You’d think that after 10-plus years of economic recession, despite having forced interest rates down to near-zero levels in their never-ending quest to pump new money into the economy, the central banking Samurai at the Bank of Japan would show the good sense to admit defeat and fall on their swords. Instead, writes Martin Fackler in the Globe and Mail, the BOJ has announced a new policy of buying corporate debt, including some with a junk-grade rating, as though loose money policies will finally have the effect they were supposed to have the several times they were implemented throughout the 1990s. Does this indicate the type of “courageous steps” central bankers are prepared to make once they have driven interest rates as low as they can go? Stay tuned.
