Japanese housewives, apparently, hold the key to the future competitiveness of the country's exporters.  It's all to do with the so-called "carry trade" in the Japanese yen, and the fact that Japan's vast savings pot (some $15,000bn according to the Financial Times, a whopping amount by any measure) has traditionally controlled by the nation's women. With Japanese interest rates at rock-bottom for years and years, savers have put their money into foreign currencies in order to gain better returns.

The global market turmoil has seen an unwinding of these carry trade positions, and the yen has soared to such an extent that even the G7 has expressed concern about the currency's volatility. Today Japan's interest rate was cut for the first time in seven years, to 0.3% from 0.5%. In Japanese terms, this was a pretty momentous move.

Why do we care? The yen recently reached a 13-year high against the dollar. Although it has slipped back a bit since, it is still at a level that will make life more challenging for Japanese printing equipment manufacturers who have benefited from setting their pricing using a far more advantageous exchange rate for a decade or more. All of which, I imagine, will be music to the ears of eurozone manufacturers who've been tussling with £/€ exchange rate issues of their own.