The Japanese are hoarding over $300 billion under their mattresses and that cash will likely stay there unless a crisis of epic proportions sparks capital flight, analyst say.
“The money has been sitting there so long, it’s difficult to pin down what will prompt people to spend the cash,” Mizuho Securities’ chief market economist Yasunori Ueno told CNBC by phone.
The notion came to public attention last year when Finance Minister Taro Aso scolded the Japanese for sitting on 880 trillion yen ($7.33 trillion) in cash, which was widely reported by the local press as being ‘kept under mattresses’.
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