Don't You Just Wish

If you've got a mortgage, a car loan, an oustanding credit card balance, you're going to love this one.

The board of the Bank of Japan has voted 8-1 in favour of raising the nation's interest rate. Okay, wait for it. They're actually doubling the interest rate, that's right doubling it. It's going up to... exactly one half of one percent. That's right, the massive increase will leave the Bank of Japan interest rate at 0.5%.

You have to understand the way the Japanese economy is structured to make sense of this sort of thing and that's way too complicated for something like a blog. But, for the last several years the lending rate has been nearly 0%. It was bumped up in July to 0.25% and now, in a display of unbridled confidence in the restored strength of the Japanese economy, it's 0.5%. Calm down, it's probably not going to go much higher.