Hi, Very briefly, official interest rates in Japan have been zero from 1990 until just recently. The reason for this was the massive accumulation of debt--mainly by Japanese companies--to finance purchases of Japanese real estate during their Bubble Economy in 1987-89. The levels of debt are such that, while before interest profit rates are nothing out of the ordinary, they would be swamped by interest repaytments on this debt were interest rates in the normal range of 1-2% after inflation. Inflation has also mainly been deflation in the last decade, so that a zero nominal rate translates as a positive "real" rate. Cheers, steve At 10:20 23/10/00 +0100, you wrote: > >One real world question that has just struck me is that money market >rates in Japan are currently less than 1%. >Does anyone know if the rate of profit in Japan is of this same >low order? Dr. Steve Keen Senior Lecturer Economics & Finance University of Western Sydney Macarthur Building 11 Room 30, Goldsmith Avenue, Campbelltown PO Box 555 Campbelltown NSW 2560 Australia s.keen@uws.edu.au 61 2 4620-3016 Fax 61 2 4626-6683 Home 02 9558-8018 Mobile 0409 716 088 Home Page: http://bus.macarthur.uws.edu.au/steve-keen/
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