Despite these headline negatives, the sector has performed very well in recent months, maintaining an element of price stability while continuing their double-digit dividend yields.
While he said he had no reservations about adopting the target, Mr. Shirakawa warned against any belief that the central bank has sway over people's price expectations, a core element of reflationist thinking.
In the short run, at least, the herd behavior of the pros makes it even harder for you to take a winning bet against the "speculative element" in a stock's price.
Over at Facebook Mark Zuckerberg is sitting on top of a company that has just lifted a huge amount of money from investors and overseen a dramatic share price drop, with an acknowledged weakness in a fundamental element of its business.
Mr Etzioni believes that the stress placed by developed Western societies on individual rights has come at the price of undermining the notion of responsibility to a wider community a key element in Mr Blair's disagreements with the judiciary since becoming prime minister.