Long-term rates normally move in response to market participants' prospects for the economy. In the short term, however, they may move erratically in response to various other factors. The Bank of Japan, for its part, will monitor closely the overall trend of financial markets, watching, for example, any developments in long-term rates that are not in line with economic activity.
The last 18 years have been particularly impressive from that standpoint. Those risks are probably the unavoidable and necessary counterpart of the immense chances that science and technology on the one hand, and the success of emerging economies and globalisation on the other, are bringing about in the world economy. Being intellectually and conceptually ready is extremely important.