∙ Japan's brilliant, courtly central banker, Governor Masamichi Yamagiwa of the Bank of Japan, likes to relax by playing goa, Japanese war game in which he astounds opponents with his daring, unbankerlike moves. But in recent weeks, torn between the need to cool off Japan's overheated boom (TIME, Sept. 8) and Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda's fear that any belt-tightening would hurt him politically, Yamagiwa, 60, has shown uncharacteristic indecision. Last week he finally hiked Japan's bank rate from 6.935% to 7.3%, the highest of any industrialized nation. Tighter money, Yamagiwa hopes, will discourage the more feverish expansion plans of Japan's industrialists.
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