While, writing this I find BoJ has increased the rates to 0.5% and this surprize jolt has hurt a lot of speculators.
The speculators and short term traders will get hurt by any upward moment of the currency (strangely the currecy moved downward yesterday, as the rate increase was below expectation of few organizations) and/or increse in rates.
However, long term is a different story. I dont believe Japan/Germany can ever attain the state they were once in the early 80's. The world economy then looked totally different with tiny nations like Japan, UK, Germany, Italy along with their big boss US controlled the world economy. Now, those days of tiny tots are gone, and big wigs - BRICs are entering the show and if terrorism could be controlled even Middle east will join the show.
What this means is that not only there is enormous potential for greater depths for world markets, but also that these nations are no longer in US control to take things like Plaza Accord or Bretton-Woods agreements.
These nations by their size and population have enormous appetite for capital and can easily suck in trillions of dollars in the next decade for their development to come in par with the west. Atleast India, with its huge infrastructural requirement could suck few hundred billions in the next couple of years.
So, Japanese currency's appreciation potential will get diminished as they face import pressures due to rising oil prices and export pressures, where even countries like India would join as competitors for electronics, Auto and Steel. And with current deflation there is very little room for upward movement of currecy and the ageing society doesnt want to spend as much as their younger counterparts.
So, my guess is that these new countries could suck the entire investment fountains dry and would coast on the wealth that Japan and Germany built up for decades.
It is great time for countries like India that has great entrepreneurship scope but limited access to capital (till very recently) and can use this great "Akshaya Pathra" for supercharging growth.
