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Richard Koo has taught us that traditional monetary policy is ineffectual in an environment of deleveraging such as Japan has suffered through since the early 1990's; only massive government spending aimed squarely at job creation can have any real impact.

This has forced the Japanese government, including municipalities, to get very creative with their methods for stimulating the economy. The city of Shizuoka has gone so far as to erect a massive Gundam in such efforts. Kotaku reports:

Last summer, a giant 1/1 scale Gundam statue towered over Tokyo's Odaiba. That statue will be erected this July in the city of Shizuoka. How will it affect the local economy? The city of Shizuoka guestimates that the statue is able to draw 900,000 visitors and 40 billion yen over the course of 300 days. The statue will also create 9,600 jobs for things like security, maintenance and the like. The duration of the statue's stay in Shizuoka has yet to be decided.

 

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