Abenomics Threatened As Consumer Spending Crashes And Inflation Jumps

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe election promise to rescue Japanese economy plagued by decades of deflation and weak consumer demand has hit the skids. Japan said Friday that its core consumer prices in April rose 3.2 percent to a 23-year high after a sales tax increase earlier this year, and while Japan's longed for rising inflation was seen as a positive by some, the downside showed up this week in the form of crashing household spending and sliding industrial production.