TOKYO, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Japan's public pension fund, the world's largest, suffered an investment loss of $26 billion in April-June, its first loss in three quarters, as the yen's strength and falls in domestic and foreign equities hurt its quarterly performance.

The Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), under pressure to raise returns to cope with a rapidly ageing population, is closely watched by global markets given the size of its $1.37 trillion portfolio, which is equivalent to the economy of Australia, the world's 13th-largest.

Buy more T-Bills please Japan

Losses aren't good, but that's only a 2% loss.

Paging Kyle Bass....

BUY GOLD. Sorry Karl.... just bury the **** or lose it in a "boating accident"... YES, I know ALL the arguments against... we are in the realm of the absurd...

In addition to inflation protection, precious metals have a deflation protection aspect too. The inflation argument isn't a slam dunk sure thing. They are many opposing forces at play held in equilibrium by governments keeping us poised on the edge between inflation and deflation. It could go either way if someone loses control.

The deflation argument for metals postulates a system collapse that would include investors simply losing any assets that aren't actually in their possession.

Certainly in a collapse, leveraged gold investment will collapse taking the price down with it but this may be offset by demand from people rushing into portable wealth that nobody can steal from them, that they can keep near or on their person.

Yes Boz, I invest in gold mainly for its deflationary protections. Hyperinflation is extremely unlikely to happen.

Quote:

Hyperinflation is extremely unlikely to happen.

While there have indeed been very serious bouts of DEflation/credit destruction; I know of no incidence where such both destroyed the aggregate of savings held in cash or ultimately led to the issuance of new currency regimes to restore monetary function.

Exactly such results from HyperINflations are fairly well documented:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/monetary-e....


I welcome any additional data, statistics, and/or debate on this issue...

hyperinflation keeps regimes in place until it all blows up

KEY QUESTION:

How do the BANKS survive excessive DEflation?

We know how Banks naturally front run excessive INflation by being the first to spend newly created credit/money; -but, how can/do Banks effectively front run DEflation?

Throxx, the Fed is currently limited in its power to destroy the currency, all it does is pull future inflation(owed debt) into the present. For hyperinflation to occur, Congress would have to introduce a bill allowing the removal of the debt backing the currency with unlimited printing. In our modern mass communication society how could this be accomplished without immediately turning the dollar into confetti?

While I may get controversy over saying this, I would argue that the current dollar is not a complete fiat currency. Federal reserve notes are backed by collateral and the Fed is bound by rules for what it can accept for it. The problems in this economy are resulting from the fact that that collateral is becoming worthless. Without those rules being removed, hyperinflation can not happen.

Collateral becoming worthless?

Fiat collateral that was worthless at inception.

Real assets are trapped in a conundrum of competing floating debt-based fiat currencies which are confusing price discovery.

Don't confuse assets with collateral or competition between Counterfeiters with price discovery.

Now; -You wanna try to answer the question I posed or move on to a discussion of your contention that the FRN are somehow backed by a collateral You fail to identify?

While there have indeed been very serious bouts of DEflation/credit destruction; I know of no incidence where such both destroyed the aggregate of savings held in cash or ultimately led to the issuance of new currency regimes to restore monetary function.

Um, how about The Great Depression bank runs?

Any bets as to how long before Japan sells Treasuries in order to raise cash?