TOKYO — For years, as Japan tried to boost its chronically weak economic growth, it pursued what its central bank saw as a magic formula: stronger inflation and a weaker yen.It didn’t quite work as intended. Inflation never met the government’s modest target, despite rock-bottom interest rates and heaps of fiscal stimulus. Workers’ wages stagnated, and growth remained anemic.Now, Japan is suddenly getting what it wished for — just not in the way it had hoped.While overall inflation remains moderate, food and energy costs are rising rapidly, an outgrowth not of increased demand, but of market turmoil related to the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And the yen has hit a two-decade low against the dollar, a dizzying drop of more than 18 percent since September that has unnerved Japa …
