BOMBING THE SETTING SUN WITH YEN:

From the moment he assumed the job in March, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda had a number in mind: 9. The number had nothing to do with the scale of the bank's stimulus plan, which the market had been buzzing about. It was a vote target.

The central bank's policies are determined in votes by its nine-member board, chaired by the governor. And Kuroda wanted all eight of his colleagues to back his controversial plan to jolt Japan out of its long slump by flooding markets with cheap money.

Only weeks before Kuroda joined, the board had voted 8 to 1 against a plan for bold monetary easing. Now, vocally backed by a new prime minister, Kuroda knew the arithmetic had moved in his favor. He was joining the board with two new deputies. They plus two sympathetic veterans on the board gave the new governor a 5-4 edge. But Kuroda wanted unanimous support.

His recipe was radical: double Japan's money supply in two years, and promise to ignite 2 percent inflation in two years, reversing nearly two decades of falling prices. 

Japan's population last year declined by 212,000, the biggest drop on record, according to an estimate by the nation's health ministry.

That's the largest reduction since the ministry started recording the data in 1947 and a sixth straight year of declines.

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