Fiscal-Policy

Go to any Japanese supermarket and pick up a round box of Snow Brand Megmilk’s “6P Cheese.” Open it and you will find six silver-wrapped wedges of processed cheese arranged like pie slices. The product has been sold in Japan since 1954 – a national staple that appears in children’s lunchboxes, office bento and late-night snacks with a beer. Every Japanese person knows it. When 6P Cheese launched in 1954, a box weighed 170g and each wedge was 19mm thick. In 2026, it weighs 102g and the wedges are 11mm. The diameter of the round box has not changed. Only the contents have shrunk: 40% over 70 years. ...

On 8 February 2026, Sanae Takaichi won a landslide victory in Japan’s snap election. Her LDP-Ishin coalition secured 352 seats in the 465-member Lower House, surpassing the two-thirds supermajority threshold. For the first time in years, Japan has a government with both a clear economic agenda and the parliamentary authority to execute it. For US and European investors who may not follow Japanese politics closely, this matters. The policy framework that Takaichi is building, sometimes called “Sanaenomics,” represents the most explicitly growth-oriented programme Japan has pursued since Abenomics a decade ago. But where Abenomics relied primarily on monetary policy, Takaichi’s approach centres on industrial strategy and direct fiscal spending. The difference has implications for which sectors benefit and how foreign investors should think about exposure. ...