Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
London Telegraph
August 11, 2013
As you may have seen, Japan’s public debt has hit one trillion quadrillion yen. That is roughly $10 trillion. It will reach 247pc of GDP this year (IMF data).
No problem. Where there is a will, there is a solution to almost everything. Let the Bank of Japan buy a nice fat chunk of this debt, heap the certificates in a pile on Nichigin Dori St in Tokyo, and set fire to it. That part of the debt will simply disappear.
You could do it as an electronic accounting adjustment in ten seconds. Or if you want preserve appearances, you could switch the debt into zero-coupon bonds with a maturity of eternity, and leave them in a drawer for Martians to discover when Mankind is long gone.
Shocking, yes. Depraved, not really.
It also doable, and is in fact being done right before our eyes. That is what Abenomics is all about. It is what Takahashi Korekiyo did in the early 1930s, and it is what the Bank of England is likely to do here (while denying it), and the Fed may well do in America.
Full article here
