“[Japan] defies the basic tenets of economics for the nation with the largest total debt, largest ratio of geriatrics and low rates of immigration to have lower bond yields than countries like Singapore, Sweden or Switzerland.”
When one of the world’s government bond markets finally blows up (Japan still looks like the primary candidate, but stranger things have happened), economists will scratch their heads and wonder where it all went wrong.
As it happens, Japan had all of these things (the largest debt ratio, largest geriatrics ratio and low immigration) long before any QE.
What's more, QE hasn't really done much to Japanese bond yields and hasn't even been able to achieve the 2% inflation target.
Japan's QE started in 2013 (although there was a prior period with much a much smaller program from March 2001 to 2004). The aim is to get the country out of deflation for good, as deflation is terrible for debt dynamics (it increases the real burden of debt) and the BoJ cannot lower interest rates so they did something else.
We've seen these predictions of a blow up of the Japanese bond market for over a decade, it hasn't materialized, neither has any inflation, let alone hyperinflation...
Speaking about lack of grasp of history, ZeroHedge seems to forget that Abeconomics is modelled on a successful Japanese reflation effort in the 1930s under Finance Minister Takahashi..