For the first time in 34 years, Japan 🇯🇵 is no longer the world's largest lender. This position now belongs to Germany 🇩🇪. Although Japan still has a record amount of foreign assets, Germany has surpassed it thanks to strong exports and earning more money from the world than it spends. Additionally, the appreciation of the euro against the yen has also made Germany's assets, when calculated in yen, appear larger.

Japan's foreign assets have increased mainly due to the weakening yen and Japanese companies investing more overseas, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom, in sectors such as finance, insurance, and retail.

The main reason for the weak yen is Japan's ultra-loose monetary policy – which means printing money and keeping interest rates very low for a long time. However, instead of boosting the economy as expected, this policy has led to more capital flowing out of the country. This is a real-world example showing that printing money and lowering interest rates can help solve problems ... until the act of "printing money and lowering interest rates" itself becomes a problem.

This situation indicates that the current monetary system is quite fragile, as it relies on trust, public debt, and unlimited money printing by central banks.

In a risky environment like the current one, investors are divided into two directions: one group seeks to invest in high-risk ventures for higher returns; the other group looks for assets that can retain long-term value and are not affected by monetary policy, such as Bitcoin or gold. These assets are increasingly viewed as a way to hedge against significant risks in the global financial system.