| There's just no end to stupidity, is there ... |
Yukio Hatoyama, the new Japanese Prime Minister, has stunned a nation already mired in huge public debt by unveiling the country's biggest ever postwar budget: a 92.3 trillion yen (£630 billion) spending spree aimed at "saving people's lives".
The unprecedented budget, which supposedly shifts Japan's fiscal spending focus "from concrete to lives", comes amid rising concern about the solidity of sovereign debt in the world's second-largest economy.
The new budget will require additional debt issuance of Y44.3 trillion -- within the Government's expected band, but still at a level that will raise Japan's debt-to-GDP ratio to nearly 195 per cent.
Of foremost concern, analysts for Nomura said, is that Japanese tax revenues are expected to fall to Y37.40 trillion this year, the lowest that they have been since 1984. It was, analysts said, a watershed moment -- the first time that new debt issuance has exceeded tax revenues since the Second World War. Mr Hatoyama said: "We were just able to stay at a level in which we can maintain fiscal discipline."
| He sounds just like Obama calling for fiscal discipline ... |
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