"'Cos I got a feelin' the Olympus'll soon be dead,
It's gettin' hard to see,
It's... So hard to keep a lens, locked and in focus,
When it's jumpin' like a flea.
That's what's worryin'..... meeeeee."

(With all due apologies to Burt Bacharach, BJ Thomas, Robert LeRoy "Butch" Parker and Harry "Sundance" Longabaugh.)

Today I swapped the standard 14-42 walk-around lens on the Olympus for the 17mm prime "pancake" one. Unfortunately it also suffered from the same pulsation problem that I mentioned in yesterday's PAD suggesting that the problem is the camera, not the lens. In this case I tried to keep the focus on the water drop (yes, it's still raining today) and had the camera in "spray" mode. Eventually one shot came close enough to locking on the droplet, though many shots in the bracket didn't.

Does anyone want to bet that repairing the E-P1 will cost as much as a new E-P3?

However my problems are small compared to those of some others at the moment. Only a couple of weeks after it was revealed that ANZ Bank, one of Australia's "four pillars" banks, was looking at axing up to 1000 jobs, Westpac, another of the big four, is set to sack up to 560 people. Many of these jobs will be outsourced to India in line with the mantra of "an overall lower cost structure". (And my, can't most people who have had dealings with an Indian call centre sing the praises of it?)

OK. Our manufacturing industry has been essentially gutted because people who are paid a decent wage obviously can't compete with Chinese factories which are one step above slave labour (and produce goods of corresponding quality). Supposedly, according to Great And Wise Economists, this is A Good Thing resulting in us getting cheaper goods and moving into the services sector. Let's leave aside, if we can, one thing which stuck out like a proverbial sore thumb in one of my favourite books, Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. (Not available in Australia in e-book format; so much for globalisation...) That thing being this; the powers concerned were great when they produced tangible goods. When they "outsourced" that to other countries all that happened was the wealth that had been accumulated in the past was spent down in acquiring those new goods until the powers turned into... well, essentially what you see today in a large part of Europe. You can talk about "new market paradigms" until you're blue in the face, but the reality is this; wealth is the roof over your head, the food in your refrigerator, the car that gets you around, the clothes that keep you warm, the books that feed your mind and school your children. It is not contracts for difference or short-sold stock.

There will come a time when the last western company has "rightsized" the last of its middle class workers. When those lucky few with a job (other than the senior executives who will reward themselves with 7 or 8 figure bonuses for cost cutting) will be earning $10 per hour at a clothing store. (A store which will eventually have to close because it can only sell to other people on $10 / hour, and they can't afford it.) And when that day comes... who will be left to pay for the (imported) goods and (outsourced) services of these low cost businesses?

Once again I look at our business and political leaders and their myopia which makes Mr. Magoo's vision look like Superman's. And I am again reminded of Anthony Quayle's scene in The Eagle Has Landed in which his character Admiral Canaris returns from a meeting of the German High Command. "And I looked round that room, and I wondered: am I the only one who can see it? And if so... what must I look like to them?"

Well, that commentary started light and finished dark. That can happen when you read the news, I suppose. Perhaps it's a mistake to do so too often.

Last Year