Wealth & Money Quote by Toshihiko Fukui

The chill in Fukui's line is how calmly it punctures a comforting civic myth: that a central bank can always muscle the economy out of trouble if deflation appears. The opening clause nods to the standard postwar faith in monetary technocracy, the belief that wise guardians can fine-tune demand by moving a single dial. Then comes the hard stop: the zero lower bound. It reads less like a technical footnote than a boundary marker for modern governance, the moment policy turns from steering to coping.

Fukui, a Japanese public servant speaking from the country that lived the problem first, is implicitly rewriting the hero narrative of central banking. Japan's lost decade and the long drift of near-zero rates made the "just cut rates" prescription look naive. The intent is cautionary: do not confuse tools with omnipotence. The subtext is also institutional self-protection. By emphasizing a physical constraint, he shifts expectations away from the central bank as the sole firefighter and toward fiscal policy, structural reform, and political choices that elected leaders would rather outsource to experts.

The phrase "general perception" is doing rhetorical work, gently scolding the commentariat without naming it. Fukui isn't arguing against fighting deflation; he's arguing against magical thinking. The quote functions as a reminder that credibility isn't only about commitment, but about acknowledging limits before the public learns them the painful way.