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Why the push to sell these bonds? According to our sources, Japan is out of money, currently spending twice what it makes.
File this under the what-will-they-think-of-next category: a new Japanese advertising campaign has women proclaiming their love of men who are fiscally responsible enough to buy government bonds.
The ads, commissioned by the ministry of finance, are pushing a new fixed-rate, three-year note the government started selling last week, as reported by Bloomberg.
“I want my future husband to be diligent about money,” a 27-year-old female says in one of the ads. “Playboys are no good … Men who hold JGBs are popular with women!!”
The bonds sell at local banks for 10,000 yen (US$109), but eligible bachelors will need to buy a lot of them if they want to even put a dent in the country’s crushing national debt of 882.9-trillion yen (almost US$10-trillion) as of the end of March.
“It strikes of desperation,” Christian Carrillo, a senior interest-rate strategist in Tokyo at Societe Generale SA told Bloomberg. “I doubt this will be a successful strategy to attract retail investors.”
Godzilla is not amused.
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