Bank of Japan Expands QE

The Bank of Japan (BoJ) has announced an increase of their version of Quantitative Easing (QE) or central bank asset purchases.

From Bloomberg, (bold emphasis added)

The Bank of Japan expanded stimulus as Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis caused an appreciation in the yen that may endanger a recovery from the March earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis.

Governor Masaaki Shirakawa and his policy board expanded their credit and asset-purchase programs to a total of 55 trillion yen ($724 billion) from 50 trillion yen in an 8 to 1 vote, the central bank said in a statement in Tokyo today. It also kept the overnight lending rate between zero and 0.1 percent.

Central banks from Brazil to Russia have cut borrowing costs and India signaled this week it was done with rate increases as nations turn to shelter their economies from the global slowdown. Economists said today’s policy boost was too small to address the strengthening yen and the BOJ may be forced to take further action if overseas economies deteriorate.

“In a word, this was disappointing,” said Masaaki Kanno, a former senior official at the Bank of Japan and now chief economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Tokyo. "They could have taken more active policies to give the market a positive surprise rather than moving little by little."

This only goes to show how addicted the global financial sector has been for bailout policies, such that they would use absurd premises to rationalize on such political actions.