Bank of Japan's negative rates are 'economic kamikaze': Boockvar

``Boockvar said he believes it's a fallacy that Japan needs inflation to generate growth. "Inflation readings are a symptom of what underlying growth is," Boockvar said. "For Kuroda to think 'I need to generate higher inflation to generate growth' to me is completely backwards, especially when Japanese wage growth is so anemic. You're basically penalizing the Japanese consumer, and I don't know what economic theory is behind that."'' -- BINGO! Of course this comes from the standard all-monetary-expansion-is-good theory of economics (both monetarists and Keynesianists subscribe to it); with no distinction between productive (value-generating) growth and monetary expansion, it is a short step to seeking to goose symptoms (inflation) as if this will create the underlying economic good. In short, it is cargo-cultism.