Chapter 874 Plaza Accord
The reason why Japan’s economic miracle is called a miracle.
In fact, it is not only because the time period for Japan's rise is very short, but also because the foundation for Japan's post-war recovery is really poor.
After World War II, about 40% of Japan's factories and infrastructure were destroyed, and the domestic mood was very low.
And because of the extreme consumption of the war, huge debts were owed, and even the country was taken over by the US garrison.
Originally, it was very difficult for a defeated country with nothing to stand up again.
It is no longer easy to survive, let alone become a developed country.
But because they were worried that the little Japanese would be pulled over by the Red Front at the end of their rope, even though the United States had just bombed Japan with atomic bombs, it was very nice to help Japan recover in various ways.
Including the writing of the constitution, land law reform, labor reform, education reform and other reforms.
The United States helped Japan complete its economic restructuring at an extremely fast speed.
Then came another three years of the Korean War. The United States had a large demand for military supplies, and it needed to be purchased nearby.
Of course it is a good thing for Japan. This has helped Japan get rid of its previous lack of domestic demand.
So even though Japan was in a mess after the war, it quickly climbed out of the quagmire with the help of the United States.
And the two enemies who were originally fighting each other to death, only ten years later, actually fell in love with each other.
Look, it can only be said that there are no eternal enemies, only eternal interests.
Next, Japan’s economic system has basically restarted.
And the overall quality of the population is also very high, and at the same time, prices in Japan were very low at that time.
This means that Japan has a large number of very smart and cheap labor forces, and it is also catching up with the wave of economic globalization at that time.
Even after the Korean War ends, Japan can still continue to enjoy the benefits of export trade.
The Japanese then confirmed the policy of "building a nation through trade" and first sold textiles and toys to Europe and the United States.
Then, relying on the foreign exchange earned and technology accumulation, industrial upgrading was carried out, and steel smelting began, as well as machine tools, electronic products and automobile manufacturing.
Throughout the 1960s, Japan's economy was in a period of rapid development, and it maintained a GDP growth rate of more than 10% for a long time.
By 1973, Japan's per capita GDP had increased more than ten times from less than three thousand US dollars after the war, catching up to two-thirds of the United States.
Such a sustained and rapid growth almost shocked the jaws of economists around the world at that time and attracted the attention of the whole world.
Although the time entered the 1970s, Japan came to a sudden halt twice due to the two oil crises in 1973 and 1979.
The imported inflation caused by the skyrocketing oil prices has in the short term caused Japan the painful pain of reduced demand, lower consumption, and declining demand, so much so that Japan's GDP growth rate dropped to 4%.
But at the same time, the two oil crises were also excellent opportunities for Japan's economic structural transformation and its products to enter the international market.
Because if there was no sudden change in the situation in the Middle East, oil prices would rise.
Japanese cars, which are called "mouse toys" by Europeans and Americans, are simply impossible to change the aesthetic taste of Europeans and Americans who like large-displacement cars and open up the European and American markets by virtue of energy and fuel saving.
Japanese companies will not work hard on company management because of the surge in production costs, optimize resources in an all-round way, and sum up their own set of modern enterprise management experience.
In fact, there are opportunities in crises and crises.
In 1960, Toyota's annual output was only 150,000 vehicles, but by 1980, the annual output jumped to 3.3 million vehicles.
A number of other Japanese brands, including Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic, and Mitsubishi, all became frequent customers in the homes of consumers around the world at that time.
During this period, a large number of Japanese companies went abroad with their high quality and low price, and they all became multinational giants.
In summary, because Japan successfully turned crisis into opportunity, it changed its economic model from extensive production-oriented to technology-oriented.
Japan has transformed from an agricultural economic country into a modern industrial country, completing a very miraculous national leap.
In the late 1970s, when the book "Japan No. 1: Inspiration to the United States" written by Vogel was published, when "Made in Japan" could be seen in every corner of the world.
The world is finally amazed by the miracle of Japan, and it is generally believed that "the future will be the era of Japan."
For this reason, the view that "we should learn from Japanese companies" has begun to emerge around the world.
Both "Toyota Management" and "Matsushita Konosuke" have become the most popular research topics in the business circles of various countries.
Japanese, which was once only a minor language, has become increasingly popular, and more and more foreigners hope to find jobs in Japanese companies.
Even the future plans of Japanese students overseas have undergone tremendous changes.
They are no longer keen on communicating with countries of other races, and often choose to return to China after their studies.
This is because they all know that only classmates from their own country will become their future network resources.
If they return to Japan, their income will be much more than if they stayed overseas.
All this made the Japanese feel that their efforts for many years after the war had finally been recognized by some authority, which greatly encouraged their national self-confidence.
However, what is very interesting is that just when Japan successfully rose, the Japanese people entered the 1980s hand in hand with excitement and excitement.
The United States, which once vigorously supported Japan, went in the opposite direction and was trapped in the predicament of economic recession.
In the 1970s, the United States first unilaterally announced its decoupling from gold and broke away from the Bretton Woods system.
The next two oil crises plunged the United States into high inflation, which was once as high as 14%.
At the same time, the U.S. domestic economy stagnated and fell into a very serious stagflation.
Americans think differently from the Japanese. They always focus on finance and are used to relying on pure financial means to solve problems.
The newly appointed central bank governor Paul Walker made a very radical decision to raise interest rates to curb inflation.
In 1981, the federal interest rate was directly raised to 20%.
Inflation has indeed been suppressed, but the side effects are also very obvious.
Radical measures have suppressed the U.S. economy and even plunged it into recession.
In addition, currency appreciation also created a huge stock market bubble.
At the same time, due to the appreciation of the US dollar, US exports have been severely damaged, resulting in a huge trade deficit.
At this time, taking advantage of the soaring U.S. dollar, many of Japan's top products hit the United States hard, quickly occupied the U.S. market, and caused constant complaints from local American companies.
As the saying goes, watching you make money is more uncomfortable than losing money myself, let alone the two coexisting?
As a result, in the blink of an eye, the relationship between the two countries, the United States and Japan, was once again on bad terms.
The eldest brother and the younger brother, who were originally harmonious, suddenly got into trouble and were about to tear themselves apart.
American autoworkers took the lead in smashing Japanese cars in public. Slogans and news similar to "Japan Get Out of the United States" began to spread across the United States and were out of control.
"Anti-Japanese" sentiment soon extended from the automobile industry to Japanese video games, Japanese CNC machine tools, Japanese excavators, Japanese tape recorders, and Japanese motorcycles, almost all Japanese products All triggered protests by American workers.
"Anti-Japan" became the mainstream consciousness in the United States in the early 1980s and was the political correctness of the United States.
In the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, trade bills and retaliation bills to sanction Japan have been proposed one after another.
In order to gain votes, some politicians in the United States at that time even made public remarks with serious racial discrimination.
"How did Japan's economic miracle come about? It was not created by us Americans. Without the United States, Japan's miracle is nothing..."
"From World War II to the present, Americans have Why are we bleeding and dying in the Pacific? Is it to let the yellow-skinned monkeys ride on our heads? If we had known this, we should have handed Japan over to the Russians and let the Russians enslave them..."
"Now these yellow-skinned monkeys pretend to be friendly with us, but secretly steal our money, steal our technology, and make our workers unemployed and homeless. Those congressmen who are still interceding for the Japanese just don't An absolute beauty..."
Even economic experts and Nobel Prize winners from well-known universities in the United States showed their sense of social responsibility and joined the "anti-Japanese" team one after another out of the desire to ride on the popularity.
They analyzed Japan's "economic aggression" against the United States from the perspective of economics, which they are good at.
For this reason, the American people were collectively outraged, shouting and asking the government, "Who won World War II?"
Under such circumstances, the U.S. government was of course sitting on pins and needles. The back is stabbed, as if it is stuck in the throat.
Under pressure from all aspects, Japan was quickly designated as an "unfair trading country" and started a trade war with it.
The measures taken by the United States are one-size-fits-all.
Directly restrict the number of imported Japanese cars each year, and at the same time impose tariffs of up to 100% on Japanese electronic products.
But in fact, these measures are not very effective. Japanese products are still more cost-effective than American products.
So the Americans soon thought of the second move - to devalue the dollar.
Americans are confident that their own products are actually no worse than those made in Japan.
They attribute the reason why American products cannot compete with Japanese products to the fact that the Japanese financial market is not open enough and the Japanese government artificially controls the exchange rate. Fundamentally, it is the value of the Japanese yen that makes Japanese products competitive in the international market.
The United States therefore believes that as long as the yen appreciates and the dollar depreciates, American products will not lose.
In this way, after many secret meetings, on September 22, 1985, a major event that shocked the world happened under the spotlight of the world's major media.
Just after accusing the Japanese of manipulating the exchange rate, the United States called representatives from Japan, France, the United Kingdom, and West Germany to the Plaza Hotel in New York to sign an agreement.
The core content of the agreement is that the United States requires everyone to work together to sell the U.S. dollar and depreciate the U.S. dollar to alleviate the U.S. trade deficit.
Japan and West Germany were also specifically asked to appreciate their currencies to a higher extent to help the United States relieve pressure.
Obviously, the United States itself does not hesitate to openly violate the "free market" spirit admired by the West.
The targets of the suppression are obviously Japan and West Germany. Who makes them the most money from the United States?
As for Japan and West Germany, first of all, both countries were defeated in World War II and their international status was embarrassing.
Secondly, the United States is the largest customer of both countries.
They all know that if Americans are dissatisfied, it will be strange if they can have good fruits to eat.
Especially in Japan, although the shadow of the atomic bomb has been engraved in the hearts of the Japanese as a peace education, it has also instilled in the Japanese a psychological suggestion that they will always be inferior to Americans.
So, due to their lustful power and the dependence relationship for survival, Japan and West Germany did not even dare to let go, so they bowed their heads and signed the agreement honestly.
And this is an important trigger for a series of problems in Japan from bubble to recession.
Speaking of which, this is the first time in history that so many countries have sat down together and blatantly used state power to intervene in the "exchange rate market."
As soon as the news was announced by the media and the drama of joint exchange rate manipulation by various countries began to be officially staged, the impact and turbulence caused to the international financial market was like a tsunami.
Of course, due to the time difference and the fact that Japan coincides with the autumnal equinox holiday, the time for market intervention in various countries is also different.
On September 23, first the West German Finance Minister ordered the Deutsche Bundesbank to intervene in the exchange rate market in Frankfurt.
The Paris and London markets that opened later also joined forces to intervene in the exchange rate under the orders of the finance ministers of each country.
Under the strong intervention of various central banks, major currencies of various countries have risen against the US dollar.
The exchange rates of the yen and the mark against the US dollar were the leading white horses, rising 5% in one day.
In the afternoon, the U.S. Federal Reserve really joined the fight, investing US$250 million to further raise the yen exchange rate.
The exchange rate of one U.S. dollar to 235 yen has increased to 1 U.S. dollar, which can only be exchanged for 225 yen.
It was only then that the market really reacted.
The dollar is going to fall!
The dollar is really going to fall!
The intervention of the five countries is effective, but they are all pouring real money into the foreign exchange market!
As a result, a large number of institutional investors and traders began to sell US dollars crazily and quietly withdraw from US dollar assets.
The effect finally reached Japan the next day and was even more amplified.
Not only has the appreciation of the yen been further accelerated, foreign capital has also flowed into Japan's stock and bond markets frantically, competing for yen assets.
On September 24, just as the Japanese government ended the autumnal equinox holiday, it began to sell US dollars as promised, continuing to support the rise of the yen, leaving the Mark behind.
The Japanese stock market, which was already in an upward channel, immediately started to rise like a blowout as soon as the market opened.
And the biggest impact is concentrated on the financial industry and the real estate industry.
In the financial industry, securities companies rose first, followed by the insurance industry, and the banking industry last.
The overall financial sector saw an average increase of 11%.
Real estate performed even better. The average increase of the entire sector that day was as high as 15%, making it the brightest pearl among all sectors.
Japan’s largest homebuilder Daiwa House Co., Ltd. rose five percent in one day.
Mitsubishi Estate, the largest real estate company, rose 6 percent.
Mitsui Fudosan, the largest housing agency, rose three percent.
This made Ning Weimin, who had just opened an account at Nomura Securities last week and asked his stockbroker to complete all the stock positions, called it a fluke.
Because this guy not only succeeded in completing the layout at the last minute, but his method of trading in Japanese stocks was also based on the experience of A-shares.
There is no need to hesitate to bet on securities and real estate, but Ning Weimin also knows that the smaller the market, the easier it is to rise, and the lower the price of the stock, the easier it is to attract retail investors.
And because he was not familiar with Japanese stocks, Ning Weimin adopted a diversified investment approach and did not put all his eggs in one basket.
He bought the stocks of three small and medium-sized securities companies and the stocks of seven small and medium-sized real estate companies.
As a result, he found that this method is also applicable in Japan, and it also has a special benefit of accidental collision.
It was because he later discovered that the price limit for stock trading in Japan was very special.
It is not a blanket cut of 11% like the Republic, but different amounts of limit ranges are set according to different stock price ranges.
In principle, the lower the price, the smaller the stock size and the fewer restrictions.
For example, for stocks within 100 yen, the price limit is 30 yen.
For stocks between 101 and 200 yen, the price limit is 50 yen...
By analogy, the limit is segmented.
So the stocks he bought did not include large-cap stocks, and the nature of the stocks was extremely flexible.
Without exception, they are all stocks that can change by tens of percent every day, so their price rises really fast.
On September 24, I watched my stocks appreciate by an average of 18%, making a huge profit of 90 million yen.
When the market closed at three o'clock in the afternoon, he walked out of the Nomura Stock Exchange and was so happy that he was so happy.
We are people with big wooden basins!
It’s time to catch up!
I earned two houses in Tokyo and two million yuan in one day!
This money is in Tokyo, Japan, and it can also be called a huge sum of money!
What's more, if he continues at this rate, he will be able to earn back the money he spent to open the restaurant in just one day.
Who can say this is not an investment miracle!
This long-lost pleasure, the pleasure of dopamine secretion, was something he only experienced when he bought securities stocks in his previous life in 2008, during the A-share bull market where margin trading and securities lending were available for leverage.
But at that time, the country only saw a 10% increase in a single day, and his funds were limited, so he only earned 1.8 million in one day.
What’s more, he didn’t feel confident at that time, he was panicking!
You don't dare to hold the stocks you bought for a long time.
I am afraid that there will be some black swan event, and the securities market will suddenly turn around, and the daily limit will become the lower limit!
And in the end, he really lost blood because of the added leverage and was knocked back to his original shape.
More than three million yuan was invested into the market, and they spent as much as they earned. They worked together in vain, and they all worked for securities companies.
I reluctantly took a profit of more than 100,000 yuan, which was regarded as a piece of interest money, and retreated with a thrilling fear.
But it's different now. He's the one who peeked at God's trump card.
This is not gambling at all, but blatantly robbing the Japanese of their money!
I know that this is just the beginning, and there are still five years of good times ahead.
It doesn’t matter even if he considers that he may step on the landmine of delisted companies due to his careless stock selection.
Just because the Nikkei 225 index closed at 12,077 points that day, it eventually rose to a dreamy 38,957 points.
He was sure that the average stock prices of most of these companies could increase at least ten times!
The same is a big profit!
That’s why just before the market closed in the afternoon, he did not hesitate to reject his stockbroker’s suggestion that he sell goods for arbitrage.
Grandma, do you still want to trick me into working for your Japanese securities company? You are so beautiful!
I can make one million, why should I make one hundred thousand?
He now absolutely believes that long-term is gold and short-term is silver.
If you can’t keep your composure, you will be a loser in the stock market, and you will never come back.
If time could go back in time, he might consider buying one less house and placing heavy stock in the stock market.
Unfortunately, there is no what if...
(End of this chapter)