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Geisha turn barmaids to keep Japan’s ‘Floating World’ afloat
A traditional two-hour dinner with a geisha, who will
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entertain with
music, dance performances and conversation, can cost as much as 67,000
yen ($715), more than half of which goes to the teahouse and an
arranger, ... "It's a luxury industry, and like the high-end hotels, it
has dropped," ... [However,] bookings have declined 50 percent since
last October, the month after the collapse of [financial services firm]
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, ...
Economists Measure GDP Growth From Outer Space
Using U.S. Air Force weather satellite picture composites, they look at
changes in a region’s light density over a 10-year period. “Consumption
of nearly all goods in the evening requires lights,” ... “As income
rises, so does light usage per person, in both consumption activities
and many investment activities.” ... For example, in the Democratic
Republic of Congo, lights suggest a 2.4-percent annual growth rate in
GDP, while official estimates suggest a negative 2.6-percent growth
over the same time period. The Congo appears to be growing faster than
official estimates suggest. At the other end, Myanmar has an official
growth rate of 8.6 percent a year, but the lights data imply only a
3.4-percent annual growth rate.
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