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☆ Factbox: Who are candidates to become next BOJ governor?
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-05 | by ( Leika Kihara | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

The Nikkei newspaper reported the government has sounded out BOJ Deputy Governor Masayoshi Amamiya as the next governor, citing anonymous government and ruling party sources. The government will present a nominee for BOJ governor, and that for two deputy governors, to parliament later this month. But he also said in July the BOJ must "always" think about the means of exiting ultra-loose monetary policy. FEMALE DEPUTY GOVERNOR CANDIDATESNo female has yet served as BOJ deputy governor or governor, a tradition Kishida may seek to change to enhance diversity. FINANCIAL BUREAUCRAT DEPUTY GOVERNOR CANDIDATESIf a former BOJ executive becomes governor, there is a strong chance one of the deputy governor posts will be filled by top finance ministry bureaucrats such as Shigeaki Okamoto and Yasushi Kinoshita.

Last month, he called on companies to hike pay at a level above inflation, with some already heeding the call. Last month, Japan recorded its biggest drop in earnings, once inflation is taken into account, in nearly a decade. A changing job marketExperts say Japan’s wages have also suffered because it lags in another metric: its productivity rate. Hideya Tokiyoshi, a teacher in Japan, told CNN he had barely seen his salary go up over the last 30 years. “If some of the biggest companies in Japan raise wages, many other firms will follow,” if only to stay competitive, said Yamaguchi.

Here are 12 of the weirdest and most fascinating animal behaviors scientists spotted in 2022. Here are 12 bizarre and amazing things animals were spotted doing, some of which had never been seen before. It turned out that at least 12 species of primates had been reported doing so, a review published in the Journal of Zoology in October found. A dolphin swallowed 8 venomous sea snakesA sea snake (indicated with pink arrow), moments before it is captured and eaten by a Navy dolphin. Though animals have often been spotted using tools, these usually are used to give the animal a clear survival advantage.

☆ As Kuroda bows out, Bank of Japan's rising hawks eye end to unloved yield cap
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Leika Kihara | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +12 min

PUBLIC DISCONTENTAfter a tumultuous year for the world's third-largest economy, Japan's central bank and its leadership face a critical moment. While ruling out the need to ditch the yield cap now, Takata recently said he saw positive developments in wage growth. "The BOJ must start worrying about the possibility of inflation accelerating more than expected," he told Reuters, adding the BOJ may abandon its yield cap as early as next year. Such a reaction was seen in March when the BOJ was forced to pledge unlimited bond buying to defend its yield cap from speculative market attacks. "That's why the BOJ won't provide advance signals and remove the yield cap in a single step."

With inflation expectations already "sufficiently" high, core consumer inflation could exceed the BOJ's 2% target next fiscal year, and open scope for the central bank to abandon its 0% target for the 10-year bond yield, Hoshi said. The BOJ must start worrying about the possibility of inflation accelerating more than expected." A member of various government committees and an expert on macroeconomic policy, Hoshi spoke as a panelist at the BOJ's workshop on Nov. 25 that discussed Japan's wage dynamics. Under yield curve control (YCC), the BOJ guides short-term interest rates at -0.1% and pledges to guide the 10-year bond yield around 0%. If the BOJ were to normalise monetary policy, it will do so in several stages starting with the removal of the 10-year yield target that is distorting the shape of the yield curve, he said.

☆ BOJ inflation target to be scrutinised at government forum
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Nov 14 (Reuters) - A government-affiliated think tank will host a forum next month to discuss the Bank of Japan's 2% inflation target and the "challenges ahead", the organisation said on Monday. Participants include Columbia University professor Takatoshi Ito, who was a proponent of setting an inflation target when the BOJ had none until 2013, and University of Tokyo academic Tsutomu Watanabe, a former BOJ official known for his analyses on Japan's price trends. Three months later, Abe's hand-picked BOJ governor Haruhiko Kuroda deployed a massive asset-buying programme to meet his pledge of achieving 2% inflation in roughly two years. But stubbornly low inflation and a fragile economy forced the BOJ to maintain a massive stimulus until now, keeping Japan's central bank an outlier among global peers that have been tightening monetary policy to combat soaring inflation. With prolonged easing crushing bank profits and distorting the yield curve, some lawmakers have called for tweaking the joint statement and making the 2% inflation target a long-term goal with some room for flexibility.

☆ Degrowth: A dangerous idea or the answer to the world's biggest problems?
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-13 | by ( Julia Horowitz | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

“An innocent 2 or 3% per year, it’s an enormous amount of growth — cumulative growth, compound growth — over time,” said Giorgos Kallis, a top degrowth scholar based at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Action Press/ShutterstockThe UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently cited degrowth in a major report. Investment bank Jefferies said investors should consider what happens if degrowth gathers steam, noting “climate-anxious” younger generations have different consumer values. She’s criticized “fairy tales about non-existent technological solutions” and “eternal economic growth.” And she’s touched on another point degrowthers raise: Is our current system, which has produced rampant inequality, even working for us? Gates, the Microsoft co-founder who’s prioritized investing in climate innovations, admits that overhauling global energy systems is a Herculean task.

☆ Rats can bop their heads to a rhythm and like music by Lady Gaga, a study discovers
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-12 | by ( Alia Shoaib | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Rats can bop their heads to a rhythm like humans, a study has found. The animals were best at keeping in time with beats between 120 and 140 bpm, similar to humans. The results found that the rats' had the best beat synchronization in the range of 120-140 beats per minute and that rats and humans bopped their heads to the beats in a similar way. "Rats displayed innate — that is, without any training or prior exposure to music — beat synchronization most distinctly within 120-140bpm, to which humans also exhibit the clearest beat synchronization," he said. The study found that rats preferred beats close to 120bpm, similar to humans, suggesting that the best tempo for beat synchronization depends on the time constant in the brain, the study author said.

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