Archive for May 21st, 2009

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Originally uploaded by kaiyen

Sometimes, it really does help to be composing in a particular format.

My panasonic LX3 has a “16×9″ mode that gives me this panoramic look. Even though I know I can take the regular, full frame and crop it, looking at the screen while in 16×9 makes you see things differently, I think.

In this case, I could feel the symmetry of the mountains on either side with the boat in the middle much better, I think, than if I had a much more square frame and just tried to visualize.

This was taken while sitting on Bophut Beach on Koh Samui, in Thailand.

Japan’s Economy Shrinks A Record 15.2% – BusinessWeek.

On the one hand, a 15.2% annualized drop is…staggering.  Mind-blowing.  Mind-numbing.  On the other hand, the article makes a good point in that everyone expected a huge hit since the country has responded to expected decline in exports very aggressively.  They have closed plants, not just decreased production.  

Also, the current account, which is roughly defined as exports-imports, has dramatically shifted for Japan.  Before, they were likely running a CA surplus, since so many of their products are exported to the US, China, etc.  But suddenly those exports have dropped and while they still might be in surplus (I don’t know, to be honest) they might also be in a slight deficit now.  When a country is trying to balance its internal monetary and fiscal controls and its desired level of the current account (which of course impacts the internal economy, since a CA surplus means higher production and employment, etc), changes in the CA can be really devastating to a country that has relied upon a surplus for so long.

Still, 15.2% is crazy.

 BBC NEWS | Business | US economic outlook ‘improving’.

Some interesting bits here.  First, to quote:

“The Fed says it expects the economy will shrink between 1.3% and 2% this year. It had earlier said the economy could contract between 0.5% and 1.3%.”

So that’s…good news?  That we will contract more than what they said earlier?

“It also warned that US unemployment could reach 10%.”

Definitely not good news.  Especially since “real” unemployment, which would include discouraged workers and those who haven’t actively tried to find new jobs for more than 3 months (but of course are still unemployed) is always higher.  And forget about those with jobs that they are forced to take, at lower wages and worse hours, just to make ends meet.

“Participants agreed that the information received since the March meeting provided some tentative evidence that the pace of contraction in real economic activity was starting to diminish,” the minutes showed.

It is critical that this be interpreted correctly.  First, the observation is that the contraction is still going on, but is showing signs of slowing down.  That means we are still in actual recession (with negative GDP growth/GDP shrinkage) much less in an economic malaise (which will last longer than the actual recession, which is technically over after we hit bottom and start the slow climb up).  But the economy is still contracting, just not as badly as before.

Second, what this does mean is that most of the areas that have been battered lately have finished…being battered.  So the loss of construction work, for instance, is finally basically all gone and no longer contributes to negative GDP growth.  Now, that means that people don’t have jobs, but it means that they have already lost their jobs, not that they are still losing them.  

Finally, we must not take this as a sign that we can stop working hard to jump start the economy.  A second major stimulus is probably needed (the ARRA is pretty back-loaded as it is, though at 3% of GDP this year and next it’s not small, either) and we can’t lose sight of that just because our contraction is slowing down.

BBC NEWS | UK | Websites keeping deleted photos.

This is actually not that surprising, but still upsetting.  I believe Facebook actually now claims the right to use your photos for their own promotional purposes.  Flickr’s API allows others to display photos without attribution, even if your license, set via Flickr, requires such attribution.  It’s really a mess.

I just resign myself to the fact that if I put a photo online, it’s a free for all and I consider myself lucky when people to attribute my work to me.  Sigh.