This refers to Martin Feldstein’s article “Ending Japan’s long deflation” (February 2). Uncontrolled deficits are the genesis of runaway debt. Japan’s growth has been sluggish, averaging 0.8 per cent per annum. The nation’s total tax revenue is at a 24-year low. Corporate tax receipts have fallen to a 50-year low. Its prime minister’s aggressive monetary policy to end two decades of deflation, in the form of an investment package of $120 billion, has been announced with the hope that it stimulates economic growth by two per cent and creates more than 600,000 jobs. But the bulk of this would merely go in renewing existing infrastructure. That only borrows time; the longer-term objective of the nation’s economic rejuvenation remains largely unserved.
R Narayanan Ghaziabad
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