Intervention’s not what it used to be. Back in December 2008, Shoichi Nakagawa, then Japanese finance minister, succeeded in talking down the yen briefly by evoking the threat of heavy duty selling by the central bank. This kind of verbal intervention was only just credible, a year after the Group of Seven industrialised nations first registered its disapproval of exchange rate manipulation in its communiqué. But then, it was a tough time for everybody.
干預(yù)已失去了往日的效力。2008年12月,時(shí)任日本財(cái)政大臣的中川昭一(Shoichi Nakagawa)威脅稱,央行將大舉拋售日元債務(wù),以此成功地令日元匯率短暫下挫。當(dāng)時(shí),這種口頭干預(yù)還勉強(qiáng)可以讓人信服。在那一年之前,七國集團(tuán)(G7)第一次在聯(lián)合公報(bào)中載入了反對操縱匯率的內(nèi)容。不過那時(shí)候,大家的日子都不好過。