Fat Debtors

Ikeda,Myong-Ⅱ,Otake, of Osaka Univ., "Fat Debtors:Time Discounting, Its Anomalies, and Body Mass Index".

The above topic is on why and how debtors are more likely to be obese than non-debtors. I haven't read it yet but it looks very interesting.

Japan's Maestro

07/04/2009, Jiji-tsushin, Shirakawa, governer of BOJ.

Inside the Temple

Short Visit to Kyoto

Hey, guys! That's the Kiyomizu temple, a very famous and old one in Kyoto, Japan.

Today, I'll take you to a traditional, historic and amazing part of Japan. Shall we go?

The gate,

The big bell,

The cherry blossom,

Japan:Still in Cold Winter

We have a useful data set to look at our economy, TANKAN, a diffusion index of "Favorable" minus "Unfavorable", %points.

This index is very clear and easy to understand and may have a great impact on the coming economic event and policy in Japan. Here's the part of it:

[Business Conditions] Dec. 2008, March 2009

[Large Enterprises]
Manufacturing -24, -58
Nonmanufacturing - 9, -31

[Medium-sized Enterprises]
Manufacturing -24 , -57
Nonmanufacturing -21, -37

[Small Enterprises]
Manufacturing -29, -57
Nonmanufacturing -29, -42

[All Enterprises]
All industries -24, -46


We can see large enterprises of manufacturing worst in the above index and they have the most sever sufferings of all.

This is because they much depend on foreign demands and so are very weak at the time of world slump as we have today.

Large enterprises have low sales and thus low profit, which brings much lower sales and profit of smaller enterprises(because they are usually given jobs from large ones) and thus lower income and consumption as a whole.

Companies cut the prices and wages more, and workers(as a result, consumers) spend less further. We are now at the edge of serious deflationary recession.

A Happy Marriage

Today I got married with a woman whom I've ever loved. I am so happy!! Here's the picture of the wedding.