Reasons for the recession

My son and I used to race model cars and one of the enhancements and all the rage was carbide balls in the wheel bearing and various other rotary parts. Now the dealers wanted 10 to 15 per car set, depending on sizes, so most peps could not afford that extra. So only the rich racers had this advantage.

So me being in engineering decided to buy bulk and sell to the other guys. I purchased 350 worth of various sizes, sorted them into sets for each type of car and placed them into film cartridge containers. I looked at the cost and time to me which was about 2.50 per set so advertised them at race meetings for 4.50 per set, almost 1/3 shop prices. I sold 2 sets in 6 months. I still have the rest in the shed.

So I can understand the shops reluctance to get too excited...

Now I will ask, have you ever run your own business ? because I find that all the so called experts on how and what to sell have not.

Also when at work and I hear people slaging off the management, I always say you should try it someday, employing people and keeping them all happy and their mortgages paid.

I did and still have my own business at the peak employing 10 people. I can say its not easy and even though you may appear to be the friendly boss the employees still treat you like shit when it comes to the crunch.

Steps down off box....

As a new person in my company about 6 years ago I had to do a talk to a group of about 100 managers about my experiences.

I started off by saying one of the things that has really surprised me is how many easy jobs there are here. All the staff know what the managers should be doing, but aren't. All the managers know what the staff should be doing but aren't. In fact hearing some of you talk I've came to the conclusion that the only demanding job in the whole organisation is my one.

Neb

Yes, I've run my own business for the last 23 years.

In message , Nebulous writes

You're FIRED!

Yes, I've run my own business for the last 23 years.

Then you should know better...

.

You are not making yourself clear.

I was pointing out that a business was losing sales because they were not stocking enough in their shop.

You appear to not be talking sense at all.

Maybe it suits the shop this way. Perhaps customers then buy alternative products when the main ones are out of stock, ones with a higher profit margin.

(BTW have you tried shopping on Thursdays?)

There's a lot of shops around. I go to another one.

Yes, but the product I am talking about is an ice cream.

There seems to be many reasons for it, but we're not the only country suffering from it. I just hope that it improves over 2010.:D

Running out of stock part way through a week?

- Lack of credit.

- Lack of working capital.

- Supplier has disincentive if you order above a certain level re freight (more common than you think).

- Supplier has limited supply, ie, they buy based on bulk when on offer, and drop when not.

It gets real tedious doing shopping because every few weeks you get "big discounts" like Special K at £2, the subsequent 6-10wks they ramp it back up to £2.89 2.99 3.19 just to subsidise the £2 buyers. Worse for bread, because I suspect they vary the mix, when grain reached record prices a lot of loaves went distinctly crap tasting - improving when prices declined again.

Biggest problem at the moment is trade stores having *nothing*. Everything is ordered in - which makes me think a) they have credit/ working-capital problems b) they have too much stuff sitting dead in warehouses and shop floors and c) they think we have a double dip.

Thus the pickup is merely a "ok, we are not dead" before commercial debt goes bad 2010.

The reasons for the recession were completely insane credit expansion

1995+. The reasons for the recovery are completely insane stimulus expansion creating a bubble now in equities, commodities, real-estate, corporate bonds & treasuries globally; plus no doubt a shed load of bad lending in indo-china. The reasons for the next even bigger collapse will be the former, and it will be bigger too.

Gordon brown ironically has enacted policies indicating he doesn't care, because he does not have to clean up the mess - it would be even more ironic if he did win the next election and inherited it...

We are heading to hyperinflation & declining living standards, masquerading as "to save the environment" when in fact it is to save a lot of idiot financial policy makers getting lynched.