Sorry for the late reply

Umio Mamoru's reply

B-sama,
I apologize for the late reply.
Shall I call it a coincidence?
I think my recent article will be the answer to that👇

Question 1: "Are you going to leave debt for generations to come?"

Answer 1:
"Only Japan and a few other countries have deadlines for the redemption of ordinary government bonds...
In most countries, rolling over government bonds is the norm."
There is essentially no need to force repayment in the next generation.

Supplement 1:
Government bonds naturally have redemption deadlines...
Saying 'it can't be helped because it's debt' is a concept that is natural for individuals or private companies
whose 'lifespan is not infinite'.

Events such as disappearance due to annexation or occupation can occur for a nation, but...
'I don't know about the annexed nation...
Would another country that occupies and places a certain country under its control guarantee the debt of the subjugated nation?'

I do not know of any nation that has substituted the debt of a subjugated nation.
My shallow study of political geography has taught me that 'if you look at modern political science, that is the answer'.

Question 2: "The value of the currency will continue to fall, and eventually the yen will lose trust and become like the Zimbabwean dollar."

Answer 2:
The value of a currency is not determined by the amount of debt or the size of the GDP.
If it were just the amount of debt, the US has four times the debt of Japan,
and China also has one and a half times the debt of Japan.

Trust in a currency is the 'value of the country' synthesized through the past, present, and future.
If that value falls, the value of the currency will plummet regardless of the amount of debt.

Supplement 2:
If the amount of debt were the problem,
1. The fact that the US is 'selling bonds to many nations and institutional investors'
based on the credit that it can repay its massive debt
would collapse from the foundation...
and those nations and institutional investors
would be engaging in reckless speculation.
2. If the GDP is small but the debt is large...
According to that logic,
the concept of credit would not hold...
and it would follow the same path as a collateral-based financial institution that denies credit creation,
saying 'I won't lend money without collateral!'
Credit and future potential depend on
'the skill of the banker evaluating them'.
Credit is a 'virtue of discernment',
and the foreign capital that has lent as much as 170 trillion yen to the nation of Japan
would mean that their judgment is completely blind, and they are neither vultures nor greedy,
but 'pushovers'.
3. As I wrote in my recent article,
the argument that 'it's serious because the debt is several times the GDP' is
'a logic devised by the Ministry of Finance to make the amount of debt seem more dangerous than necessary,
and that logic is not used in international standard public finance or economics.'

Question 3: "Japan's debt is 1,300 trillion yen, which is equivalent to 20 years of tax revenue."
I think he would counter with this, so how do you think I should refute it?

Answer 3:
That is based on the premise that the economy will not develop and tax revenue will not grow while maintaining the status quo.
Five years ago, the Ministry of Finance did not anticipate a future where the crocodile's mouth would close,
but the crocodile's mouth narrowed due to increased tax revenue.
There are few bureaucrats equipped with the ability to foresee the future.
I think so even more because I was in that world.

Supplement 3:

For the past 30 years, the Japanese economy has not developed,
but one of the factors hindering it
was largely 'mistakes due to rigid fiscal policy',
and the ones who committed those mistakes were none other than
the 'Ministry of Finance'.

It is not that the Ministry of Finance failed in all past fiscal policies,
and I have absolutely no objection to the point that
the role played by the Ministry of Finance in the post-war reconstruction process was
'indispensable in the process of the nation of Japan gaining a certain level of international trust'.

The problem is...
since the No-Pan Shabu-Shabu scandal...

I believe it lies in the fact that intimidated Ministry of Finance bureaucrats...
adopted a policy of avoiding trouble,
decided that continuing to drive as safely as a novice driver
was the right thing to do...
and then turned the resentment they felt from being bashed by the media
against the 'Liberal Democratic Party administration that did not protect them.'

Originally, politicians should be the ones holding the steering wheel of the nation,
and if those instructions are wrong,
bureaucrats should stick to their role behind the scenes of 'recommending the correct course,'
but...

The Ministry of Finance bureaucrats—the Ministry of Finance officials—
have long had the 'mainstream faction that resented the LDP administration'
at their center.
'Even if they say nice things, in the end, they don't take responsibility...'
and when things go bad,
'it's the bureaucrats...'

The main reason why Ministry of Finance bureaucrats run to protect themselves
is because 'politicians lack the ability.'

There are many who mock the Abe administration...
and many commentators openly state
that 'Ministry of Finance bureaucrats hate Abe,' but...
'even if it was outward obedience and inward defiance, during the Abe administration,
there is no fact that the Ministry of Finance openly raised the flag of rebellion.'

'Even if it deviates slightly from our own intentions,
if it is to preserve the nation of Japan, we will follow,' is what bureaucrats do.
Mori-taku's books sell well, but...
I feel that he is overlooking that point.
The reason some intellectuals make the Ministry of Finance the villain
is because 'it is more convenient that way.'

Within the government offices,
'in the end, the will of the common people is important'
is what the officials think.