What's up with the value of the YEN?

[matsuki]

As long as it is entertainment for you and the money you spend on it matches the joy it gives you, I am in no position to criticise. Personally, I have other ways to spend my money. Your comments, however, show every sign that you have succumbed to the sickness.

Let me put it this way, my motivation for going to Vegas isn't the gambling...and I could have a rad time there without it. It's more of a "fuck it, it's Vegas" type thing which usually ends up with me walking away to spend some of my winnings while friends/family stay in the Casino for hours.

The point is that if you think you have a system that works, you're delusional. You yourself said sometimes you walk away with $10 and sometimes it's $1000. How did you know to quit when you were ahead $10 the one time but wait till you'd made $1000 the other?

[Takechanpoo]

39 J-companies are named among the 2014 top 100 global innovators of Thomson Reuters
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases ... 28431.html

[Cyka UchuuJin]

39 J-companies are named among the 2014 top 100 global innovators of Thomson Reuters
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases ... 28431.html

and???

quite appropriate that you posted this in the thread about the yen that is in the toilet though. japanese innovation, much like your brain, is becoming more and more irrelevant and without value.
remember that.

[IparryU]

39 J-companies are named among the 2014 top 100 global innovators of Thomson Reuters
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases ... 28431.html

and???

quite appropriate that you posted this in the thread about the yen that is in the toilet though. japanese innovation, much like your brain, is becoming more and more irrelevant and without value.
remember that.

They're losing just about every industry they had on lock decades ago. I wish Japan would pull their head out, hell, i love this cuntry.

[matsuki]

Well Cyka called it...even when they can innovate, it's usually not marketable until some evil barbarian company gets ahold of it. Even when it is marketable, Chinese or Korean companies come out with a cheaper alternative.

[kurogane]

They're losing just about every industry they had on lock decades ago. I wish Japan would pull their head out, hell, i love this cuntry.

Motion seconded and passed. It's freakin' me out how far behind they've fallen in the 7 years I have been back in Doughnut Land. And the progress they have made seems to all be in wanky Otaku Industries. But try telling that to the rubes at home, and apparently the rubes that write up these surveys. Not that I actually know anything about that crap.

[yanpa]

...Yen zooms beyond 117 to the USD...

[matsuki]

...Yen zooms beyond 117 to the USD...

Don't remind me....I really don't want to increase prices twice within a year but if it goes over 120 I'm fucked.

[wagyl]

I have a poor record predicting these things, but I would make a note of your printer's number for new catalogs.....

[yanpa]

Hmm, almost back to 2007 levels.

Was there a time in the last 20 years when the yen was below 120 to the USD?

[matsuki]

I have a poor record predicting these things, but I would make a note of your printer's number for new catalogs.....

I haven't even printed the first price change ones yet...I'm almost to the point where I take prices out of them (or write "open price") and just have them submit a price request each time, knowing it will fluctuate. Mind you, I'm working on another e-commerce website at the moment so it's time to see if it has any way to adjust for this mess without constant price changing...

[matsuki]

Hmm, almost back to 2007 levels.

Was there a time in the last 20 years when the yen was below 120 to the USD?

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=USDJ ... near%22%7D

[yanpa]

Hmm, almost back to 2007 levels.

Was there a time in the last 20 years when the yen was below 120 to the USD?

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=USDJ ... near%22%7D

Ta mate, yer a diamond geezer. xe.com only went back 10 years.

[legion]

Seems to have settled in to the 182-84 to the pound range - I'll take a stab it will float gently around this rate for a while then start to creep back up.

[matsuki]

I'm no economist but my over simplified view of this whole fiasco is that Abe should have never intervened and forced down the value of the yen (appealing to the big J-exporters?) and with all the other problems the country has/will have....it's going to keep losing value, as foreign barbarians lose confidence in the currency.

Personally, I switched to mostly imports as the Yen got too strong and now that I've built up all that mess, I'm finding I need to pick up where I left off with exports, though I'm unsure how good that will be as China/Korea seem to be knocking off anything worth selling, for way less. High end luxury, where people care about "Made in Japan" is probably the only way to go for what I deal in.

[Russell]

Hmm, almost back to 2007 levels.

Was there a time in the last 20 years when the yen was below 120 to the USD?

I seem to remember it was 124 to the USD in 1997...

[yanpa]

My memory of it being in the 140s appears to be correct.

Meanwhile... 118.

[Yokohammer]

I remember when it was 360 yen to the U.S. dollar!

Kind of a long time ago, but hey, that's what it was.


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[yanpa]

I don't suppose you remember when the sen was actually worth anything?

[Yokohammer]

I don't suppose you remember when the sen was actually worth anything?

Nope, that's a little before my time. But I do remember seeing a few 100 yen notes around.


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[IparryU]

Hmm, almost back to 2007 levels.

Was there a time in the last 20 years when the yen was below 120 to the USD?

Untitled.png

[IparryU]

I remember when it was 360 yen to the U.S. dollar!

Kind of a long time ago, but hey, that's what it was.


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Well... we know how long ago that was now!

fredgraph.jpg

[Yokohammer]

Well... we know how long ago that was now!

Yes, the rate was fixed up until that point. The story is that since "円" ("en" or "yen") also means "circle," some bright spark arbitrarily decided that because a circle has 360 degrees, that's what the exchange rate would be.

You could buy a lot with dollars back then.


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[IparryU]

Well... we know how long ago that was now!

Yes, the rate was fixed up until that point. The story is that since "円" ("en" or "yen") also means "circle," some bright spark arbitrarily decided that because a circle has 360 degrees, that's what the exchange rate would be.

You could buy a lot with dollars back then.


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Thanks for the history lesson! I bet grandpa greji would have a whole lot more to add.

[matsuki]

Yoko, is that story just a story or are you serious?

[Yokohammer]

Yoko, is that story just a story or are you serious?

I'm serious in that I didn't make it up, but I can't vouch for it either.

Perhaps someone from the FG accounting dept. can supply the historical facts.

[matsuki]

we're nearly to 119 now....fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

[wagyl]

Yoko, is that story just a story or are you serious?

I'm serious in that I didn't make it up, but I can't vouch for it either.

Perhaps someone from the FG accounting dept. can supply the historical facts.

You rang?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_y ... hange_rate
provides the detail everyone has been looking for.

The 360 and circle story sounds like a folk explanation made up after the event. I think it was probably just a coincidence that the value of the yen at the end of the war was about that amount. Back in those days, exchange rates tended to be nice round integer numbers as they were still in the mindset of referring to everything as a certain weight of gold, even though they had abandoned the gold standard by then.

Edit: However:

When Ambassador Joseph Dodge arrived to oversee the country’s reconstruction, Japan was using a system of multiple exchange rates, according to Arthur Alexander, adjunct professor of Asia Studies and Economics at Georgetown University and the author of “The Arc of Japan’s Economic Development.”

Dodge tasked the American occupation authorities to come up with a unitary exchange rate and by March 1949, they settled on a rate of ¥360 yen to the dollar.

“This number was selected in part because it deliberately was undervalued from the best guess of ¥330 but also because a circle has 360 degrees and ¥360 would have some rough symbolic significance,” Alexander said in a paper discussing the historical background of the yen.

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/20 ... dor-dodge/
(found by searching "japanese yen historical rates 360 to the usd and circle" in Google)

[J.A.F.O]

we're nearly to 119 now....fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

At the end of 2013 when the exchange rate was pushing 100Y to the $ a friend asked me what I thought it would end up to. I told him I didn't know but two economists with drastically different predictions put the edges at 100 yen to the dollar and the other at 200 yen to the dollar by years end (2014) so I told him that 150 might be quite a reasonable outcome somewhere in 2015. He couldn't believe it but now it's looking more and more that it could go that way.

[IparryU]

we're nearly to 119 now....fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

At the end of 2013 when the exchange rate was pushing 100Y to the $ a friend asked me what I thought it would end up to. I told him I didn't know but two economists with drastically different predictions put the edges at 100 yen to the dollar and the other at 200 yen to the dollar by years end (2014) so I told him that 150 might be quite a reasonable outcome somewhere in 2015. He couldn't believe it but now it's looking more and more that it could go that way.

Well, Kuroda speaks on Tuesday at 1000 and 1345. Expect the rate to go one way or the other. Then Friday the yoy CPI gets discussed.

And we dont have a diet right now.