The economy

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Singapore, 28^th January 2014

Haven’t spoken about the economy much yet, but it is a legitimate question we pose to ourselves at the beginning of the year. We finished 2013 on a high, but how is 2014 shaping up (from a lighting designers perspective of course). I am triggered to write about this by the story that an Englishman in London was refused (a large amount of) money if he could not give a clarification about what the money was for…really? Since when do I have to tell a bank what I am doing with my money? I earned it, I declare my income, pay my taxes and that’s it. The bank later apologised but still maintained that the request was justified. On the back of this a story surfaced about the same bank (HSBC) being in great financial trouble and about to collapse. As the bank is heavily linked to the Chinese economy this development (if true) would have a major implication on the world economy. For now the story seems more like a revenge action from a lone journalist, but still, it does make you think.

While I do not see any let up in new project work, on the contrary, it does make good sense to reflect on the future and prepare yourself for the future and in this case a slowdown of the economy. As designers we generally feel the impact of any economy slow down at a later stage, when money starts to dry up (suddenly payments are delayed etc), so for now we do not feel any such situation. However it does seem that major economies like China and India have slowed down. While China was used to double digit growth we are now looking at 6-7% only, a notable decrease (still looking really good if you are in Europe). India’s economy is on hold until the upcoming general elections sort things out. But the rest of Asia still looks solid…the question is for how long? If we follow the 8-10 year cycle, we should be good for another 2-3 years…time will tell.

Light Watch 5-12: Economic growth can go up and go down. Same can be said of stairs, you can go up or go down…here are some inspirations in regards to lighting. For the moment I am walking up the stairs 🙂