{"id":266717,"date":"2026-01-04T12:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T12:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/266717\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T12:25:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T12:25:07","slug":"japan-policy-wonks-consumed-by-debate-over-how-to-measure-fiscal-woes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/266717\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan policy wonks consumed by debate over how to measure fiscal woes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A key measure of fiscal health in Japan is losing favor, with allies of the current administration saying that the primary budget balance is all but meaningless in an inflationary environment: the wrong tool for the wrong time.<\/p>\n<p>Critics counter that ignoring the number is just a convenient way to obscure the real problem, and that the downgrading of the key statistic might ultimately damage Japan&#8217;s credibility in international markets. Some go as far as to suggest that the quiet campaign to dethrone the statistic is just a way to give Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi room to spend more money.<\/p>\n<p>This debate over an otherwise obscure figure has captivated wonks and political insiders in Japan in recent months, especially as concerns globally increase over Japan&#8217;s overall debt burden and how the new prime minister is ideologically inclined to spend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A key measure of fiscal health in Japan is losing favor, with allies of the current administration saying&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[831,79,52760,179,18,19,17,10603,50512],"class_list":{"0":"post-266717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-budgets","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-debts","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-japanese-economy","16":"tag-sanae-takaichi"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115836821445278022","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}