Creative financing from the world’s most indebted nation . .
. Maybe Greece should try this.
Stuck with the tricky job of making debt issued by the
world’s most indebted government an attractive investment prospect, Japan’s
ministry of finance has hit upon a novel sales pitch.
A high-profile advertising campaign to persuade millions of
small-time investors to buy the country’s sovereign debt has gone for raw sex
appeal: “Women have a thing for men who own JGBs!! . . . right!?”
Owning bonds might not be everyone’s idea of the way to a
woman’s heart but, according to the finance ministry advert, women prefer men
who invest in solid government debt because they are sensible investors.
And this from Alphaville:
…our colleague Bill O’Donnell reports that a new Japanese
Ministry of Finance advert says that Japanese women prefer men who invest in
government bonds, as ‘Playboys are no good’. This tells you all you need to
know about why you should buy bonds. Even when someone is trying to be bullish
govvies – as the government is, good for them – they are still seen as a dull
last resort anti-playboy investment. We suggest you will see far greater
(positive) returns in 30-yr govts in 2010 than you will see (negative) return
in equities. And are JGBs boring? You decide. 10-yr JGB total return YTD:
+2.1%, NIKKEI total return YTD: -9.9%. Seems to me that if you want to finance
that playboy lifestyle you would do far worse than buying some bonds!
According to commenters at Brad
DeLong’s blog, the ad is above.
(I don’t read or speak Japanese, so I’ll take them at their word). Asks DeLong:
Does this mean that
Japan is still very, very far away from the limits of its debt capacity? Or
very close to them?
Japan is a somewhat
strange country in many ways…