From our other sites
The story
The Cabinet Office announced on the 7th that the coincident index of business conditions for July — which reflects the current state of the economy — rose 1.7 points from the previous month to 120.6, the highest level in seven years and nine months, since October 2018. The rise is attributed to growing shipments and exports of semiconductor manufacturing equipment amid AI-driven demand, raising the possibility that the current economic expansion has become the longest in the postwar era. On 5ch, while some took the result at face value as a sign of good times, others argued the numbers were merely inflated by the weak yen, or that the benefits were confined to a handful of major corporations and exporters, far removed from how ordinary people actually feel about their lives — sparking a split in opinion over the real state of wages and prices.
In the July business conditions index released by the Cabinet Office, the index showing the current state of the economy reached its highest level in seven years and nine months, since October 2018. The current expansion phase may have become the longest in the postwar era.
According to preliminary figures released by the Cabinet Office on the 7th, the coincident index for July — reflecting the current state of the economy — rose 1.7 points from the previous month to 120.6, its highest level in seven years and nine months, since October 2018. The cause was robust demand for semiconductor manufacturing equipment amid the spread of AI, which boosted shipments and exports.
(omitted)
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
It's just the yen losing value
Right, the yen just went from 100 to 150 against the dollar — down to two-thirds of its value.
Convert it to dollars and no company's sales have actually grown at all
We're in a boom right now?
What parallel universe is this?
Bonuses and base pay raises were both at record highs, weren't they
Dunno about the bottom rung though
The 'bottom rung' you're talking about — i.e., ordinary people — is exactly who needs to be thriving for it to count as a boom
There's no economic policy that makes people who aren't benefiting right now suddenly better off
A 'boom' where only the 20% working at big corporations benefit
No country calls that a boom
Ordinary people earning money and spending more and more —
that's the natural phenomenon happening in countries actually developing economically right now
There isn't a single developed country like that.
Guess we'd have to burn it all down to the ground and start over as a developing country again
Nah, supermarkets near factories are apparently doing well too, profit-wise
I agree not everyone benefits, but it's not limited to just factory workers. There's some ripple effect
Well yeah, that's what happens after all that silent inflation (stealth price hikes/shrinkflation)~
So it's crumbling from the bottom up, just with a time lag
Workers \(^o^)/ done for
Cruel as it is, deflation was actually the happier time for you guys.
Ignoring this data?
https://image-tm.s2mr.jp/i/original/1788815978078.jpeg
Japan's the only one going down
Only civil servants seem to be getting raises
The ones not getting raises are employees whose jobs barely justify existing
Guess we should all just wear kimonos then
is below Beijing, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Spain, and Finland
Average annual income is a third of the US/Europe
Where's the boom, where's the developed country
I think we live better than the countries you listed
GDP as a number is just garbage (as a metric)
What's garbage is the value of the yen under the Takaichi administration
During the bubble economy, sure, insanely lavish luxury goods were being sold, but food and other daily necessities didn't rise in price nearly as much
So even people who didn't benefit from the bubble weren't voicing as much discontent as people are now
You could live comfortably on just a part-time job, which is why works depicting the 'freeter' (part-time-worker) lifestyle got made
That's why even the commercials from back then had energy and brightness — a completely different vibe from today's ads
Part-time jobs pay insanely well these days
Look around you more
Nowhere but 5ch do people commiserate over their wounds like this
In real life, everyone's just been working hard and seriously
This matches how the economy actually feels to you guys much better
GDP in USD (trillions)
1991: approx. $3.73 trillion
1995: approx. $5.44 trillion
2000: approx. $4.94 trillion
2005: approx. $4.85 trillion
2010: approx. $5.76 trillion
2012: approx. $6.25 trillion
2015: approx. $4.45 trillion
2019: approx. $5.20 trillion
2020: approx. $4.98 trillion
2021: approx. $5.21 trillion
2025: approx. $4.40 trillion
2026: approx. $4.23 trillion
If the pay's good I might finally get serious
I've got my resume ready (25 years vintage)
But I don't think you can call it a boom unless regular working people get better off too
But isn't the real estate price rise limited to Tokyo, or just central Osaka?
The wider the wealth gap grows, the more the economy shrinks
We're in a negative spiral
That's exactly why the government should hand out cash payments
Cash handouts from the government won't cut it
Wages need to go up
They'll definitely do cash handouts eventually. Carrot and stick is the basics of governing after all
Policies that raise the yen's value would shrink the wealth gap
Whoever has an investment strategy that reads the times correctly wins. Everyone else loses
Background and Key Points of This Topic
The business conditions index is a Cabinet Office metric that combines multiple economic indicators such as production, shipments, and employment, and is calculated differently from GDP. The current coincident index level of 120.6 is the highest since October 2018. Japan’s postwar-record economic expansions have previously included the “Izanami Boom” of 2002-2008 and the expansion phase during the Abenomics era, and the focus now is on whether this marks another record-breaking expansion following those. What drew the most comments in the thread was the fact that, over this period, the yen fell from the 100-yen range to the 150-yen range against the dollar — with some arguing that this inflated yen-denominated sales and the index for exporters, while dollar-denominated figures have stayed flat. Whether the index’s improvement is accompanied by real wage growth and an actual sense of increased consumption is a separate issue, and the coexistence of views — some seeing the benefits as concentrated in sectors like semiconductors, others seeing spillover into related industries — is a nuance that’s hard to grasp from news reports alone.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (News Express+) thread “Longest Postwar Economic Expansion? July’s Index of Current Economic Conditions Hits Highest Level in 7 Years, 9 Months.”
Leave a Reply