Month: October 2016

China slowdown is global economy’s biggest threat

summary

The previous chief economist of the International Monetary, Fund Ken Rogoff has told a slowdown in China is the greatest threat to the global economy. China is going through a big political revolution. This shows the slow down of the economy will be much more than the officials expects. So if we want to know to look at the  part of the world that has a debt problem look at China. This caused because of the credit fuelled growth that won’t last forever. Last week, the Bank of the International Settlements, said that China’s credit to GDP “gap” stood at 30.1%. This shows that China’s economic boom was based on an unstable credit bubble.The global economy is pretty sharp landing already and China is becoming more of the problem.

opinion

No matter how we tackle to the negative interest rate, we cannot create an inflation. It is not a phenomenon only for Japan. From now on, it is believed that the global economy will be more and more threatened. China is a state which owns everything they can control, except for the worry of hard landing. So if the hard landing of China become realized, the damage to the economy will be unfathomable. Every state in the world is working for the economic down but there isn’t really a substitute for China. China should make every effort to stop the hard landing as fast as they could.

The reason why Japan slips to eighth

Sammary
Our topic of discussion is rankings in WEF competitiveness. WEF is World Economic Forum. It is the annual forum of economists. They rank countries by competitiveness, which is national productivity level and the survey on items such as infrastructure, education, labor market and financial services business. In the year, 2014-2015, Japan was ranked 6th, but in the year,2015-2016, our country is ranked 8th. Both years, Switzerland is 1st and Singapore is 2nd. In addition, Netherlands and Sweeden are ranked up in these two years.

Opinion
In my opinion, the reason why Japan slips to 8th is education.
First, reason is the environment of education. Nowadays, people can’t enter their children in kindergarten. Children can’t accept enough elementary education and parents aren’t compatible jobs and nursing. In addition, in high schools and universities, people have to pay expensive fee. In other countries, this fee is almost all free. People can study without caring the money.
Second reason is the system of education especially English. Japanese English education is very passive. Teachers teach students grammar typically but don’t teach communication and discussion skills. That’s why Japanese people are weak in the world.
I think Japanese government should change the environment and system of education.

Wealth of people in their 30s has ‘halved in a dacade’

Summary

The report of Institute for Fiscal Studies tell us that today’s thirty-something people are half as wealthy as the same age people ten years ago. In particular, the average wealth of people born in 1970s is ￡53,000, but people born in 1980s have a wealth of ￡27,000 averagely. According the think tank, people born in 1980s were the first post war generation and didn’t get higher incomes in early adulthood than people born in 1970s. So, people born in 1980s have missed out on house price increases and better pensions. One of the causes of this situation is a great recession in this article.

 

My opinion

I feel it is very important news for all young people including me, because all future generations maybe have lower incomes than the preceding generations. It means that our generation is poorer than 1980’s generation. This article says the problem of UK society, but it is Japanese problem also. Japan has the long recession called “lost 20 years” and Japanese elderly people have a lot of property against Japanese younger people. A part of young people can’t buy a house and get married because they have small incomes. We should solve the problem that is poverty of young generations as soon as possible.

China’s yuan joins the IMF’s special drawing rights basket

Summary
China’s currency, the yuan (also known as the renminbi) is being added the IMF’s special drawing rights (SDR). This is a supplementary foreign exchange reserve assets and defined and maintained by the IMF. Dollar, euro, yen and pound are already joined it. IMF acknowledged the advances China has made improve the infrastructure of its financial market. They think the yuan will support the growth and stability of China and the global economy.
However some critics argued this move because the yuan does not fully meet SDR that is freely usable or widely used to settle trade in financial markets.
U.S. republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has said he will make China a currency manipulator.

Opinion
I do not know the world economy but this move was a great shock to me. I have known China’s society gradually grow. Recently I see many Chinese doing some shopping in Tokyo. Always Chinese eats and drinks much in the restaurant at that I work part-time. Surely society advances mean economy developments. However I did not realize it.
Japanese postwar economy advances were helped by big country U.S. but China develop by themselves using their large territory and population. The yen already was gotten ahead by the yuan. I think the future that the yuan become the top currency in the world will come soon.
Japan should take measures against world economy to endure China.

Why 1 million workers are getting paid sick leave

Summary

In recent years, public awareness about the importance of paid sick leave has grown sharply. The Department of Labor finalized a regulation to implement the President’s Executive Order that will help an estimated 1.15 million working people meet the demands of their jobs while also taking care of their responsibilities at home. Accessing to paid sick leave is not only a moral imperative but also importance for public health, especially the prevention of infectious diseases. Moreover, Paid sick leave is also good business because it decreases people who quit their jobs, leading to reduced turnover costs. 

Opinion

I don’t agree the President Obama’s Executive Order because this order breaks the rule of law. President Obama has called on Congress to enact a national paid sick leave policy, but they have yet to act. Under this situation, he’s not waiting on Congress to make progress and implementing this order. I believe that the administration follow laws which are made by Congress. If the administration act without the bases of laws, it may govern the people arbitrarily. No matter how his policy is great, the President as the leader of the government must obey the rule of law. In conclusion, I disagree the order which is contrary to the rule of law.

Germany believes Trump presidency would batter US economy, report says

Germany’s economy ministry mentioned that Donald Trump’s project would damage the US economy. According to ministry, they said that his project will cause ” shrinking gross domestic product, fewer jobs and higher unemployment”. Trump says his economic plan would succeed. But some of economists has questions. The plans would violate international or US law and could be “no basis for a realistic economic policy”.
If the assumption that the economists suggested becomes true, I suppose that the disparity in economic power in the US. Nowadays, I heard that the poor in the US is increasing. I think this is caused by the US government policy. For example, ” Obama care” was started by US government about 5,6 years ago. I think this system did not suit the US because this country was based on the policy of low welfare low burden. I think that whether the economic plan will succeed or not depends on the policy is the country. So I think that the person who become the president should think about the economic plan which will be fit the country. And I also think that If Trump’s pledge is good for the US, it will succeed.

WEF competitiveness ranking

World Economic Forum’s (WEF) release annual global competitiveness ranking. Japan has ranked 8th out of 138 countries and region, down from the previous year’s sixth. The reason is “Japan’s innovation prowess seems to be eroding”, the WEF said. Other countries of the ranking is not much change, Switzerland is 1st in the competitiveness ranking for the 8 years in a row, 2nd is Singapore, 3rd is United State. United Kingdom is 7th in the ranking, but this ranking was before to leave the EU, so United Kingdom will drop ranking next year.

WEF said that Japan’s innovation prowess was decline, so dropped competitiveness rankings. However, I think that Japan still has technological prowess. It is the “quality” of Japanese technology. In general, Japanese are diligent, skillful and made-in-Japan products are long-lasting and safe. There is a lot of technology that attracts attention in the world. But now, the working population is reducing in Japan because of the aging society, and at the same time, technology developers are also decreasing. In other words, I think that Japan has elements, but there is no one to develop them. Even the population decreases, Japan must think of the way that does not reduce developers.

Presidental Debate “Achieving Prosperity”

summary

This arricle is  written about debate of Hillary Clinton and Mr.Trump. Clinton said that “I want us to invest in you. I want us to invest in your future.” This means that she pays attention to small bisiness of the United States, and starts raising the national minimum wage and also guarantee. Meanwhile Trump said that “Companies will come. They will build. They will expand. New companies will start.” This means that he thinks to stop companies of United States from leaving his country and, with it, firing all of their people. In short, Hillary Clinton is calling for a tax increase on the wealthiest Americans.  Mr.Trump is calling for tax cuts for the wealthy.

opinion

I stand by Hillary Clinton. I think that her election pledge is similar to Japan politics in that she thinks to spend the budget on infrastructure, renewable energy, the welfare system, and so on. People are unwilling to change the condition drastically because we are afraid of getting worse the present state of our life. But, Mr. Trump tries to change the United States drastically. For example, he said that “We have to stop our jobs from being stolen from us.” He tries to stop companies of the United States going out the other countries through reducing taxes tremendously, then the economy cycles in the United States. If so, the future of the world’s economy will be overshadowed. Of course, Japan will be also influenced by the turn of that. That is why I stood by Hillary Clinton. If there are any problems, the thing that she is a lady. Lady isn’t yet inaugurated Madamme president. But now she is uncovered a scandal. After that I don’t know what will happen.

 

China slowdown is global economy’s biggest threat, Rogoff says

Summary
As China is going through a political revolution, some experts and professionals believe that the economic growth of the entire world mainly Britain is threatened by the change, the decline, and the debt China is going through. China’s GDP ‘gap’ is relatively high, indicating that the growth of China was based on unstable economic bubble. As UK lends about 16% of its foreign assets to China, there are many opinions on the issue. Some worry that the debt China has is going to throw off UK, while some say that China cannot be substituted as one of the largest global power.

Opinion
I think that China should imitate present economic style in Japan. Present economic style in Japan is to borrow money from an ordinary people in Japan. So Japan doesn’t have much debt from foreign countries. As opposed to economic style in Japan, that in China is to borrow debt mainly from foreign countries. Therefore when China has economic recession, many foreign countries intend to collect their loan. If that situation comes, China will have only load to failure. A failure of the great economic country like China have too big influence. Therefore I think China should imitate economic style in Japan.