With the economy spiraling downwards due to an upward-headed yen, all eyes are on the Bank of Japan's action--or inaction.

Still low on liquidity, the debt hangover's far from clearing up for some economies.

In case you had not noticed, the IMF is blogging and it is not "merely" the garden variety IMF staffers they are rolling out to fill the pages; nope here we are treated to the likes of Blanchard, Atkinson, Lipsky, Cottarelli and a host of other of the Fund's A-listers...

Last week, we learned that industrial production rose yet again in Japan clocking in at 1.4 percent month-on-month in September after having increased by 1.6 percent in August...

After a nice and entertaining week in Barcelona where I had the privilege not only to hold a seminar at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, but also to meet a host of interesting people, I thought that it would be about time that I finished my piece on the latest data from Japan which admittedly will be a bit backward looking, but hopefully interesting nonetheless...

As the discourse is slowly but surely tilting towards exit strategies, on the part of the central banks, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) opted today to maintain a very cautious stance towards the incoming green shoots and whether they will prove enough to lift Japan out of the mire.

Much pomp and circumstance was certainly made in relation to the fact that Japan actually grew in the second quarter at a full annualized 3.7 percent in the second quarter of 2009...

I really don't want to beat a dead horse here and although I already gave it a kick in the context of the release of the May consumer price data I do think that this is pretty significant...

The latest piece of news of Japan does not make for happy reading I am afraid and although we have seen some tentative signs, as of late, of a stabilization this has to be very preoccupying for Japanese policy makers...

It appears that there is still some green shoots left in the news from Japan even though the underlying picture is one of deteriorating fundamentals.