Worldwide recession!

[Michael Alexander]

Wow, watching Sky and CNN, just look at all those job losses happening in the US and UK and Ireland..... from cars to pc manufacturing..... nobody is gonna be buying our diamonds 2 soon!

[Rhona]

1900 jobs announced today to go in Dell; that's on top of Waterford crystal being in talks and Tara mines being in negotiations - tough times ahead...

[SandyB]

Our  work still seems there .. its commodity packaging ...  for  clothing  ...  fresh foods  ..  beverage shrinkpack  ala  Savannah ,hunters etc ,  Diapers , toilet tissue , fempro .. we anticipating a slowdown .. but yes people may cut back on the clothing .. but they still got to eat .. and then  wipe their     , and   baby use  disposable  nappies  . and  women  will still need sanitary towels ..  what may hit us is  people turning away from  disposable nappies which carry a hefty price   and also  for  eco reasons  in favour of  fabric  with  liners to make it  less  Uugh !  ..  and yes the price wars will start up again .. also  simplification of  designs and  not  renewing  artwork every  few months  just to have nice glossy packaging on the shelf .. news is our one major customer will  be holding back  on " launches" which  is actually  just a costly excercise in new artwork plates etc  encouraged by  the " marketers" in order to justify their existence .. so their  marketing depts will  be slow and  possibly jobs shed ..  the platemakers will lose out .. kind of a domino effect ... for us  its going to be the price  war that we gonna have to face ..  there  are companies belonging to big groups that will go suicidal  pricing  just to
" capture ' market share ...in the interim buggering  up  fair  value pricing practices .. its going to be  an interesting ride ...

[Cherry (Alcock)]

Seems quite a few people, particularly from outside SA shores, are taking the opportunity to use their redundancy packages to study for an MBA (not fact; my assumption).  Our classes at the Grad School are chock-a-block for this year!  An optimistic note maybe that MBAs are expecting an upswing and large salary packages post recession in their countries and here?

Watch it Sandyb - I'm one of those marketers "justifying their existence"!      

[georg ruf jr.]

If so many millions an billions have been lost, Where'd they go to??  baby 


I think "Mars Attack" only shows a partiual truth. In real, there's no happy ending... oh yes, of course... For the Marsions there is. They've been running several governments throughout the world. George, Bob.... And several componies...
I'm sure they've transformed the Wallstreet Dollars into some kind of Marsian currency and are having big parties up there. And we're just their "Trumann Show"...  

[SandyB]

I  second you  on that one Jnr  ..  in this crazy  world we live in  its  very  believable ... 
Oops  here come  the men in  white coats .. gotta run ..

Bye  Bye ...

[SandyB]

@ Cherry  there  are  marketers  and   marketeers ,,,, 

[Leon Sumter]

Georg the billions went into the pockets of greedy American bankers when they started lending money to Americans who could not afford their bond payments in the first place, i.e the subprime debacle. House prices did not increase as the bankers hoped, the owners defaulted and the whole pack of cards came crashing down and the entire world is reeling under the ripple effect.
Demand for gold, platinum, diamonds, cars, you name has dropped radically.
The US is currently voting on a bailout package for GM. Chrysler and Ford. Toyota are also cutting back production in Japan.

[SandyB]

@  Leon  I  have  inside  information  ( the  buzzing  voices in my head )  the  Greedy american bankers are indeed Martians ..
Oops  got  to  run .. here come the  men  in white  suits again ... 

[georg ruf jr.]

Back to serious.
What I was trying to say is, there's never been the amount of money around as made believe. It's all just on paper. As soon as prices go down people are broke...

[SandyB]

Aaw  you  spoiling  my fun  Georg   ...   cuqui   ..

NOW  SERIOUSLY ..  Actually  too  true Jnr ..  all the  money  is  just on paper ..    all currency  should be  underpinned by something like gold ...  not  empty promises ...

[georg ruf jr.]

But what is life without belief??? 

[Leon Sumter]

actually many years ago currencies of all countries were based on a commodity such as gold or silver or something else durable with value. This was referred to as the gold standard. Then some US wiseasses decided that this system was too rigid and abandoned the gold standard and basically all countries followed suit. Countries could now simply print more money when they needed it (Zimbabwe is a good example)and the consumer could spend more and more worthless paper money. The only value that any currency has these days is based entirely on the confidence of outside investors in that currency.

[SandyB]

And as in the case of the good old US of A  .. oil  is pegged  to the dollar ... methinks they have enough evil sway to  manipulate the oil  price to  benefit themselves and  those in  cahoots with them ...  take the recent  meteoric rise up to 140 dollrs/ barrel ... who profited ??  then  to swing it down again  .. the in cahoots have got their  fat profit  so they can  run lean  for a while .. the lower  price now allows the american  economy a breather to  try recover from the  mess the  martians  made ...   simple  thing ..  if  every country  did not  catch a cold  when  america sneezes .. ?? what will become  of that " mighty " country ??

[SandyB]

Mmm  see you  online  Jnr ...  what is life without belief  ?/   too true ...  which belief ...   In onelself ?  In a creator or  God ?   that everything will come right  cos it always runs in cycles ??    or ??     one thing I certainly dont believe in the "mighty " dollar ....   its a mess  and makes a mess  of everything ...