Old central bankers never die. And often, they don’t fade away either.
Haruhiko Kuroda, the Bank of Japan boss for a decade until 2023, was one such figure who last week declared that Japan "has completely exited deflation.” Having presided over a decade of massive stimulus, his comment is of course self-serving. But with core consumer price rises in January expected to hit 3%, they seem accurate. So why the controversy?
The problem is that the Japanese government, and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in particular, feel differently. When asked for his take on whether Japan suffers from inflation and not its pernicious opposite, Ishiba demurred.
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