Japan Auctions Itself Away, Fertilizing It's "Green Shoots"

Well, this title is not entirely accurate. Besides, we would only be embarrassing ourselves by using the term "green shoots" for any reason other than mocking the overuse of the term "green shoots". Anyways, there is actually a bit of good news on the Japanese front, although not of the "broad based economic stabilization" storyline that the US Government has been slinging around for the past two months. Today's fascinating piece of information comes from the Daily Yomiuri Online, which published a story about the increasingly lucrative nature of the tax delinquency auctions conducted by local Japanese governments. These auctions, conducted mostly online, were implemented in 2004 with the help of Yahoo Japan Corp. in an effort to assist local government's revenue raising efforts. In 2004, the total value of all government auction sales totaled 40 million yen - in 2008 that number reached 3.43 billion yen. The Daily Yomiuri even reports that one municipality was forced to sell an older firetruck in the auction.

Maybe online tax auctions are the bubble that we've all been waiting for to get the economy going again.

*No position in anything Yahoo!

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