Japan's Kuroda Restoration

Something quite special is happening in the Japanese economy. But I'm not sure if it's special enough, yet. Japan has a history of changing course dramatically, notably with the Meiji Restoration, which ended centuries of isolation; again in the 1930s and then after WW2. This could be another one of those big leaps forward. Haruhiko Kuroda, the Bank of Japan governor, has announced a 'new dimension in monetary easing' targeting a large rise in the monetary base and a doubling of government bond purchases. The objective is to raise inflation expectations and push cpi-inflation up to 2%, from around minus 1% currently. In fact this step is not that new, even for Japan. Firstly, it has already had several large monetary base expansions over the past 20 years while further back it has the far more aggressive example of Korekiyo Takahashi, the finance minister in the 1930s. From late 1932 the government was selling entire issues of bonds directly to the central bank. When people talk about, for example, the Fed 'printing money', this has not really been the case. The Fed has mainly been purchasing assets in the market, simultaneously crediting banks with reserves. Mostly these bank reserves have gathered moss: the transmission mechanism into new credit to the private sector has seized up. Demand in the US economy has lagged since the credit crunch and is now some 6% below trend. In the case of Japan, the economy is so far behind trend nominal GDP that it can never make up lost ground. But the swing to a clear inflation target along with a real commitment to achieve it is a good first move, if not far enough. In due course, the BoJ may indeed follow its 1930s path and 'print money' by directly funding government debt issues. Indeed, if it succeeds in pushing inflation up it may have to buy bonds directly just to keep bond yields from rising too much. The QSL is from JOOR Osaka, heard on AM on 1179 kHz in Morgan Bay in 1992. The station later contacted me and I was interviewed on one of their programmes per telephone.

Chavez is dead, long live the Chavistas

Another Venezuelan election is over. Another win for the Chavistas. But no Chavez this time and it was a close run thing, much closer than expected. It is a shame how the Chavistas have spoiled the reputation of the simple baseball cap. After all, baseball is such a fun game. Che Guevara iconised the beret in his time but despite his sensitivity to the poor and disenfranchised we shouldn't forget he was a heartless brute at times. The Venezuelan opposition is contesting the result and the election council has agreed to a vote audit, which could take a month. So a final twist to the saga may yet emerge but don't bet on it. The economy is in trouble. Although it is very different from Australia's they have one thing in common  - the dreaded Dutch disease. Commodity prices drive up their exchange rates too far. Despite the booming economy, there are pockets of high unemployment in Oz,  with the real Aussie dollar having risen 20% in recent years in line with strong prices and big volume increases in commodities. When apartments in remote Port Hedland go for the same as in Manhattan and truck drivers are getting paid over $200000 pa you know something is wrong. The same problem affects Venezuela which generates most of its export revenues from oil. But oil production and exports are falling and with Brent trading below $100pb the economic arithmetic is turning ugly. Occasionally there is a big devaluation but that doesn't fix the problem. The QSL is from Radio Latina, a 10 kW Venezuelan AM station heard on 1470 kHz in Johannesburg in 1987. Nice personal letter about the station and the town of Valencia, the motortown of the country where Ford, GM and Goodyear had factories.

Captain Morgan Yo Ho Ho

Blood is an amazing thing.  You may meet up with a family member not seen for years who in turn introduces you to someone you've never met or even heard of. Within moments you can be chatting merrily away, starting out with nothing in common other than your kin. Somehow you seem to trust the new acquaintance and share intimate details about family connections. You may even be an in-law so have no actual blood connection to the family member himself. No matter, it's still family. In some nationalities these ties are extremely strong, stifling even. We used to hang out with an extended family from a Mediterranean country where the whole kit and caboodle would gather each Sunday for lunch. It was hard for a family member not to show up. Some people spend hours tracing family roots in the hope of turning up a famous ancestor, who, once discovered, gives them bragging rights and a sense they're special. Silly really, after all people differ hugely even within families, let alone down the generations, so any sense of superiority derived from an illustrious forebear is just spurious. Famous people are often far more revered than they deserve. Some were just plain lucky and others plain obnoxious, but history has been kind to them. There are far more people who led valuable, exemplary lives and passed on unserenaded. Our family claims Admiral Sir Henry Morgan as an ancestor - both an Admiral and a knight! Sounds good but actually he was a terrible thug, a privateer who tore around the Caribbean sacking and looting cities, including Panama in 1671. The QSL is from the US Naval facility at Balboa in Panama, a utility station heard in Cape Town in 1969.

By force of arms, also hips and legs

First big surfing day of the autumn quarter. Nice steady northwester and a good swell at Muizies corner. It's a grey day like London but unlike London it's much warmer and the sea's not cold, especially for wimps like me with the full Monty: wetsuit, hood, and booties. Hey, I wanna stay in the water for two-three hours and not suffer from exposure! I get there early but it's already packed. No matter, I've got a new Macski and nothing's gonna stop me from hitting the waves! I find a place to park in the far corner and in a jiffy I'm out back. The new waveski is lighter and sleeker than the old one and much faster on the wave. Oh wow! Why did I wait so long to upgrade?? Being lighter there's the question of balance. I'm used to the old more buoyant board. Now I must re-learn. Your hip, back and thigh muscles are making hundreds of small adjustments to keep you up and the old brain is having to slowly re-programme itself with all this new input. It's gonna take a few hours out there to ingest all the new info. In paddleskiing you might think that most of the work you do is with your arms: pulling and steering, but a whole bunch of other muscles come into play and usually it's the ones at the top of your thighs that feel a bit stiff the next morning. Macski is a great South African company, based in Port Elizabeth up the coast, in business since 1979 and billing themselves today as the world's no. 1 waveski manufacturer. The QSL is from Capital Radio which used to broadcast on AM and shortwave from further up the coast in Transkei (then a nominally 'independent' country in apartheid South Africa). Note the great seagull logo: they played cool music, just perfect for beach holidays.

Mongolian mining mania

Mongolia, landlocked between giants China and Russia, has a population of less than 3m. The city of Cape Town, at the  southern tip of Africa, has a population exceeding 3m. Mongolia is the size of western Europe and is gradually emerging from obscurity as more and more people become aware of its substantial mineral resources. A huge copper/gold project is under way at Oyu Tolgoi, while Tavan Tolgoi, the world's largest untapped coal deposit is also moving towards production. Rio Tinto, one of the world's mega-miners, is wrangling with the Mongolian government over royalties at Oyu Tolgoi but the project is so vital for both parties that some solution will be found. Tavan Tolgoi has an estimated coal resource of 6.4bn tonnes, enough to keep a quite a few fires burning! Newly-elected Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, he of Abenomics fame, is set to visit Mongolia, proclaiming it for its 'shared democratic values'. Abe is cosying up to several Asian economies as part of a plan to neutralise some of China's growing muscle in the region. The Tavan Tolgoi development will also need a lot of heavy equipment of the kind that Japanese companies are good at. 800 years ago Genghis Khan founded the Mongol empire and grandson Kublai conquered China. Kublai's summer palace was in Xanadu, now known as Beijing. That's not going to happen again anytime soon but the country is starting to become a player after years in the wilderness. The QSL is from Radio Ulan Bator, English Section, heard in Cape Town in 1968. Typed on an old typewriter, the upper case characters popped up half a line and the lines nearly ran off the page.