Masaaki Shirakawa: The turmoil in global financial markets and economic and financial developments in Japan Speech by Mr Masaaki Shirakawa, Governor of the Bank of Japan, at the Kisaragi-kai Meeting, Tokyo, 5 November 2008. *  *  *  Introduction I am very privileged to have the opportunity to speak before such a large audience.
But the losses were probably fairly moderate in comparison to the loss which the government itself incurred on behalf of taxpayers in 1984.