Tax Dodge aka “Savings”

Epic comment over at Shisaku:

The Heritage hit-piece on its nemesis (Keynesism) doesn’t have much, but I did see the writer not really understanding the true import of the fact that 95% of the colossal Japanese debt is internal.

What this really means is that both the debt and the vaunted Japanese “saving” has been equally fictional — the Japanese haven’t been saving, they’ve just been dodging paying taxes and calling it savings.

Clear as a bell!

If we don’t see Japan see to positive trade balance over the next couple of quarters things really start to unravel. And that wouldn’t be pretty. That said, my intuition is that the trade balance will, once again, recover, postponing the denouement for another few years.

The big question then becomes will it be possible to raise tax enough to start to offset the last couple of decades of living in denial? This whole ‘transition to low growth economics’ thing is certainly tricky…

Time, it seems, is always running out for Japan. Has been for the last decade, and looks to continue to do so for some time yet.

Fukushimarch

If you’re around in Tokyo at the start of this month please go visit Watanabe-san’s ‘3 months later‘ exhibition in Harajuku.

As i’m sure most of you  know, Watanabe-san is a good friend, and member of our little ‘Fragments of Tokyo’ exhibition team.

These photographs (or at least those that i’ve seen) are incredibly haunting, and well worth seeing. My initial reaction to them was to attempt to get them seen by a much wider audience. For various reasons (conflicting priorities on my side) that never happened, and i’m therefore especially happy that he’s putting on this show.

建仁寺

In the Dharma Hall of kennin-ji, the oldest zen temple in kyoto.

2nd Annual ‘Fragments of Tokyo’ Exhibition

It’s on! Do drop by if you can.

We’re planning to all be there on the Saturday (3.19). Not sure if we’ll manage to organise a party at the gallery, but if there are enough people around at the end of the day on Saturday i’m sure we’ll find a way to get in to our cups.

Update: my part of the show is now up on the Magnesium Agency site, here.

You’re probably wondering what happened to Mg. The answer is something like ‘it’s on semi-permanent hiatus’. I’m being a little cheeky and using it as a means for getting some better WordPress hosting, with proper galley support…

Wikileaks on Japan

Nothing is going to happen for a while:

The deputy editor of The Guardian, Ian Katz, summed up that newspaper’s decision thus: “We didn’t see much of international interest in them, which is why we haven’t run anything — or anything much. WikiLeaks is beginning to make regional packages of cables available to media partners in different countries now.”

Rather oddly:

One unsubstantiated rumor circulating among Tokyo journalists is that the organization reached out to Japan’s most popular newspaper, the Yomiuri, perhaps unaware that its strictly hierarchical editorial structure and conservative politics might not make it the best launching pad for an anarchist-inspired project to topple power. Given the Yomiuri’s close ties with the Liberal Democratic Party, journalists there may anyway have been privy to many of the “secrets” buried inside the WikiLeaks cables.

Yomiuri… it’d be amusing to see them attempt report this stuff, no doubt it would have to be almost entirely redacted to not contradict their editorial madness. Asahi, although far from perfect, would probably be a better bet – they at least claim to be in some way ‘progressive’.

My guess is that whoever does take on the task of publishing this stuff (in Japan) is going to be subject to some fairly extreme pressure, both legal and extra-legal. What we really need is for the press outside Japan to take an interest. Given the current lack of interest in all things Japanese around the world, it’s likely to be quite a wait…

Gridlock (attempt II)

Yep, knew this one wasn’t going to be the one… by the time i got on the train i’d sobered up enough to know that i hadn’t bother to focus. Actually, i’m not sure that anything was right…

Next time.

Golden Gai (in Blue)

Took the venerable 10d out for a ride the other night. Forgotten how slow and clunky it is to use: autofocus doesn’t work in the dark; it takes an age to save one shot; and the shutter button is almost dead!

Playing with a 50D for a few minutes was a bit of a revelation… perhaps i’ll have to get one of these new fangled digital camera things?

Been a while since i shot and processed a batch of digi-snaps. Hate to have to admit it, but it was quite an enjoyable change of creative pace. There. I said it. Happy now, Adrian?

Wrap

What a week! Last night we took the exhibition down, packed it all up, and went home… after a few beers.

It has been a great experience, and good to have so many people turn out. Don’t really know how many people we got through the door.

On the three days that i was there, there wasn’t a quiet moment… actually, around 6:30 last night, watanabe-san and i were the only ones in the gallery, we both thought it was all over. The relief was cut short by a couple of swedish photographers that we’d met in Golden Gai the night before, followed by a posse of drunk Mg’ers.

I’ve learned a couple of good lessons: everybody likes different shots, you have to get over all ideas you might have about which ones will be popular; pulling a series out of the mess on flickr, getting a consistent set of shots, really helps you see them for what they are; talking to people about photography for hours several days in a row takes it out of you!

The show as a whole came together really well. Even though we worked from a very loose theme, the four sets of pictures worked well together. That was luck, as we certainly didn’t plan it…

Wouldn’t say that, right now, i’m looking forward to doing it again, but give a few months and that’ll probably change. It’ll certainly be nice to get out there and shoot again without having this hanging over me.

Thanks to everyone who came along to the show, especially all of the friends who came along to support and helped out in so many ways. Love you all.

For those of you who couldn’t make it, i’ve posted my shots on the Magnesium site. Will have to see if the others are going to do something similar. If so i’ll send out links.

Bridging

Posting these to motivate me to try again, but with a different point of focus. Infinity isn’t working.

Somewhere out in Danchi-land…

Thomas eyes up another melancholy scene!

I’ve been having real issue getting  my 120 film on to reels lately. Before getting a camera that used 135 all film was loaded onto the reels in a dark bag. The initial struggles with 135 forces me into the toilet (the easiest room to black out in the house) and out of the bag. So far i’ve not managed to load one roll of 120 correctly on my lap…

It’s obviously time to head back to the bag!