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Bank of Japan, in a Surprise, Adopts Negative Interest Rate

nytimes.com

211–220 of 250 posts

Re: Bank of Japan, in a Surprise, Adopts Negative Interest Rate

#211

This was news.... 3 days ago. I don't understand how it's rocketing up the HN front page only now.

We put it in the second-chance pool (described at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10705926 and earlier posts linked from there) because the story seems significant and it wasn't discussed earlier. That gave it a few minutes near the bottom of the front page and user interest took it from there.

Lord help us if we're not interested in things from 3 days ago.

Re: Bank of Japan, in a Surprise, Adopts Negative Interest Rate

#212
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK. Settle down now, princess.

> OK. Settle down now, princess. This breaks the HN guidelines badly. We ban accounts that comment like this, so please don't do it again. Linking to a troll thread, taking this one wildly off-topic, and pompously posturing about how you're better than the rest of HN are bad too.

Let me get this straight: you call the article I've linked to a troll thread yourself, but me complaining about this troll article reaching front page is "pompously posturing that I'm better than the rest of HN"? Is this what you are saying?

Re: Bank of Japan, in a Surprise, Adopts Negative Interest Rate

#213
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OK. Settle down now, princess. This breaks the HN guidelines badly. We ban accounts that comment like this, so please don't do it again. Linking to a troll thread, taking this one wildly off-topic, and pompously posturing about how you're better than the rest of HN are bad too.

Let me get this straight: you call the article I've linked to a troll thread yourself, but me complaining about this troll article reaching front page is "pompously posturing that I'm better than the rest of HN"? Is this what you are saying?

It's not that you're complaining about the article reaching front page. It's the insulting way you're doing it. You were out of line in the line that deng quoted (per HN guidelines).

Second: deng is a (the?) moderator here. He's not taking sides in a dispute; he's trying to keep things within the HN guidelines. He can say that the article is a troll, and say that you were out of line in the way you complained, because both the article and you were out of line.

Re: Bank of Japan, in a Surprise, Adopts Negative Interest Rate

#214
post #125

Maybe OT: Isn't this just proof that Japan needs to let go of it's biggest barrier to growth? By which I mean it's non-existing immigration? I've been recently to Japan and despite my fears Tokio was a really affordable place (leaving out the hotel prices of course). I thought this was due to the lack of growth and the recent quantitative easing and other government measures. Measurements that seem to be failing at t…

> By which I mean it's non-existing immigration? That's not a bug, it's a feature. Japan enjoys the advantages of having a civilized, educated, homogeneous, high trust society, and they're not willing to abandon that in exchange of what, low skilled workers they don't need and ethnic conflict?

It's a feature for sure. I really am not blaming japan for something that most countries (especially non-americas) have ingrained in their culture. These days, my country Germany, however much it would like to See itself as immigration-friendly as the US, is experiencing exactly that cultural gene which is somewhat allergic to heterogenity.

But from an economical standpoint, it doesn't make much sense to stay "cut off". It never did in history. That's why even the other homogenity-friendly countries periodically had to ease their grip.

And because of economics, if the japanese really care about their nation's idntity and culture, they should make sure that their Numbers of growthless years do not climb too much higher than that of the other Nations. Because at some point even the nicest, Most harmonic society will crumble if some foreign spring break tourist can bend any rule because he can buy anything and anybody because of the decades-Long incompetitiveness. If you're looking for examples of this, I'd say "colonializm", "imperialism" or with regards to japan "convention of kanagawa" or "sakoku".

At some point non-growth will become harmful to what you try to save by avoiding growth: culture, norms, national identity or Even the nation itself.

Re: Bank of Japan, in a Surprise, Adopts Negative Interest Rate

#215
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OK. Settle down now, princess. This breaks the HN guidelines badly. We ban accounts that comment like this, so please don't do it again. Linking to a troll thread, taking this one wildly off-topic, and pompously posturing about how you're better than the rest of HN are bad too.

Let me get this straight: you call the article I've linked to a troll thread yourself, but me complaining about this troll article reaching front page is "pompously posturing that I'm better than the rest of HN"? Is this what you are saying?

What I called pompous posturing is going on sarcastically about HN ("ridiculous preferences of HN readership", "HN has more important things to do"), which is a supercilious way of dissing a community you're participating in. People frequently do this as a rhetorical device to implicitly put others down, which means it's uncivil, which means it shouldn't be on HN.

Re: Bank of Japan, in a Surprise, Adopts Negative Interest Rate

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, in essence, we punish responsible people who save for retirement. No thanks. Also, one unintended consequence of this policy would be that the MINIMUM interest rate you would have to pay would be 3.75% because below that it makes more sense to just buy a gold bar and bury it in the backyard vs. lend it out. Basically, the way you can imagine the impact of that is that your mortgage interest would (today) essentia…

Generally wealth taxes (and many other taxes) will not apply to retirement funds (when said funds are in an account specifically for those)[1] [1] http://guides.wsj.com/personal-finance/retirement/what-is-a-...

thats great, but 1) a 401k is not sufficient for retirement and 2) the other caveat (adding 3.25% to any interest rate) is far worse.

Re: Bank of Japan, in a Surprise, Adopts Negative Interest Rate

#217
post #200
post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But wealth isn't just a pile of cash under someone's bed. It's usually held as assets: homes, securities, land, etc. Do you really want to require someone to sell 3.75% of their stake in a start-up every year so they can pay the taxes on it?

Eh, it can be a lien, payable upon transfer or death of the owner.

An inheritance tax?

Re: Bank of Japan, in a Surprise, Adopts Negative Interest Rate

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me get this straight: you call the article I've linked to a troll thread yourself, but me complaining about this troll article reaching front page is "pompously posturing that I'm better than the rest of HN"? Is this what you are saying?

It's not that you're complaining about the article reaching front page. It's the insulting way you're doing it. You were out of line in the line that deng quoted (per HN guidelines). Second: deng is a (the?) moderator here. He's not taking sides in a dispute; he's trying to keep things within the HN guidelines. He can say that the article is a troll, and say that you were out of line in the way you complained, becaus…

Yes, the "princess"-comment was harsh and I see how it violates the guidelines. I agree with that.

But as I understood dang, additionally to the warning he/she made a judgement regarding my general tone. And I don't understand why it's "pompous" of me to make fun of ridiculous content that dang him- or herself concedes is bad.

Re: Bank of Japan, in a Surprise, Adopts Negative Interest Rate

#219
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me get this straight: you call the article I've linked to a troll thread yourself, but me complaining about this troll article reaching front page is "pompously posturing that I'm better than the rest of HN"? Is this what you are saying?

What I called pompous posturing is going on sarcastically about HN ("ridiculous preferences of HN readership", "HN has more important things to do"), which is a supercilious way of dissing a community you're participating in. People frequently do this as a rhetorical device to implicitly put others down, which means it's uncivil, which means it shouldn't be on HN.

But wasn't the troll article upvoted by the majority of HN users to get to the front page? Isn't that worthy of ridicule?

I could, of course, press the "Flag" link and in doing so achieve absolutely nothing: I'm in the minority here.

I'm honestly at a loss here. I did expect HN to moderate the discussions, but I didn't expect such strict policing of my behaviour.

Re: Bank of Japan, in a Surprise, Adopts Negative Interest Rate

#220
post #44

The backstory here is demographics. Japan has a shrinking, aging population and almost no immigration. With fewer people there are naturally less things bought, sold, and produced. Japanese authorities have been trying to pump the economy by deficit spending (central government borrows money and spends it), quantitative easing (central bank buys long term private debt, increasing the money supply for short term spend…

Does anybody have any good links explaining what caused the population decline in Japan?
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