If a house is to be made sturdy enough to withstand a major earthquake, it must be built on a solid foundation. This metaphor is analogous to the Japanese public pension system. The system, even though it invests a large amount of money, now stands on a very shaky foundation known as the Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF).
In October 2014, the fund made a major review of the basic portfolio for its huge assets of ¥137.48 trillion by increasing the proportion of money invested in the more volatile stock market to 50 percent from the previous 25 percent.
But a worldwide stock price plunge in the ensuing year has given rise to a suspicion that the fund's balance sheet for fiscal 2015, which ended last March, would fall into the red of more than 5 trillion yen.