My Take and an Alternate Synopsis for "Every Man for Himself"

To read the original post, click here

Here is a flow chart of the main ideas presented in the article:

I want to discuss a problem related to the depreciation and export relationship in Japan.

Firstly, this article claims that a depreciation in the JPY should increase exports. Here is a chart of the JPY to USD chart from The Bloomberg.

As we can see, there was an appreciation from about 2006 to 2011, followed by a depreciation from 2011 onward. The volume of exports from 2011 to 2014, however, had not increased dramatically, despite the depreciation of the Yen.

Source: Bloomberg

Why could this be? Many people claim that it has to do with the structural rigidities of Japan (i.e. Japan is no longer producing what people want to buy).