Archive for January 7th, 2009

Debbie Schinker posted a comment in response to another post of mine that has me wanting to write a bit more…

I always take what the “experts” say with a grain of salt. Expert analysis lags real life – they wait for the numbers to “confirm” what the rest of the world – literally – already knew: we are in a bad recession. You and I and everyone else on the street knew this at least 6 months ago. The prices were going up, people were losing jobs, and belt tightening was necessary for nearly everyone. But the “experts” refused to use the word recession.

The National Bureau of Economic Research is one of the major organizations that help define when we are or are not in a recession.  While I agree 100% that just about any moderately educated person would have said “heck yeah we’re in a recession” months ago, there kind of has to be some official rules and/or body that defines rules to determine when the economy has hit such a point.  The common rule is “2 consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth.”  Note that this not declining growth.  This is actual reduction in GDP, which is driven primarily by productivity.  Which means an actual decline in productivity for two consecutive quarters.

The NBER uses many more stats, though, and determined that we actually have been in a recession since around the beginning of 2008.  So forget about 2 consecutive quarters (I think we hit that only in Q3 last year, possibly Q4).  According to the NBER it’s been a whole year.  That’s pretty scary.

Another reason why defining recession is useful came up yesterday in my macroeconomics class.  How can we define “depression” if we don’t define “recession?”  Technically, there is no definition of when we are in a depression.  Which is kind of scary.  That we have some dry definition for recession feels comforting in that light.

The major issues to watch for are the unemployment rate, because GDP growth is based on productivity, and we can’t be productive as a society, on a macroeconomic level, if people aren’t working, and inflation/deflation.  If the dollar becomes weaker or prices drop and return on products goes down, then we have serious problems ahead.  The specific issues we’re seeing are in many ways responses – no credit because banks are scared about risk and their own futures is a reaction.  One that has massive side effects, sure, because in an economy that relies on people spending money whether they have it or not, when banks don’t lend to the population we have a problem.  But still a reaction.

Read on for more…

(more…)

It’s kind of strange – if you add in the “lost posts” from the first version of this blog, where what turns out to have been a stupid mistake on my part cost me a couple years’ worth of posts, I’ve been writing for a while without any real expectation that anyone reads anything I write.  That’s probably why I let myself get away with sentences as long and as poorly formed as the one I just wrote.  

However, I have found out recently that a few friends actually subscribe to my blog, one friend got mad at me because I didn’t tell her I had one, a former colleague commented on a post out of the blue, and a few other people I know here and there have apparently read a few posts now and then.  Also, since I review my classes at the my business school here on my blog, people at the school whom I have never even met know me from those posts.  Very, very scary indeed.  I am actually accountable somewhat for what I say.  

Debbie Schinker, who has her own blog that is quite good, as well, has been kind enough to read some of my recent writings, and has commented here and there.  One comment in particular actually made me want to write another whole post in response.  That’s one heckuva comment.  

That’s coming up next.

tree tones

Originally uploaded by kaiyen

This was taken, I believe, in Calero County Park in San Jose. I enjoy hiking, though I don’t do it as often as I’d like, and bring a camera along to grab photos of whatever I happen upon along the way. I try really hard to challenge myself and find photos, rather than just waiting for them to find me. I also look at what might be an everyday scene or subject and try to make it stand out and end up interesting.

This is a decent approach to life, too, I might add . I try to do that, too – see beyond the first layer, I guess. Not sure I do a great job with it.

Anyway – what I did here was to try and make the moss and texture of the tree stand out by setting the camera up to blur out the background. I didn’t want to blur it out completely (actually, it would have been almost impossible to do that without then blurring out part of the tree), but I think it makes the tree stand out even though the tones, overall, are really similar.

Another thing I do is to try and work entirely “in-camera.” That is, I don’t take a really wide shot and then crop down, for instance. I look through the viewfinder, look at the corners, change my angles, etc, to get the shot framed the way I want. Not only is that less work for me in the end, but it feels more natural that way, to be honest. Maybe I’m being snobbish against those that do a lot of cropping and post processing. I hope not.

On the technical side, this is also one of my attempts at finding a “holy grail” of film and developers. I am trying to find one that gives really good sharpness without too much grain. This developer is one that normally really, really decreases grain, but at the expense of sharpness. By diluting it to one part developer and 3 parts water, I decrease the overall amount of “grain solvent” present and increase sharpness. I’m hoping it’s a good compromise. I made a few mistakes on the exposure side of things but we’ll see how it goes on my next try.

This year is ‘a bad time to buy a home,’ analyst warns – MarketWatch

This article states so many obvious items that I wonder if I should still read MarketWatch. 

1. If you lose your job, it might not be a good time to get a house.
2. If you have a bad credit score, this is not a good time to get a house or you may have trouble getting one of these great, low-interest mortgages (which you probably won’t be able to get even with a good score since banks are still too scared to lend)
3. If you aren’t planning on staying in a house for 5-7 years, it’s not a good time to buy a house.  Because people are really thinking this is the right environment to be flipping houses.  Right…

The part on unemployment is good.  Talking about issues around unemployment is almost always good – very important, and people need to see past just the number of people without jobs and towards the impact that stat has on the overall GDP and economy.  But the housing stuff is just weird.

Stimulus must build stronger nation, Obama says – MarketWatch

“I have confidence that not only are we going to be able to create jobs, but we’re also going to be making a down payment on some critical areas that, as the economy recovers and the private sector starts investing again, we’re going to see some long-term benefits and long- term savings,” Obama said at a press conference in Washington.

Obviously I don’t have the full text of the speech, and I am acknowledging that any news source is just one source, written a specific way.  But…on the one hand, I’m really glad to see intelligent, long-term thinking applied to this topic.  We must plan ahead.  We must lay down the groundwork for the future so that we will avoid this.  We must rethink what we are doing now.  Yes, we need to think this way.  I completely agree.

On the other, it’s kind of sad that a speech has to be made saying that a $775 billion plan needs to be more than a quick fix.  I know this is a big problem and any dollar amount should be more than a quick fix.  But as was mentioned in both my marketing and econ classes last night, a big part of stimulus is getting cash in the hands of people.  Cash in the hand is easy to understand.  Cutting interest rates as a way of reducing the cost of capital and therefore improving the liquidity status (essentially) or ability of individuals is a bit harder to understand…which means that talk about long-term needs to be done very delicately.  So far, the quoted items make it sound like Obama did a good job.

Anyway.  Random thought.

Crip Chronicles: I Guess I’ve Been Holding My Breath…

I only today found out that one of my former colleagues at Stanford had a blog of her own.  I’ve always known her to be intelligent and witty and funny and a lot of other great things, and she is one of the people whom I always intend (but often fail) to find when I visit campus.  Every single conversation I have ever had with her has been a good one.  I am honestly pondering how accurate of a comment that is right now and stand by it.

So, it is entirely hilarious and appropriate that her blog is titled the “Crip Chronicles.” 

And it is not at all surprising that I am honestly, truly moved by what she writes in the linked post.