As I observe Team Abe in action at the helm of the Bank of Japan and elsewhere, a rather terrifying passage from a poem by William Hughes Mearns comes to mind:
"Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today. I wish, I wish he'd go away . . ."
There were no surprises in the BOJ's announcement last week about the new monetary policy package formed at its Policy Board meeting. Quantitative easing will be carried out on an unprecedented scale. Buying up of Japanese government bonds will also take place at record-breaking levels. That buying will find new focus on the longer end of the yield curve spectrum.