Word: yen
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...government's tack: to weaken the yen, make Japan's exports a little more affordable, buy a little time. Most people consider that a bankrupt solution for a nearly bankrupt nation. A weak yen certainly won't help the wide-eyed man with a two-day growth of beard wandering the tunnels connecting subway stations in central Tokyo. "HELP ME," reads a sign around his neck. "RESTRUCTURED." There were nearly 20,000 bankruptcies last year - the second-highest yearly total since World War II. "It's simple," says Andy Xie, Morgan Stanley's chief economist for the Asia Pacific region...
Recession-ravaged residents of this tiny hot-springs town found a way to improve their standard of living. Stuck with low-paying and seasonal tourism-related jobs, Yufuin's citizens solved a chronic yen-flow problem by boosting the local monetary supply: they print their own currency...
...Yufuin you can get a taxi ride, buy a bottle of sake, eat lunch, book a train ticket and supplement your wardrobe using a self-generated scrip the townspeople call yufu. "The yen isn't very stable anyway, is it?" says Ryuji Urata, a 38-year-old liquor-store owner who came up with the scheme two years ago. "So instead of being subject to what the national government does, we have our own strong currency...
...Strong" isn't the adjective that leaps to mind when one fingers the flimsy funny money. Roughly the size of a business card, the yufu doesn't have pictures of Presidents; it doesn't come in denominations (although by local convention one yufu is equal to 100 yen, or 75 cents.) The only embellishment distinguishing a yufu from a Post-it note is a rendering of the mountains that surround the town of 12,000 people in Oita prefecture on Kyushu Island...
...have a local sales tax.) So far, tax authorities in Japan are looking the other way. "This kind of activity is not large enough to attract our attention," says Masaki Omura, a spokesman for the Ministry of Finance. Says Eisuke Sakakibara, the former Vice Finance Minister known as "Mr. Yen": "There's no deep implication to this. If it helps strengthen solidarity in a local community, that's probably good. In the end I think people want real money." Sometimes, though, the pretend money will do just fine. "It's all based on trust and credibility," says Mutsumi Nagai...