The BoJ, MoF, and other Princes of the Yen

A close buddy asked about the BoJ and the yen today. I’ll start with this:

The chorus of people saying how “MoF’s intervention is not working” is now deafening. I see sentiment like this everywhere:

In 2011 when the yen was 75, nobody believed policymakers could weaken it (note: if a govt says they want to weaken their FX — believe them, they can).

Defending and strengthening a currency is a different story, but the MoF has many, many levers to pull here.