"On September 22, the finance ministers and central bank governors of the five developed countries, the United States, Japan, the former Federal Republic of Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, held a meeting at the Plaza Hotel in New York, and reached an agreement on the joint intervention of the governments of the five countries in the foreign exchange market to induce the exchange rate of the US dollar to depreciate against major currencies in an orderly manner in order to solve the problem of the huge trade deficit of the United States. Because the agreement was signed at the Plaza Hotel, it was called the "Plaza Agreement". ”

After reading this report, Tang Ning said to his two sons beside him: "You remember, especially Pavel, you must remember that in the future, when you are in charge of the business, you must not invest in real estate, no matter how high the profits in it are, do not go in, otherwise sooner or later you will die in it." ”

This is not Downing's alarmism, because many experts believe that the Japanese economy entered a downturn of more than ten years in the 90s of the 20th century, and the main culprit was the "Plaza Accord".

The ostensible economic background of the Plaza Accord was to solve the problem of the huge trade deficit caused by the overvaluation of the US dollar, but judging from the huge amount of dollar assets owned by Japanese investors, the "Plaza Accord" was aimed at striking at Japan, the largest creditor of the United States. After the signing of the "Plaza Accord", the five countries jointly intervened in the foreign exchange market, and various governments began to sell the dollar, thus forming a selling frenzy of market investors, resulting in a sustained and substantial depreciation of the dollar. The U.S. had hoped that the appreciation of the yen would curb Japan's export offensive, encourage Japan to expand imports, and correct the imbalance between the two countries, but this expectation was disappointed.

After the Plaza Accord was signed, the Japanese government believed that the appreciation of the yen would inevitably lead to an economic depression. In response to the "yen appreciation depression," the Japanese government has proposed a policy to shift to domestic demand-led economic growth. On the monetary front, the Bank of Japan has lowered interest rates five times in a row, from 5% in 1985 to 2.5% since March 1987. In addition, domestic demand has been expanded by increasing policy-based loans and expanding the scale of public investment. However. The rapidly increasing money supply could not be absorbed by the industry, and a large amount of money flowed to the stock market and real estate, and the existence of huge virtual assets led to the creation of a bubble economy. By the end of 1989, the average Nikkei stock price was 38,915.87 yen, 3.68 times that of 1984. In 1990, land prices in Japan's six major urban centers rose by about 90 percent compared to 1985. It can be seen that the Plaza Accord has contributed to a shift in Japan's macroeconomic policy. It was an important turning point that changed the tone of Japan's economic growth. This turning point was also the starting point of Japan's bubble economy.

There has been a boom of speculation in Japan, especially in the stock market and land market. Among them, due to the influence of the land myth that "land does not depreciate", the number of land transactions for the purpose of resale has increased, and land prices have begun to rise. At that time, the combined land prices of Tokyo's 23 wards were even high enough to buy all of the United States, and banks were lending large amounts of money to debtors as collateral for the appreciating land. In addition, rising land prices have also led to an increase in the amount of book property for landowners, which has stimulated consumption**. This has led to an increase in domestic consumer demand, which has further stimulated economic development.

Between 1985 and 1986, the international competitiveness of Japanese companies declined due to the rapid appreciation of the yen, but the atmosphere of domestic speculation remained intense. In 1987, speculation spread across all industries, with the optimistic view that as long as the demand for land was high, there would be no recession. And the market also encourages people to keep buying stocks, claiming that they will never depreciate in value. At the time, the Japanese media named this state of economic prosperity. I also hope to raise names similar to Iwato Boom and Jimbu Boom. But there were also a few objections at the time, arguing that land prices were already far exceeding their actual demand, and that the Japanese economy would fall into recession in the near future.

In 1989, Japan's bubble economy reached its peak. At that time, Japan's economic indicators were at an all-time high, but the so-called bubble economy began to decline because asset prices could not be supported by industry.

Once the speculator loses the speculation**. Land and stock prices will fall, thus leading to book capital losses, resulting in large liabilities due to the excessive investment of many businesses and speculators who previously factored in the rising book capital. With the end of the central government's monetary easing policy, there is no longer any possibility of maintaining domestic asset prices.

March 1990. Japan's Ministry of Finance issued the "Regulations on the Control of Land-related Financing" to control the total amount of land finance, and this artificial sudden brake has led to the acceleration of the decline of the bubble economy, which is already heading for a natural recession, and led to the collapse of the long-term credit system that supports the core of the Japanese economy. Since then, the Bank of Japan has also adopted a policy of financial tightening, which further led to the bursting of the bubble.

On December 29, 1989, the Nikkei Stock Average reached a peak of 38,915.87 points, and after that, it began to fall, and land prices began to fall around 1991, and the bubble economy began to burst in earnest. By March 1992, the Nikkei Stock Average had fallen below 20,000 points, only half of its 1989 peak, and in August, it had fallen further to around 14,000 points. A large amount of paper assets have disappeared in just one or two years.

As land prices have also fallen sharply, land-secured loans have also become extremely risky. At that time, the non-performing loans of Japan's major banks were exposed, which dealt a serious blow to Japan's finances, and until now Japan has not completely recovered, and the situation facing China's real estate is very similar, and I don't know what will happen next.

PS: I want to tell you one thing very formally here, this book has been half a year since it was opened in July, and the number of words is almost 800,000 words, but tomorrow is a small year, so I plan to take a break during this time, so the amount of updates in the next time may be relatively small, probably one more a day, please understand, after all, there are a lot of things to do during the New Year, to go to the leader's house, relatives, especially the fiancée's house to pay New Year's greetings, there must not be much time to code words.

In addition, friends who are familiar with me know that I have always planned to open a more sensitive historical text, but limited to too many minefields inside and insufficient data reserves, so it has not been opened, and recently finally completed the preliminary preparations, and after half a month of review, this book is finally signed inside, and it is expected that after the year, it will be uploaded on the seventh and eighth days of the new year. I can't guarantee whether this book is well written, but I can guarantee that no one has dared to write about this subject so far, and I will tell you the specific situation when the book is released, and I will give you an early greeting here! Wishing you good health and all the best! (To be continued.) )