NHK is a deficit hawk

economics
NHK
Author

Mitsuo Shiota

Published

April 11, 2021

I watch NHK News at evening almost every day. And I sometimes feel uneasy at the way NHK delivers news. One example is suicide-cases-increase-news which I complained about. Another example is when NHK showed Covid-19 confirmed cases in France and Germany side by side in two charts, whose y axes are scaled differently.

Today’s news is more annoying. NHK said “The U.S. changes its course to increase corporate tax rates to finance Covid-19 measures”. It is not true.

American Rescue Plan, which finances Covid-19 measures by deficits, is already enacted. The Biden Administration is now proposing American Jobs Plan to invest in infrastructures and others for the future, and Made in America Tax Plan alongside it to finance investments. NHK messed up all.

NHK once made a documentary in which the members in the Ministry of Finance made enormous efforts to sell the Japanese Government Bonds, hinting how Japan is close to the debt crisis. I was surprised then. They could publicly say it was hard to sell, as it was in fact easy to sell.

Today, I am sad to know NHK is still a deficit hawk.