More economics

Emerging markets and the financial storm | Into the storm | The Economist

The Economist's summary of a few days back about what's going on and how things are likely to pan out gives some guarded grounds for optimism. But one point that is surprising is this:

Some experts think that China needs growth of 7% a year to contain social unrest.

The magazine thinks China has enough reserves to be able to spend its way to maintaining 8% growth. Just lucky then.

(Of course, what could really throw another level of complexity in the equation would be an Israeli attack on Iran. I think we can safely assume that the economy alone is reason the US would be already telling Israel not to think about it at the moment.)

UPDATE: Paul Krugman remains pessimistic.

No good news today

In hard times, some flirt with survivalism - Economy in Turmoil- msnbc.com

I've just spent a hour trying to find good news to post about today. It's official, there is none.

So, let's dwell on how bad things can get. That's fun, sort of.

Yes, the survivalists (who used to thrive more when nuclear war and/or Russian invasion seemed more on the cards) have a new reason to feel justified:

Seattle survivalist Hagmahani sees such commodity hoarding as just a partial measure for weathering a financial crisis.

On his blog, mutuallyassuredsurvival.com, he advises people to prepare for a “major paradigm shift” that will, in a decade, leave the U.S. with a Third World economy.

The $700 billion government financial bailout, in his view, only ensures a crisis that cannot be avoided after unbridled lending and spending.

“One of the most frightening possibilities is the banking system freezing up,” he said. “... Our remittance system is almost entirely through the banking system. … Without ATMs, you can’t get groceries, you can’t get paid… Is that a possibility? Yes.”

Another survivalist recommends stuffing your sofa, not with money, but with food:

Wilson, who also has an online radio show called the Armchair Survivalist, said one of his new clients is a New York interior designer who specializes in outfitting cramped Manhattan apartments with hidden food storage units that double as tasteful furnishings.

Maybe I'll just buy a few packets of seeds and finally get around to getting some chooks for the yard.

Stick to playing music

Cityfile: Rock the Vote Rocked by Incompetence

Hope you didn't register to vote using one of the forms provided by Rock the Vote: Every single one of the 173,000 New York State voter applications downloaded from the group's site was printed with the wrong address, which means thousands of newly-registered voters can expect to be turned away at the polls if the mess isn't sorted out before then.

Heh. Obama's vote will be down slightly in New York, then.

New rocket bad news

Is NASA's Ares doomed?

Incidentally, I can't see President Obama being a big supporter of the space program. With a world wide recession as well, it does not look encouraging for a return to the Moon any time soon.

How encouraging

UK finances may be bad but there are many other nations that owe a lot more - Times Online

More pessimism, this time looking at Britain and Europe.

As has been noted elsewhere, it's ironic that so many Europeans should be gloating about what they see as an American problem coming home to roost, when it actually appears that much of Europe is going to come out of this very badly indeed.

As for borrowing to pump prime the economy, the above article notes:

Meanwhile, some economists have expressed deep concern over how even bigger increases in government borrowing will eventually be paid for. At some point in the future hefty tax increases or spending cuts still look inevitable. But when things are this bad, anything is worth a try.

It's a mystery

The Associated Press: World markets slump as Nikkei hits 26-year low

I don't know about my average reader, but one of the most puzzling things I find about economics is understanding how currency markets are supposed to make any sense. For example: why is the Yen surging, and in the process causing the Nikkei to drop:

"Worries about the impact of the surging yen on Japanese export earnings have hit the Nikkei hard," said Julian Jessop, chief international economist at Capital Economics.

"This in turn has led to sharp falls in European markets even when, as on Friday, the U.S. had closed higher the day before," he added.

On the radio, it was said that if you invested in Japan 26 years ago, you would now just be "even". Puts our superannuation losses in perspective, one suspects.

Why is the Australian dollar taking such a battering?

Why are economists held in any esteem whatsoever?

UPDATE: here's some explanation of what's happening via Bloomsberg. It still doesn't make any sense to me. For example:

The Australian dollar plunged to a five-year low against the greenback, as concern over a global recession led investors to buy the U.S. dollar as a safe haven. New Zealand's currency gained.

Why is the US dollar a "safe haven"? And why did that powerhouse New Zealand have its currency go up? All very odd and counter-intuitive, if you ask me.

UPDATE 2: here's a better, more detailed explanation of what's going on with the Yen.

An extreme case of cold feet

Nervous groom held for blaze at wedding hotel | The Japan Times Online

Kawata, 39, was arrested Sunday on suspicion of setting fire Saturday to a hotel in Hokuto, northern Yamanashi Prefecture, where he and his fiancee were supposed to get married later in the day... Kawata allegedly started the fire around 2:20 a.m. after spreading a flammable liquid, possibly kerosene, in a corridor behind the hotel's concert hall, the police said.

Lion will sleep with lamb, etc

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan (October 26, 2008) - Goodbye To All That

Andrew Sullivan is feeling the love of President Messiah already, it seems:

Sometimes, when the world is changing rapidly, the greater risk is caution. Close-up in this election campaign, Obama is unlikely. From a distance, he is necessary. At a time when America’s estrangement from the world risks tipping into dangerous imbalance, when a country at war with lethal enemies is also increasingly at war with itself, when humankind’s spiritual yearnings veer between an excess of certainty and an inability to believe anything at all, and when sectarian and racial divides seem as intractable as ever, a man who is a bridge between these worlds may be indispensable.

My guess: Obama will be tested by an international crisis designed to take advantage of him, as Biden predicted, within 6 to 12 months. He'll either want to talk-talk, as he has said he will, and fail; or he might surprise us, throw some military might around, and end up doing pretty much what McCain (or Clinton) would have done anyway.

What I don't see happening is the entrenched enemies of the USA and Israel suddenly seeing the mistake of their ways and world peace ensuing.

Nor do I see any particular reason for an outbreak of sweetness and light in the culture wars within the States. Lefties will crow triumphant, as they did in Australia after John Howard's defeat, yet it will be quite on the cards that a new Republican candidate will look like a plausible alternative again by the next election (as appears is happening in Australia).

Just my guesses, anyway.

Back to the Arctic

Reduced ice thickness in Arctic Transpolar Drift favors rapid ice retreat

As noted a few posts back, I don't actually rely on melting Arctic ice as proving AGW. However, those who are pointing out that ice cover is reforming rapidly this year (and thereby suggest that an ice free pole is far away) should take note of the above research. It points out that, at least in one section of the Arctic, regular recent testing indicates that the ice is much thinner than it was in 2001. Their conclusion:

The regime shift to younger and thinner ice could soon result in an ice free North Pole during summer.

Kevin Rudd is on the phone now correcting the record

Spotted this headline in BYM Marine Environment News:

Australia. Prime minister Anne Bligh call for tougher action over Great Barrier Reef

Rosie creeps closer

Toyota, Univ of Tokyo unveil robot that does household chores

Toyota Motor Corp and a research body of the University of Tokyo have jointly developed a prototype for what many busy career people have been dreaming of for a long time: A hardworking robot that handles household chores. In a demonstration for reporters last week, the robot cleaned up rooms, smoothly put away dishes from a dining table and picked up shirts and put them in a washing machine.

God knows what it will cost, though. Have a look at the photo at the link: put a dress on it and it does look a little like Rosie from the Jetsons.

The state of comedy in Great Britain

Russell Brand causes outrage after explicit nuisance calls to Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs - Times Online

Oh yes, the BBC leads the way in showing us classy taste in comedy:

The BBC has come under fire after comedian Russell Brand and TV host Jonathan Ross made a series of obscene phone calls to the Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs.

The controversial presenters, both notorious for their liberal use of profanities on air, left messages on the 78-year-old actor's answerphone in explicit terms claiming Brand had had sex with his granddaughter, Georgina, and went on to joke that the actor may kill himself as a result.

In the pre-recorded segments aired on Brand's BBC Radio 2 show, the host and Ross, who presents a show on the same radio channel, began making calls after Sachs failed to answer his phone for a pre-arranged interview.

They were also pre-recorded segments, which the BBC cleared to be aired.

More making money from dead bodies

Flayed babies' bodies included in new Body World exhibition - Telegraph

Weirdo Gunther von Hagens has a new exhibit of flayed plasticised bodies on exhibition, and he gets a heap of free publicity, but (as far as I can tell) nothing in the way of criticism.

I posted about this a couple of years ago, and still I seem to be the only person around who finds him and his work irredeemably ghoulish, and can't understand why, having done this once, there is still an entertainment market for weirdly posed skinless dead bodies.

van Hagens claims his exhibitions send "a health message". I find the claims of it being educational for the general public in any significant sense hard to believe.

Moon ice?

The Great Beyond: No ice! No worries - we never thought it was there anyway

As this Nature blog comments:

The question about ice on the Moon is a long standing debate. There are two camps in the world of moon science; one claiming that there is ice and the other, yes, you guessed it, saying “oh no there isn’t”.

So this latest paper seems to be a victory for the non-ice camp, according to the coverage the news has received (MSNBC New York Times, Thaindian News) and a slightly more measured story from the Economist.

But hang on a minute, according to Ben Bussey, from Johns Hopkins University, no-one ever expected surface ice on the Moon anyway. “The absence of the presence of ice is not surprising given all previous data predicts that the ice is buried,” he told me. Bussey claims to be in neither of the aforementioned camps, but does say that he’d like to think ice is there. “The data is tantalisingly supportive”. But be clear – we’re talking about sub-surface ice here.

A nice scenario for a science fiction story might involve lunar "ice prospectors" trying to get rich by discovering large hidden ice deposits. (Such relatively near-future science fiction located close to earth seems to have gone well and truly out of fashion, but I feel there must a lot more stories waiting to be set on the moon.)

Problem is, with all the legal uncertainty about no one really being able to claim lunar resources for themselves, there may never be an incentive for private searches for it, unlike the gold rushes of earth.

Too much too quickly?

Rudd should dip his cap to undo damage | The Australian

Interesting article arguing why the government's bank guarantee was too much too soon.

Kevin Rudd was on Sunrise this morning at his self-interviewing worst, and actually seemed to irritate his pal Kochie by unduly politicising it.

Around Japan

Hey it's Sunday, the world is still a financial basketcase, and maybe I will never be able to afford overseas travel again short of mounting my own version of the Kon-Tiki expedition. So, why not show off a few holiday snaps from a few weeks ago.

Most tourists visiting Japan probably head south of Tokyo, towards Osaka and Kyoto, rather than exploring the northern part of Honshu island. However, there is a lot nice scenery towards the northern end.

This trip, visiting friends, we found ourselves in Hirosaki. It's a pretty town I had never heard of before, but apparently it is well known in Japan for its cherry blossom festive which is held in the very large and attractive grounds of the old Hirosaki castle. There's only one main bit of the old castle left standing, which has a bit of a museum inside:

Here's the Hirosaki version of samurai armour, which is featured in quite a lot of Japanese castle museums, but hey it's still cool looking stuff:



For an evening meal in Hirosaki, I can't recommend highly enough Restaurant Poo:


No one was quite able to explain the name, and I suppose it was just a little juvenile of me to take so much pleasure from reading a menu with "Poo" written on it repeatedly. But we really did eat there, it being close to our friend's house and one of their regular haunts. The food was meant to be Chinese, but it was quite different to your average Chinese restaurant experience (in either Australia or Japan), perhaps because of the Japanese chef. "Poo" was also very cheap, and outstanding value. It served "beer cocktails", one of which was beer and tomato juice. (Ugh). I don't hang around bars in Australia much, but this was the first time I had even heard of the concept of a beer cocktail.

For a day trip from Hirosaki, you can do a lot worse than drive to Lake Towada. This is a large, caldera lake which is quite deep, and (apparently on a fine day) has famously blue waters. From Hirosaki, the road is very windy (two of the passengers were overcome with carsickness). Still, the view from the lookout is great, even on an overcast day:


That little dot you can see to the right of the island is fairly big tourist boat. Pity you don't get a good idea of scale from the photo.

Being quite the fan of "You Only Live Twice", I naturally hope that I will find the Japanese lake which conceals a secret rocket base. However, once you get to the shore, you discover that Towada only conceals the silly swan paddle boats that every Japanese tourist lake provides:


The waters of the lake are exceptionally clear, and there's a pretty little "island" just off the main beach. Lovely:




Being near water, and Japanese, the shops naturally provide fish on a stick as a snack:

Nearby, there's a stream that flows out the lake that provides a very pleasant walk amongst waterfalls and greenery:




A very pretty part of Japan, perhaps even better right now when autumn colours have more fully taken hold.

I can't think of a clever way to end this post: just hope you don't mind the photos. I can bore you with many more.

Strangest idea ever for a pro Obama video?

Found over at Boing Boing, and (as far as I know) not yet noted much in the Australian blogosphere:

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

As many people have said at Boing Boing comments: Andy Griffith is still alive??? And not even in a nursing home, by the looks. For a major 1960's TV star, he sure knew how to keep a low profile for the rest of his life. Even the very liberal Boing Boing notes that the video is (amongst other things) "sentimental" and "horrifying" at the same time. Quite an achievement.

On a more serious note, Ron Howard makes some statement to the effect "I believe that voting for Obama is a chance to vote for someone who will make a truly exceptional president".

Err, I know that is typical political campaign rally talk, but this seems to be Howard's personal video, and how can he (or anyone) really judge how Obama will perform as president? Just because a politician says "We need change and I will be different" seems a slight excuse for believing said politician will be a great President. Especially when, with Obama, you've got so very little history of leadership or involvement in government to judge him by.

Odd

How to be a bona fide hipster

Lisa Prior has this throw away line today:

Hipsters are hard to describe because they are so full of contradictions. But like a toupee or AIDS-related wasting, you know it when you see it.

Even l can see gratuitous offence to people suffering life threatening disease in that.

Typical Labor

Doubt cast over intervention income management legality - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

They try to placate the claims of racial discrimination by agreeing to allow the Racial Discrimination Act to apply to the Northern Territory intervention. Surprise! There is immediately the view expressed that it is impossible to make the current income management part of the intervention non-discriminatory.

It's an invitation by the government to be taken off to the Human Rights Commission and courts for protracted argument about discrimination. Like that'll help the remote communities. (And will the challenge be funded by government money paid to aboriginal advocacy groups?)

Here's a plan, Labor: why don't you make the changes you think make it non-discriminatory, but still avoid the need for argument by leaving in place the revocation of the Racial Discrimination Act? You can then claim the moral high ground without wasting time and effort trying to "prove" it.

Westfield of London - does it have giant faces?

Mega-mall: Is this the future of shopping? - This Britain, UK - The Independent

The report is about Frank Lowry opening a massive Westfield mall-ish thing in London. It's of some interest.

The main point of my post, however, is to ask the question: which advertising/design guru came up with the awful idea of using enormous large prints of beaming, happy people, or alternatively food stuffs and gift items, as a feature on both the outside and inside of shopping centres?

Maybe its day has gone already (I don't drive past the place often), but one prominent Brisbane suburban shopping mall a couple of years ago had a makeover in which gigantic prints of happy people, fruit and vegetables, and assorted other shopping stuff, appeared on the outside of the centre's main building. I have seen something similar appearing in other shopping centres more recently too; it would seem to have suddenly become a favourite idea of the design consultants who shopping centres no doubt engage to freshen up their look.

Another similar problem: cinema complexes in those same malls that feature giant posters of the current movie stars, as at the date they were built. Of course, 15 years later, those same stars may be no longer the box office crowd pleaser they once were, but we still have their mugs up there trying to pull us in.

Most recently, a jewellery shop inside my local suburban mall was refurbished with by large, permanent backlit posters featuring a man and woman in an obvious sexual endeavour. (At its worst, the guy is shirtless in an predatory position above the semi-reclining, jewellery clad, woman, who is of course pleased with the attention.)

(Obviously, this post would be much better if I was able to illustrate this with photos.)

The problem I have with this type of design: it has looked cheap, tacky and dated as soon as it appeared. I can't imagine a look that is likely to date faster. Furthermore, it's just inherently inane: you don't need to drape shopping malls in giant prints of fruit, vegetables and people to let passers-by know that inside they will indeed find fruit, vegetables and people. Trying to tell women that jewellery is somehow associated with a better sex life seems outright dishonest: the number of men in history who have slept with a woman because they were particularly impressed with her attractive pendant could probably be counted on one hand.

Someone needs to taken to task for this. Maybe Councils need their own design consultants to enforce better taste against the shopping centres. And then we will need a Design Court system to resolve disputes, with lawyers who specialise in recognizing good taste. Or just invest me with power to adjudicate. That'll help.