Official announcements often have hidden meanings that escape the commentariat, leaving citizens unaware that an important page in their governments' policies has just been turned. So it was with the Bank of Japan's Sept. 21 press release, which held so many revelations that observers struggled to digest and explain them all. Much of the discourse that followed focused on familiar topics, such as the end of quantitative easing or additional interest rate drops. Others registered surprise at and approval of the bank's new inflation target, which makes room for officials to overshoot their targets.
But what has received far less attention is that, for the first time since World War II, the Bank of Japan's bond purchases will now be directly linked to the government's issuance of debt. In many ways, this could be the biggest economic development Japan has seen since the 1985 Plaza Accord, which set the country on...
