Can the earthquake and tsunami from Japan affect IM?

If you are worried about yourself and your business at this time, you need a lot more than just a stable global IM economy to keep you afloat. Focus on how you can use your IM skills to help raise awareness for a charity that can bring aid to them, don't worry about how it will affect you.

It probably can and will in some form or another. I am not an expert though.

If I was able to move this thread to the inappropriate/stupid forum I would, unfortunately we do not have one!

I think it is unfair to 'have a go' at imfusa. He was just asking a question and I'm sure did not mean anything bad by it. Also to ask this question is not unreasonable in fact I find it an interesting economic one.

We ask questions about the price of oil rising even though people are being murdered in Libya so why can we not ask questions about the consequences of a natural disaster.

Also I have been watching closely the events over the past few days and cannot even imagine what people are going through. Just because I asked an economical question about the consequences of a natural disaster does not mean I don't care.

Please give kindly. Japan Tsunami Appeal | British Red Cross

Graham

It just give me an idea for a new market I could venture into. But over all it will effect some sales but how many of your sales actually come from japan and other countries. I know I have only had a few sales from these countries other then that most of my sales come from the US. However I have seen a drop in sales since this happened as well.

The reason being is many are looking to help out those in need instead of helping them selves. So you just need to turn you focus and on to something different as others have already said. Maybe tell your visitors that for every purchase they make a donation will be made to such and such charity to help out those who where hit by this disaster.

This is just my opinion and you are free to take it as you will. But that is what I have done with several sites of mine and all have actually increased in sales. Despite revenue dropping because of the donations I put out for every sale. But it is a way to let others know you are not in it for the money.

To the OP, I've no opinion, except to say I'm not sure I like any question that equates a tragedy of this scale to their business bottom line.

Having said that, this might be a good time to suggest that anyone with large lists and big daily traffic - please spare a post, update, and/or autoresponder broadcast that will do nothing but direct their viewers to donate to the various non profits currently focused on helping Japan recover. "Causes" has a number of Japan related donation pages.

I've got some really close friends up there and they are really in the crapper right now.

I'm sure everyone feels for everyone directly affected by the earthquake and tsunami, especially the folks in Japan. However bad it is right now, I expect there will be at least some aid and help sent to these unfortunate people. Beyond Japan, and on a grossly smaller scale, there were others in the US and elsewhere that were affected as well from the resultant tsunami effects. Hawaii and several locations on the mainland US also had some level of damage, but that seems to be superficial compared to the effects on Japan.

From the point of general business, and IM in particular, I think it will be some time before we see the total effect.

First will be a point where people use their resources to reach out and help instead of buying thing they don't immediately need.

Second will be the response to the gut question "could something like this happen to me?" when people start to build up and use resources to develop their own "emergency plan".

Third will be the global changes that may result. Oil costs are certain to rise, and there may be backlash to using nuclear power if the plants in trouble actually go through catastrophic melt-down. This can affect energy costs everwhere, and that affects all sort of commerce.

Last, there may be some effect depending on how the business and IM communities respond to the aftermath of this difficult time. If we are perceived as only money grabbing individuals it will obviously be negative. On the other hand, if we can do something that helps those unfortunately affected by this disaster, perhaps we can not only help, but keep our businesses intact and even achieve some growth in this difficult time.

For anyone interested I will be writing about the effects of Japan and Libya in my newsletter tomorrow. I will put the link here when it is ready.
Thanks,
Graham

The estimates I've seen of the cost of the damage in Japan are being put at somewhere between $100 to $500 billion to the national infrastructure.

The Japanese stock market is going to open today, and there is an expectation that the market will plunge.

Japan hasn't really recovered since the Asian crisis that occurred in the late 1980's, so their economy is still fragile. The disasters is going to put back their recovery efforts by years I suspect.

It's just one more burden these poor people will have to bear in the coming times.

As for the economic effect on other parts of the world? That's hard to tell. There are a lot of economic issues at the moment. Ireland, Greece, Portugal, and Spain are all suffering under a heavy debt load. The US is only just starting to recover from the GFC.

The world economy is tied together quite tightly. It may be that Japan will have an effect on all the other parts. It's hard to tell quite how much at the moment.

The other thing to consider, is how much of an isolated incident this earthquake is.

Just a couple of weeks ago, there was a serious earthquake in Christchurch. Over the last few years, there have been others at points along the 'ring of fire' (the Pacific plate boundary.)

It looks like that each earthquake is releasing stress at progressive points along the plate. It may be the next quake occurs some distance northeast of Japan, and then progresses to Alaska, California, South America, etc.

Financial markets often respond badly to natural disasters. If there are more of these quakes, then there could be more economic turmoil as well.

I'm not sure about the impact on IM but I think it should be minimal. Even the impact on overall Japanese economy is not going to be huge as per Wikipedia

2011 Sendai earthquake and tsunami - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

see the economic impact section

Regards,

not at all, except the internet was not accessible at all.

In the words of Albert Einstein, "The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive".

It's a time to unite and reflect and reach out, and in so doing make the world a better place. Our thoughts ought to be for the tragic loss of life and the human suffering so fresh in the hearts of our Japanese brothers.

For some reason, my customer base from Japan is literally minimal (less than 0.5%). I have way more customers from Malaysia, Indonesia or Singapore than Japan. Does anyone know why? perhaps very few Japanese people speak English fluently?