Your move, sir. That's essentially what the Bank of Japan communicated to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday.
Look beyond the nitty gritty of allowing negative interest rates. Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda took another step toward expanding the BOJ's anti-deflation campaign, but only the bare minimum. Enough to hit the yen and excite the Nikkei, but not sufficient to take the onus off Abe. For the 1,129 days of his premiership, Abe has talked incessantly about structural reforms he hasn't gotten around to. In Tokyo political kabuki terms, Kuroda passed the baton to Abe, and it's about time.
The past week was a decidedly bad one for Abenomics. First, exports plunged 8 percent in the most recent month. A weak yen, remember, was the one element of Abe's revival scheme registering tangible results. Next, Abe's reform point man, Akika Amari, resigned amid a messy graft scandal. And consumer prices fell again just days after Kuroda assured the Davos set inflation was quickening.
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