investment dilemma!

[RetireJapan]

Net worth goes up, purchasing power goes down.

Not sure how to feel about that

Within Japan you can control what you spend to a certain extent to ease the pain.

Travel overseas though? It really hits home. I had to go to Europe for work and for the money I spent myself I just had to stop thinking about the prices, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do anything.
I did pay 600yen for 1 bottle of water once, which I can't remember doing in Japan.

True. I suspect prices in Japan will not go up as quickly as the currency is falling, which means that in Japanese terms we will get better off over time if the currency continues to weaken. But not overseas.

Hence a lot more domestic travel recently!

[Deep Blue]

True. I suspect prices in Japan will not go up as quickly as the currency is falling, which means that in Japanese terms we will get better off over time if the currency continues to weaken. But not overseas.

I'm not sure how you come to this conclusion? Prices of goods sold in Japan are rising because a lot of what we consume here is directly or indirectly imported. Direct costs are things like food, petrol, manufactured goods like iPhones etc. Indirect costs are things like electricity and diesel which rely on imports and feed into domestic prices too as part of COGS for domestic companies.

Japan calorie self-suffiency ratio was 38% in 2022.

For energy, the situation is even worse, Japan was only 13% self-sufficient in 2022.

The only way we can avoid domestic prices rising is if manufacturers accept lower margins or improve their productivity. For things like energy neither of these is likely, but I guess in food and goods production there is some wiggle room... but generally as the yen weakens, I think we have to accept domestic prices will rise.

[RetireJapan]

True. I suspect prices in Japan will not go up as quickly as the currency is falling, which means that in Japanese terms we will get better off over time if the currency continues to weaken. But not overseas.

I'm not sure how you come to this conclusion?

Just based on what I have seen so far. Prices are not up 60% on a couple of years ago. It seems businesses are reluctant to raise prices and salaries are also not going up as quickly either. The government is subsidising electricity and gas.

I could be wrong, and it could also take time for increases to trickle through the system.

I didn't say prices wouldn't rise, just that they wouldn't rise to the same extent.

[Deep Blue]

Oh I thought you said we’d get better off in Japanese terms if the currency continues to fall.

I’d suggest we’d be better off if the currency regained some of the ground it’s lost.

Wages are up 5.1% on average for Rengo members, final number was published this week. Highest rate of increase since the bubble…

[RetireJapan]

Oh I thought you said we’d get better off in Japanese terms if the currency continues to fall.

I meant that if you have assets in non-yen (by investing in world funds, for example) and those rose due to the falling yen, but prices in Japan did not rise quite as much, then overall you'd be slightly better off in terms of spending in Japan.

Trying to find the silver lining, as it were.

Our net worth is going up far quicker than our yen expenses are this year, by a factor of hundreds(?).

[Deep Blue]

Ahh yes, I didn’t understand what you were trying to say. Japan is a bit like Zimbabwe in this respect, many Zimbabwean billionaires but those are billionaires in Zim dollars only

[banders]

Our net worth is going up far quicker than our yen expenses are this year, by a factor of hundreds(?).

Woah, sailor. Maybe cut back on the humility a bit? I made it, you're on your own.

[RetireJapan]

Our net worth is going up far quicker than our yen expenses are this year, by a factor of hundreds(?).

Woah, sailor. Maybe cut back on the humility a bit? I made it, you're on your own.

Not sure what you mean there.

[Tsumitate Wrestler]

Our net worth is going up far quicker than our yen expenses are this year, by a factor of hundreds(?).

Woah, sailor. Maybe cut back on the humility a bit? I made it, you're on your own.

Not sure what you mean there.

It would seem they are accusing you of having a lack of empathy in regards to how the current economic situation might effect those with less resources?

I think their intention was to imply you were saying "I've got mine", https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/I_got_mine?

However, I am unsure if this was in jest or not.

[RetireJapan]

It would seem they are accusing you of having a lack of empathy in regards to how the current economic situation might effect those with less resources?

I think their intention was to imply you were saying "I've got mine", https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/I_got_mine?

However, I am unsure if this was in jest or not.

Yeah, difficult to judge tone on here.

It was just a factual observation. If the yen strengthens in the future our net worth will go down hundreds of times faster than our spending power increases too though.

And in the likely scenario of a stock market crash and a strengthening yen I estimate we'll be down up to 70%