PROJECT ESSAY
The Bank of Japan and its independence
When I was doing research for the Project on the Japan’s lost decade, I have come across news articles discussing the change in administration of the Bank of Japan. There are discussions on how Abe Shinzo, the newly elected prime minister, has forced the Bank of Japan to adopt a more aggressive monetary policy. When I first read about these news, I can’t help but felt sorry for the current governor Masaaki Shirakawa. By constitution, BOJ is independent from the government. He should be answering to no one except to the Policy Board of the BOJ. But lately, Mr. Abe has forced the BOJ to bend towards what he demands. He even threatened to strip BOJ of its independence if it
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Mr. Shirakawa is stepping down voluntarily from office starting from mid-March 2013 to give way to the new BOJ governor. The Government’s nominee for the next BOJ Governor is Haruhiko Kuroda. It comes in no surprise that he is an advocate of aggressive monetary easing during deflation times and unlike Mr. Shirakawa, he believes the Bank has a strong responsibility in bolstering economic growth. Hence, the market is expecting a series of new monetary policy to be announced soon after his appointment is approved.
There is a strong and legitimate reason to keep the central bank independent from its government. Most of the central banks of the industrialized world adopt the same independence rule. It is to avoid politicians from ramping up government spending and debt whenever they want. If politicians insist on continuing any ineffective government policy and have the central bank to buy up more assets, a decline in the asset price is going to left a hole in the Bank’s balance sheet. Central bank runs the risk of becoming insolvent and people would lose faith in the currency. Inflation would be out of control and it would be a disaster that no one would like to see.
I still believe the independence of BOJ is of upmost important but I also believe the BOJ should willingly formulate its monetary policy
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke 's meeting dealt mainly with the issues that could stabilize the economy after the great recession. After creating a number of policies to fight the 2008 crisis, Chairman 's move to further reduce Quantitative Easing was a bit of a disappointment. The Fed will reduce its purchases of long-term Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities by another $10 billion a month. Apart from this, Fed is going to concentrate on maximizing employment rates, stabilizing prices and interest rates.
The first editorial, “The Federal Reserve Politicians,” discussing the expanding power the federal reserve has. The federal reserve officials have become the most important economic decision makers in the government. The author believes that under a healthy government the Fed or any party should not have so much power without more accountability.
State bankers felt the central bank's influence frustrated their ability to function.” (Independence
The Federal Reserve was established as the Central bank of the United States in late 1913. Commonly referred to as “the Fed,” it is responsible for managing currency, money supply, and interest rates (Lecture, 10/6). While the bank is given much autonomy over its actions, it is not independent from the US government in that the legislature is responsible for allowing the Federal Reserve to act freely, and elected officials appoint central bankers. These are two primary mechanisms for keeping the Fed in check, insuring that it is acting in the nation’s best interest (O, 286). Countries with central banks that are independent from their governments tend
On a cold winter day in Bath on December 30,located in the Bed and Breakfast lodging center,a mysterious disappearance has occurred. Billy Weaver,a seventeen year old businessman was last found in this lodging center. The lodging center’s landlady has denied the accusation of the claim of her murdering Billy Weaver.
In this memoir, the author chooses to have two narrators, himself as one, and his mother as the other. This style makes for quite an interesting story, skipping back and forth in time, from the child's life, to that of his mother. Although many time changes occur, they are quite easy to keep up with, as the two narrator's of the book, James, and his mother, alternate chapters. For this reason, it is also very easy to compare the childhood of each of the main characters. Although the chapters aren't always during the same time periods of the respective characters, they are close enough that similarities can be seen, and parallels can be drawn. This is one of my favorite parts of the novel, seeing the
As you may or may not know “The Federal Reserve System is made up of a Board of Governors and twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks located in major cities throughout the country. While the board has seven members the two serve as chairman and vice chairman and each governor is appointed to fourteen-year term while appointments to the roles of chairman and vice chairman are for four years. The Federal Reserve governors serve second to lifetime appointments of federal judges” (Board, 2003). The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) sets target that meets eight times per year to make decisions on monetary
Unfortunately, most Americans either do not know what the central banking system in the United States is, or assume it is just another department run by Congress and the federal government. However, the Federal Reserve System, or colloquially, the Fed, is an independent agency and should remain independent for a variety of reasons.
The Federal Reserve System has three branches: the Board of Governors, The Federal Open Market Committee, and Reserve Banks. The Federal Reserve System (Fed) supplies and regulates America’s money to all the banks. The Board of Governors is the main authority of the three branches of the Fed, and it supervises other banks. The Federal Open Market Committee is the most prominent policymaker of the three branches and regulates the supply of money in the economy. Federal Reserve Banks serve other banks, this is why they are called banker’s banks. There are twelve Federal Reserve Banks which represent different states and these “districts” share data for monetary policies. The future role of monetary policy is vital
The FOMC, Federal Open Market Committee, is a group made up of the 7 Board of Governors, the President of the New York Reserve Bank, and 4 other Reserve bank presidents who switch with other Reserve Bank’s on one year terms. Together these members meet and vote on the policies in which they believe they should enact given the current and predicted future state of the economy.
Monetary policy is controlled by the Federal Reserve, an independent agency from the executive branch. However, the administration does have an obvious effect. The most obvious is the appointment and reappointment of Alan Greenspan. At the time this may have seemed like a tough decision, but in hind sight the decision could not have been any better. When it was time for his reappointment from President Clinton, he was not regarded as the savior he is now. Many officials from the Bush administration blamed him for the recession of 90-91. Not to mention the fact that Greenspan is a conservative Republican. It would have been common sense to assume that Clinton would put someone who shared his political philosophy over the highest bank in the land. The fact that Clinton
Kon'nichiwa! I’m Japan! You probably know me for my aesthetic cherry blossoms and splendid anime, but let me tell you, things weren’t always as kawaii as they seemed. For a loooong time, I was isolated from other countries by my own shoguns and daimyos, my militaristic dictators and their warrior landlords respectively. We got along fine at first, but my common people were becoming increasingly unhappy with their little political power and heavy taxes. Then, on a fateful day in July of 1853, I met… the West.
This role is achieved through the implantation of the monetary policies. According to Arnold (2008), Fed has several tools at it disposal that it uses in the monetary polices. These are; the open market operations which involve buying and selling U.S government securities in the financial markets. Further the bank is charged with the responsibility of determining the required reserve ratio. This ratio is given to the commercial banks dictating the minimum amounts that they should hold in to their accounts as deposits and for lending. Finally the Fed sets the discount rates putting in to consideration the overall market rates s well as desired effect on borrowing that the Fed seeks to achieve. In addition to these three major roles, as a bank, the Federal Reserve Bank can play the roles played by the commercial banks as the rules are not entirely prohibitive as far as this duty is concerned.
With no need to defend an exchange rate and no need to thwart an externally sourced currency crisis and no need to defend against speculators, there would be no need for the Central Bank of those three countries to
The death penalty has been around for quite some time in American history and it is an issue that has much of America quite divided. There are many supporters of the death penalty and also many that oppose it. Those in favor of the death penalty believe people who have committed certain crimes should be punished for them. Those that are against the death penalty believe that it is unlawful and innocent people may die because of it. The death penalty or capital punishment is defined as, “the sentence of execution for murder and some other capital crimes (serious crimes, especially murder, which are punishable by death)” (Legal). The first established death penalty laws date as far back as the Eighteenth-Century B.C. in the Code of King