This My Economy of Sadness Is Made

Urban Corporation goes to it.

Courtesy: Yahoo Finance

All that remains is for the great Cassandra to offer up her funeral ode.

Do I think that the government announcement yesterday of a 2.4% annualized rate of shrinkage of the economy in the April-to-June quarter, coupled with the announcement of Japan's largest business failure of the last six years will in any way stimulate members of the ruling coalition to push hard for a major supplementary budget, in defiance of the government's own debt-reduction guidelines?

Why would I think that?

And why would I think politicians and the ministries would fail to seize the opportunity provided by a current need to counterbalance swings in the world economy to dump support of profitless, wealth-destroying activities in favor of investment in and operational finance for projects and industries with real prospects of future economic and employment growth?

Oh, right.

Later - I am not an advocate of market-based solutions for all pressing economic issues. Force feeding market-based solutions ends up being sub-optimal in democratic states. It is just that I have zero faith in the current LDP-led government's being able to find a means of resolving a problem that employs incentives and a wise use of public funds.