The wealthy might earn a lot (usually in the form of interest and capital gains rather than wages and salary), but they also pay a lot. They pay a lot for housing and food, as well as all the luxury items and toys they have. For example, the wealthy who live in Manhattan are paying increasingly higher prices for apartments and condos: this New York Post article says that apartment prices have risen by 20% in the last year. The average Manhattan apartment costs $1.7million these days, and real estate agents expect that price to rise.
Recent auctions of rare automobiles show that the cars rich people like to have in their garages are getting more and more expensive. The Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index (KFLII) of classic car prices has risen an average of 43% per year over the last ten years. The same company’s indexes for wine and fine art have risen an average of 18% each year for the last ten years. (The only good news is that the average price for antique furniture has fallen 19% over the last ten years.)
Even though the 1%ers are very wealthy, and they do save more than their less wealthy brethren, they also spend a lot of money (such conspicuous consumption is on display in reality cable shows such as Keeping Up With the Kardashians.) Maybe it’s not a big problem that what they buy costs a small fortune…
Inspiration
Leena Gade is Audi Sport’s head engineer for Le Mans, and World Endurance Cup (WEC) racing. She’s the first woman to have won the Le Mans 24 hour endurance race (as a driver, or engineer.)
There’s a great NPR article on Leena and how she become a leading auto racing engineer with one of the great racing teams in the history of motorsport.
More wine snobbery
I know I post more about wine than any other topic, but it fascinates me. Being a member of the American Association of Wine Economists, I have read many of the scholarly articles about wine pricing, and wine rating, and wine tasting. I also like to read about wine forgery. A recent article on the NPR website (here) by Alva Noe is really a defense of connoisseurship. By raising the questions against experts and their ability to judge the quality of wines systematically, the article links to some very interesting defenses of experts and their abilities, especially Barry Smith’s article on Wine Appreciation.
Memories and the Digital Image Revolution
NPR had a series of articles last week on the theme of digital photography and memories. Here’s a link to one of them, and there you can link to the other articles.
The series resonated with me, as I have posted more than once on this blog about digital photography, cell phone photography, and my own approach to photography. I’m not making my living from photography, and I doubt if ever I would want to, or could for that matter. It’s tough being a professional photographer, but obviously very rewarding for some. But back to the series.
The articles each, and together, make a number of great points about the explosion of digital photography, the means to take the photos like cell phones, and the ways we share with, or impose, those images on others, like Facebook. That cell phones thrust above the crowd to “record the event” has become the norm at any public event, not just concerts or school plays, is just one of the many manifestations of this phenomenon. Are we creating memories, or replacing memories? Are we failing to experience the moment in order to record it? And when we record the moment, either in still images or videos, do we ever actually go back to review, and “re-member” the actual event? Are we all playing a game of “paparazzi for a day” in the hope our camera will capture that decisive moment that goes viral, or appears on the cover of the Star Inquirer? Awash in a sea of images and videos, how do we stand out, or do we actually care? I make images and want to share them, usually because they are images of other people doing things they like (driving their cars fast at an autocross event.) These images are developed and processed before making them available, and in that sense are “made” rather than taken–it doesn’t make them better, but it makes them something different. To me that’s what constitutes photography–it’s a process involving hands, head and heart.
F is for Focus, F-stop
Focus
In the old days we used to focus our cameras manually. In the really old days that meant sticking your head under a black cloth and looking at the upside-down image on the ground glass and seeing if the image was in focus. Even before the advent of autofocus (AF) cameras, most rangefinder cameras has some kind of mechanism to assist when focusing. Single lens reflex (SLR) cameras allowed the photographer to see the image coming through the lens, and most were equipped with a split circle that allowed adjustment of the lens focus until the top half and the bottom half were aligned, confirming proper focus.
Nearly every camera sold these days is autofocus, which is an advantage, and a disadvantage. For me, I can’t see through the viewfinder on my DSLR very well, because I wear glasses and my eyes are tired. I don’t think I could focus manually if I had to… So AF is how I focus when using my camera, and for that I’m really grateful. But AF makes for lazy photography if you let it. Lazy because you point the focus spot–usually the center of the image screen–at what you want in focus and expect (hope) it is indeed in focus. And most of the time it is. There are times when it’s not, and that could be due to the subject moving, or because you accidentally lifted your finger off the shutter, and then depressed it again. Most cameras a set up so that when you depress the shutter button either half-way, or fully, the camera sets the exposure and releases the shutter once focus has been confirmed (I call this one-button AE/AF). Pressing the shutter halfway sets the AF on most cameras. You can use this to focus off-center, then holding the shutter down halfway, recomposed the image and make the photo by fully depressing the shutter. It’s simple and both proper exposure and proper focus are achieved in one move by one finger.
Recently I have starting using two fingers. Weird, I know! It’s called Back Button Focus (BBF) and it appeared first on a Canon camera in 1989. What Canon did, and many other cameras allow this now, is offer the option of separating the exposure function from the focusing function. The shutter button will still control the setting of the exposure when pressed, but the camera will not start autofocusing until another button (set by the user) is pressed. Most users assign this function to a button on the back of the camera, close to where it can be pressed and held by the thumb. This usually means one of two possible buttons. Using BBF, the photographer must set the exposure and focus in two explicit moves–which might seem to defeat the purpose of an AE/AF (modern) camera. But it seems to give me more control over where I focus, and when I choose to set the focus. The camera I use has two types of focus modes: one shot and Ai Servo. This sounds pretty fancy, but really it just means the camera either sets focus and sticks to it, or sets focus and then constantly adjusts it if the subject moves, which is great for sports. With “one-button AE/AF” the only way to refocus is to lift off the shutter button. With BBF, focus can be set, and reset, by pressing, holding or releasing the assigned button.
You can read more about the technique here at Canon’s digital learning center.
You can choose to be…what?
Aside
Do you want to sell solutions to problems, or design solutions to problems? Get the education and training to be the person who is asked to design solutions to problems, not the person who goes out and implements those solutions. Lots of people use tools, but only a few design them.
Talk about a Rock Star Economist!
My last post referred to my status as the “94-Rock Economist” and “Economist to the Stars” — titles given me by former KRZZ morning show host TJ Trout. The New York Magazine posted an article about Thomas Piketty, the French economist who has made a rather big splash on this side of the Atlantic with his book “Capital in the 21st Century” released in English by Harvard University Press last month. The article refers to Piketty as a “rock star economist,” which is a status I guess economists rarely achieve. I was the 94-Rock Economist for about 20 years, and may survive longer if Swami Rob wants me back on his show more regularly. Time will tell.
But in the meantime, Piketty is getting all the attention. And justly deserved. If you read the many reviews of his 700-page book (The Economist provides a nice review), I’m sure you’ll find his thesis compelling. While he says lots of things, one of the biggies is that the more egalitarian economic experience of the middle of the 20th century was an aberration, a deviation, from the more normal state of things before, and after. We are currently experiencing a period of extreme income inequality, and apparently that’s more the norm than most of us would like. For me, the lasting value of Piketty’s book will be how it brought income, and especially wealth, inequality, back into the center of the discussion. It’s important, and we should be talking about it. Maybe it’s even more important than most things economists talk about.
My alter-ego: the “94-Rock Economist”
Back in 1992 (anyone remember back that far?) I was asked by TJ Trout, the host of the morning show on KRZZ (94 Rock) to come on his show and talk about the economics of Ross Perot (anyone remember him??) It was election year and Perot was running on many planks, but one was a more business-based understanding of national economics. There was, in particular, real concern about the national debt (boy, if only they’d have known how big it would get 20 years later!) Anyway, I went on the show, and that — as they say — launched my career in radio.
I “appeared” on the radio occasionally with TJ for many years until he retired a couple of years ago (maybe 2012.) During that time I was dubbed “the 94 Rock Economist” and “the Economist to the Stars.” The morning show continued just fine without me, but the guy who hosts it nowdays, Swami Rob, called me up and asked me to come back in to talk about savings and retirement. It was fun, and here’s an audio podcast if your interested.
http://www.spreaker.com/user/kzrr/phil-ganderton-401k-info-4-8?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=widget
Worried, or Concerned?
The internet is full of pages and posts nuancing the difference between worry and concern. Worry is heart-felt, concern is cold; worry is a problem, concern is a solution; worry is a subset of concern. Some people think they are perfect synonyms.
My father used to say that he had few worries, but many concerns. He told me that to worry was unproductive, but to be concerned was healthy. I think he would have agreed with the idea that to worry is to focus on the problem, to be concerned is to focus on the solution.
Concern seems like a very human feeling, showing empathy or sympathy (another topic for a blog entry in the future.) It also seems to be reflective, suggesting a thoughtful process. Worry just appears to be easier, and less meaningful. Nobody wants to be labeled a worrywart!
So don’t worry, be concerned.
Photographing cars
There are lots of opportunities to photograph cars, and there are so many cars in so many situations. You’d think it would be easy…
Lately I’ve been trying my hand at making photographs at Porsche Club autocross events. Good looking cars in a small space, going fast. I have been using my longest lens, my 70-300mm L zoom (big white Canon lens.) My goal has been to capture the driver in the car–to not just photograph the car, but to capture the idea of driving the car in one of these events. For example:
Click on the image to see it much larger. That the weather was overcast, that the driver is wearing a helmet present some difficulties, but over-all the idea is to make a nice photo of the car and driver.
You can see more photos in my Porsche club galleries.
Philip Ganderton 