Word: dollarization
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...midst of a cleanup of toxic financial waste that will cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, at the very least. The primary manufacturers of these hazardous products pocketed multimillion-dollar paychecks for their efforts. So why aren't we making them...
...primary concern is the financial health of major Japanese exporters such as Toyota, Honda and Sony. Many of Japan's most important companies are hurting as a result of collapsing demand and the soaring yen, which has risen 15% against the dollar over the past 12 months. A strong yen makes Japanese products more expensive, and hence less competitive, in overseas markets...
...value has hovered at around 90 to the dollar for the past two weeks. But currency experts predict it could climb to 85 over the next few months - a level that could trigger intervention by the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan, which would buy dollars in currency markets to boost the greenback and undercut the yen. Some analysts say the exchange rate could soon reach 80 yen to the dollar. That would almost certainly spark another plunge in Japan's beleaguered stock markets - another concern for Japanese authorities...
...Still, it's unclear whether intervention will be necessary. Some argue that the dollar-yen exchange rate is reaching a sustainable equilibrium and that the yen isn't as strong as it appears. "The yen's level until last year was abnormally weak," says Tohru Sasaki, chief currency strategist in Tokyo at JPMorgan Chase & Co. "Now it's coming back to normal...
...Sasaki argues that, compared with a period in the mid-1990s when the yen hit a postwar peak against the dollar, today's negative impact on the Japanese economy is "not that large." That's because the U.S. over the past decade has seen higher inflation than Japan, where prices have been relatively flat for many years. To have the same effect as the peak in 1995 - when the exchange rate reached 79.75 yen to the dollar - Japan's currency would have to soar to 48 to the dollar, he says. "If we think about the inflation-rate differentials...