Princes of the Yen

What Hacker News says

1. limit499karmaSep 2024
   I like Richard Werner's take on the matter:

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princes_of_the_Yen

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2. throwaway4goodAug 2023
   "Princes of the Yen" - both a book and documentary - well worth watching:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsO0JYu_5WI

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3. hogFeastNov 2021
   Richard Werner is a bit nutty but his work does have value. He takes a heavily heterodox position on interest rates, some of this is him being misleading in order to be controversial. But his points about the impact of interest rates on bank profits are very trenchant (and btw, the reason why he is a bit nutty is because his professional experience was Japan in the late 80s/90s, that scenario tested all the assumptions about macro and found a lot of them were false, his book Princes of the Yen is good...although, again, very heterodox).
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4. splixNov 2021
   Also "Princes of the Yen", it mentions how IMF took advantage over Asia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-IZZxyb1GI
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5. fuoqiAug 2021
   I wouldn't be so sure that EU and US will follow the Japanese scenario. In many regards Japan is a special case. On this subject I recommend reading Lyn Alden [0] and Princes of the Yen [1].

   [0]: https://www.lynalden.com/economic-japanification/

   [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Princes-Yen-Central-Bankers-Transform...

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6. SkyMarshalMay 2021
   Well so far it’s anything but zero sum. From nothing to tens of thousands of dollars in 10yrs is not zero sum.

   It’s highly volatile yes, and has lost >= 80% of its value four times in those ten years (so this little 30% dip is nothing by comparison). But not zero sum.

   It originally mainly appealed to two factions: techies who like disrupting big things from first principles, and people who were long concerned with the mechanics of government fiat money and central banks [1]. There was some overlap between those two groups, and they were the innovators and early adopters.

   Interest has since expanded to investors of all kinds due to its, so far, non-zero-sum aspect.

   But if you’re not interested in the mechanics of how money works, it’s not surprising Bitcoin or cryptocurrency won’t be of interest to you.

   Also, Bitcoin has aspects of both currency and commodity (and possibly security, though the US SEC has said they don’t consider it that). It’s impossible to categorize based on previous definitions for this reason. Try not to get caught up in debating whether it’s one of these things, because it’s a mix of both (or maybe all three). So many people drive themselves crazy trying to define it as a currency, or arguing against it as a currency, but that’s just a mental tar pit.

   [1]:One well-researched take: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princes_of_the_Yen

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