven. But today the Ukrainian War has been fighting for almost 4 months. Not only has a large amount of funds not poured into Japan, but they fled from Japan. The yen has long lost its status as a safe-haven currency.
Why has the Japanese economy been so devastated in recent years? Many financial big Vs have various analyses, , but I think there is one factor that we cannot ignore, that is, Japan's aging and birth reduction over the years. Two days ago, Tesla CEO Musk also said that when he saw that Japan could only be born a little more than 800,000 people a year, he said that in a few decades, the Japanese nation will be erased from the earth? In fact, Japan's decline has a lot to do with its aging.
In the past, we have shared a set of numbers with you, saying that among companies in various countries around the world, the average age of Japanese corporate leadership is the largest. Today, in many large companies in Japan, we often see that there are many CEOs and senior executives in their fifties and sixties in their fifties and sixties. But you can imagine how young our age structure is, especially our large Internet companies? A few days ago, an institution specifically investigated that most employees of Chinese Internet companies do not have an average age of 30.
Yes, this world is constantly innovating. In the past decade and 20 years, the Internet economy has risen rapidly. China and the United States have both born a large number of unicorn companies, , which has enabled the economies of China and the United States to advance side by side. The Japanese economy is called the lost 30 years today. In the 1980s, Japan's economy rose strongly, and once, the per capita GDP 5 was higher than that of the United States. But today you can think of what products can be proven by Japanese companies in the past 30 years? Which of the Japanese brands we are familiar with today was not created in the 1980s? Will there be a new Japanese brand be born after 2020 and 2010?
Japan emphasizes lifelong employment system , which emphasizes seniority ranking, so there are a large number of middle-aged and elderly people in Japanese companies year by year, which has made Japan almost missed the technology books in the past 30 years, and almost perfectly lost all the trends. Even including cars, what products are left in Japan today? There are almost no TVs, refrigerators, air conditioners, mobile phones, laptops, , and digital cameras, and no one buys these Japanese products anymore.
OK, some people say there are Japanese cars, the eight major Japanese auto manufacturers, the North American market and the local market in my country are selling well, but don’t forget, how long can fuel cars last? The European Parliament has passed a resolution to prevent a fuel vehicle from being sold starting from 2035. US President Biden said that in the next 10 years, he hopes that electric vehicles will account for more than 50% of vehicle sales, and my country is also vigorously promoting electric vehicles. In such a state, I believe that the market share of fuel vehicles will be eroded by electric vehicles in less than 10 years. What other products can Japan sell?
So this is what we just said. On the surface, today, the depreciation of the yen is conducive to the export of Japanese goods, but now you have no export products that you can show off except cars. In a few years, your car will not be competitive. What's the use of you being cheaper? Consumers are buying electric cars, not gasoline cars, but why did Japanese cars that were once in the forefront of the peak of electric cars? Think about it, isn’t this also because of Japan’s aging?
For Japanese companies, they are step-by-step and unmotivated, and they can say that we have sold many cars, and our automobile industry is very large and has multiple global markets.But once electric cars come, all fuel vehicles are done, just like Japanese laptops, Japanese mobile phones, Japanese white electricity, and Japanese black electricity. After the glory, they were beaten to the ground by their opponents. So when many people are talking about the collapse of Japan's economy today, do we think this is a joke? Japan's economy is so strong, and the global economy is ranked third in . Will it collapse overnight?
But don’t forget that when we discussed whether China’s economy could surpass Japan several years ago, many people said they would not, and they would not have it for decades. However, today my country's total economic output is four times that of Japan. When we take down the field of electric vehicles and When all Japanese fuel vehicles completely lose their export market, think about it, is it impossible for my country's per capita GDP to surpass Japan?
