Are consumers being short-changed by the yen's appreciation?

An ongoing matter of concern in the Japanese financial pages is the continued appreciation of the yen against almost every other currency. According to the overriding narrative attendant to this concern, Japanese exporters "enjoyed" a lower yen (en-yasu) until the middle of 2007, meaning that because the yen was valued low in relation to the currencies in the countries where these companies' goods were sold, they made more money. That changed, and especially after the financial crisis of 2008, the yen shot up and continued to rise over the next three years, even after Japan's economy was pummeled by the earthquake and tsunami last March. The yen is now up about 25 percent over what it was four years ago.

This is generally considered a bad thing since Japan's economy depends on exports, but a lot of economists are saying the situation isn't as dire as the media has portrayed it. Major exporters like Toyota and Sony have the ear of the mass media, so their troubles tend to represent all of Japanese industry in the financial press, but exports account for less than 20 percent of Japan's economy. These companies threaten to move operations overseas if the yen isn't brought down, but they've already moved a huge portion of their manufacturing overseas. In addition, they buy parts and materials from countries where their yen goes much further.

The economists who point this out also explain that the high yen can be considered a good thing for consumers, who should expect to "enjoy" substantially lower prices for imported products and Japanese products that use foreign ingredients. That should go without saying, and we've been waiting to see these savings at our local retailers. We're still waiting. When we ask why the high yen isn't reflected in prices we get answers like this: Though the yen is appreciating, commodity prices are increasing; many countries are experiencing inflation; since all imports have to be shipped, prices depend on the price of oil. In the end, these answers sound like excuses, because except for some isolated retail areas (Amazon; one particular brand of imported camembert, pictured), almost nothing sold in Japan from overseas has become noticeably cheaper in the last three years.