Ditto. This will be worse than 81-82, though, because the plants/factories were temporarily idled back then; now, they're gone. Cheers.
>What's it really like on Main St, USA now? > Depends who you ask. Those with jobs are holding on tighter to those jobs, and dropping plans to change jobs or start businesses. Those without jobs are worried, and getting desperate as their already-extended unemployment benefits draw to a close. Business owners are tightening the belt and calling clientele for reassurance of repeat patronage. Traders are happy they are traders and not employees. Those living off of investment income (buy and hold) are filling out fast-food applications.
UK main street is fucked too, I don't know what part you are in but I'm in the SE and lots of areas are hit. Property has been decimated, blue chip areas are down 20-30%, and in crap areas property is off 40-50% from peak. This is peak sale prices versus current sale prices (not listings prices), as told to me by a local MD of a decent estate agent (example, a place on my street was offered at £550k in Jan 2008, then cut to £500k, it just sold recently for £385k. This is one of the prime streets in my city). Mortgage rates have not fallen, and are getting cut back massively - no more <20% down mortgage funny money means much less purchasing power, even if confidence was still high, which it isn't. I was checking out Iphone sales for a potential play on AAPL stock - they have been much slower recently according to a salesman I spoke to at the local carphone warehouse, and that is the hottest gadget out there at the moment. Local high streets have seen numerous closures in smaller businesses, plenty of boarded-up shops. Restaurants are really feeling the pinch, one I go to was literally empty on a weekday evening except for me & my dining partner. Used car prices have been slaughtered - Porsches, Ferraris, Mercs are getting royally shafted, just check out any owners forum. Nightclubs are suffering, even hookers are feeling the pinch. The financial sector is a bit behind the USA, less outright failures, but layoffs are starting bigtime. The property, financial, retail, and domestic manufacturing sectors are all going to be annihilated. Exports are the only bright spot. In my opinion, the UK is going to get hit even harder than the USA. Short all rallies on the pound, buy all dips on long gilt futures and short sterling. I would love, love, love to be able to sell more pounds at say 1.7 but I am not sure it will get there again.
Consumer retail has never been a good business, even duing optimal econ conditions. high tech, internet, energy, manufacturing is where the growth is.
In 81-82 I was working in retail industrial hardware business, a pretty much recession proof business, man were we slow. I remember doing nothing all day. Spent time chatting with the few customers we had. The boss took a heck of a lot of time off, we ran the show, what little needed to be done. There were places that were doing worse and this is where I found my next job in the begining of '03. Imagine that, in the middle of this, I quit to work for a place that was doing worse. My new employer was well capitalized and thought I would be an asset to turn the place around. It worked out quite well. I guess the moral of the story is, there are opps out there in spite of the conditions.
And if the money supply shrinks, where will these growth fields get their funding to operate? They certainly aren't going to work for free.
I suppose you're now going to tell us that the iPhone, iPod, iMac, iLife and iWhatever are business products?