How is the recent "economic downturn" affecting you?   Let's discuss.

Up here in Dalton, our area is being devastated. No kidding.

Calhoun, Rome, Dalton, Lafayette, Chatsworth, Ringgold, are all one horse towns.....  carpet and hardwood flooring.   I would guess the unemployment rate up here is pushing 8-9%.   This statistic is very misleading cause the rest of the folks that ARE working are working 32 hours a week, and are coping with gas prices that are taking away 20% of take home pay just to go to work and back.   People are LEAVING up here for better areas of the country.  (aka Texas and lower Mississippi)   There is absolutely NO construction taking place up here.    This statistic is easily checked because there are almost No new building permits being issued in Whitfield and Murray County.  (Heart of carpet country)

I estimate the retail activity up here is off 50% as a whole..    The sales in my two store are down in this range from last year. Very few businesses can survive over a long period with this number.   I know a lot of business owners, their sales are all off in this range, with rare exception.   Businesses who cater strictly to the local economy are the ones hurting the worst, like mine.   The restaurants are way off.  You can walk into any one of the good ones on a Friday or Saturday night and get immediate seating.  This is DRAMATICALLY different cause you always had to wait.  Then when you ask the servers, they confirm what you think about business being way off.  They all say they are making a lot less tip money these days.

Only people doing okay are executives and government workers, (teachers... etc..) Rest of my area is being killed.  And I do mean killed.   Bankruptcy is way up and our local paper is FULL of houses being foreclosed.   

Help... we are dying.   I am willing to say that if this recession lingers in our area until next spring,  25% of the local retail businesses will be closed up here. However, analysts are predicting a two year housing slump, maybe longer.   If a recession in the severity we are currently seeing in our area lasts two years,  Our area will be truly devastated.  You could buy this whole valley after that for a buck and a quarter.

What's happening to you?

 

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Make each day count to improve yourself and those around you

Our company is doing well (so far).  I am working in the industrial automation/machine vision industry so the housing crisis have not affected us very much.  There was a period of anxiety when people were sitting still and not investing in new equipment for fears of further economic downturn but now, thankfully, things are going better both here in the States and abroad.  Keeping my fingers crossed however.

It certainly sucks to live in one of those "one horse towns" as you called them.  A few months ago I visited GM plants in the Detroit area and people there were very anxious about the fate of their jobs (they were building trucks).  Just a few days ago I've heard that these plants are being closed. 

In this life you never know what's going to happen to the economy so it helps to plan for any eventuality.

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Sasha

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Work is a matter of taste. If you don't work you don't taste.

I am almost ashamed that I am not affected.  I work in telecommunications industry which benefits from the falling dollar (within reason), as we are in the business of bringing previously outsourced call center/customer service industries back to the US, mostly in rural areas where costs can somewhat compete with Asia.

Fortune 500 companies, are STILL overpaying for not outsourcing jobs, and so it is still a dispensable luxury.   The first to go in any corporate cost-cutting.  So far this downturn has not affected corporate earnings, and it may not ever.  Its a strange downturn we are in now, by some measures (supply side) it actually does not even look like a downturn.

Not saying i agree with those measures.. never have.  I am a demand side economics kinda guy.  What you described, Mark, is the real measure.

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"Я это понимаю на рациональном уровне, но не могу принять на эмоциональном" --Бизнесмен Борис Березовский

me in business intelligence bus and things are fairly well.

One of the problems this country has is that virtual economy is growing, while real economy dies...... sad really. 

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- Независимость - это когда в 20-й раз наступаешь на одни и те же грабли, а русские уже ни при чем....

In investment/banking/insurance weather is interesting. Lots of banks lost huge amount of money due to subprime mortgages and credit crunch. Those banks had too much exposure to risky investments. My company's last couple of quarters were in red but only a little since we had no subprime problems and thanks to cheap Dollar comparing to Euro. Whoever still have cash on books are looking to acquire losers. It is great time now for expansion. We are pretty much facing lower bonuses next year since they're tied to company performance. Everything else is stable. It is time to invest in stocks ;)

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_Sergey_:

It is time to invest in stocks ;)

its always time to invest in stocks :)

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"Я это понимаю на рациональном уровне, но не могу принять на эмоциональном" --Бизнесмен Борис Березовский

I am in software/prof.services business and we are down last 2 quarters in US but are up overall thanks to Asian market.

Don't see any downsizing, not even restructuring. I'd say we even have the same people turnover rate.

Egor:

_Sergey_:

It is time to invest in stocks ;)

its always time to invest in stocks :)

Disagree :)

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yes, most people do.  Thank you.  We depend on you

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"Я это понимаю на рациональном уровне, но не могу принять на эмоциональном" --Бизнесмен Борис Березовский

OFF TOPIC! Moderator, please delete above post and keep flooders from making inappropriate posts in our forum!

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What did I missed ?

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- Независимость - это когда в 20-й раз наступаешь на одни и те же грабли, а русские уже ни при чем....

Mk - can't you manufacture low cost American furniture and export it to higher-cost countries?  We need to start making stuff in THIS country again.

Believe it or not, we are still at the beginning of this downturn.  Yes, in any economy there are always up industries and down industries, but given the inter-dependency of our services-based economy, you should see this downspiral continue for some time.  Maybe past 2009.

First they came for Financial Services.  Then they came for the Entrepreneurs, and then they came for everybody on this forum.  lol

We still have a few hundred billion in bad loans to write off, a few more million people to kick out of their homes, many millions more to lay off as the services economy continues it's downward spiral, lots of small businesses to die off from lack of liquidity....

If you don't have a Chevron gas credit card, you might want to keep that as your last reserve/resort.  Because even when you can't pay your mortgage, even when you can't pay the minimum on your other credit cards, you can still live in your car and buy groceries at your Chevron station with your Chevron credit card.  Some already are....  Welcome to the Depression.

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"Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable."