Recession?

[Mr Ed]

Very true, and just like the surfeit of firms after '87, the past 10 years of borrowed jam has created thousands of tree surgery business' that will not survive the coming difficulties.

 

Small with very low overheads will survive the best methinks.

[Mick Stockbridge]

Small with very low overheads will survive the best methinks.

 

I am already seeing bigger firms squirming for work in my area. One fella I know bought two new trucks and two new chippers in spring 08, he had a handfull of staff and now they,ve been laid off. A couple of weeks ago I priced a job at £150, he came in at £75. I think it,s just a matter of time before his kit is repossessed. How the mighty are falling, I,m glad to see some thinning out, in fourteen years of trading I,ve seen loads of new firms spring up round here and all with sparkling new kit on the knock and a few tickets under their belts and the cheek to call themselves tree surgeons. Aint I glad I stayed Charlie small taters.

[skyhuck]

Ed's right!,IMO.

 

All the fictional house price rises allowed borrowing that financed garden remodeling and new housing development.

 

This generated lots of well paying easy work, so loads of new firms sprung up.

 

Now thats gone, only the hard working, skilled, efficient guys will be able to make a decent wage.

 

And if you have loads of borrowed money its gonna be tough.

[Frank]

that was kinda the point I was trying to make. Im fortunate to have paid all my insurance (including vehicle) up front, so apart from fuel and oil, I have very small overheads.

 

It's not always how big the firm is, its how big the reputation is.

[woodplans]

In my opinion the only way to go for the next few years is to run lean, overheads have got to be kept low and efficiency maximised. Also diversify, work is work no matter what it involves.

I think this is the way to run a businesses at any any time, but at times like this it is invaluable. Those companies that have to many overheads and are not maximising efficiency are now realising they have to change fast. Unfortunatly for some it may be to late, with high equipment finance costs and other debts it will prove a major struggle, also we must not forget workplace mentality is very difficult to change in a short time span, old habits die hard, including the pricing structure of some firms.

Those who have always embraced cost and efficiency will come out the other end stronger and with less competition. And lets not forget the fact that there will be more second hand/repo'd equipment on the market so they will be able to improve there fleet or expand to fill gaps left by others not so fortunate when the market improves again, at a cheaper cost, therefore strengthening their positions again. ( Then as the company expands it becomes less efficient and habits change, the good times return, the boss stops working and gets a manager in, when the next downturn hits 10-20 years away they are in the wrong position to deal with it.......cynical eh! )

Not trying to be a doom monger, just painting the picture as i see it.

I wish everyone the best in the coming year, and hope that all continue to find work and prosper. Just remember it is all the little things you do to save costs that seem insignificant at the time that will add up and make the difference between struggle and survival.

Might be a good new thread header: Cost saving and efficiency hints.

[Mr Ed]

I'm not a Clarkson fan by any means, but his take on the future recession has a ring of truth to it...

 

''We’re all still plunging hither and thither, guzzling wine and wondering what preposterously expensive electronic toys the children will want to smash on Christmas morning this year. We can’t see the meteorite coming either.

 

I think mainly this is because the government is not telling us the truth. It’s painting Gordon Brown as a global economic messiah and fiddling about with Vat, pretending that the coming recession will be bad. But that it can deal with it.

 

I don’t think it can. I have spoken to a couple of pretty senior bankers in the past couple of weeks and their story is rather different. They don’t refer to the looming problems as being like 1992 or even 1929. They talk about a total financial meltdown. They talk about the End of Days.

 

Already we are seeing household names disappearing from the high street and with them will go the suppliers whose names have only ever been visible behind the grime on motorway vans. The job losses will mount. And mount. And mount. And as they climb, the bad debt will put even more pressure on the banks until every single one of them stutters and fails.

 

The European banks took one hell of a battering when things went wrong in America. Imagine, then, how life will be when the crisis arrives on this side of the Atlantic. Small wonder one City figure of my acquaintance ordered three safes for his London house just last week.

 

Of course, you may imagine the government will simply step in and nationalise everything, but to do that, it will have to borrow. And when every government is doing the same thing, there simply won’t be enough cash in the global pot. You can forget Iceland. From what I gather, Spain has had it. Along with Italy, Ireland and very possibly the UK.

 

It is impossible for someone who scored a U in his economics A-level to grapple with the consequences of all this but I’m told that in simple terms money will cease to function as a meaningful commodity. The binary dots and dashes that fuel the entire system will flicker and die. And without money there will be no business. No means of selling goods. No means of transporting them. No means of making them in the first place even. That’s why another friend of mine has recently sold his London house and bought somewhere in the country . . . with a kitchen garden.

 

These, as I see them, are the facts. Planet Earth thought it had £10. But it turns out we had only £2. Which means everyone must lose 80% of their wealth. And that’s going to be a problem if you were living on the breadline beforehand.

 

Eventually, of course, the system will reboot itself, but for a while there will be absolute chaos: riots, lynchings, starvation. It’ll be a world without power or fuel, and with no fuel there’s no way the modern agricultural system can be maintained. Which means there will be no food either. You might like to stop and think about that for a while.

 

I have, and as a result I can see the day when I will have to shoot some of my neighbours - maybe even David Cameron - as we fight for the last bar of Fry’s Turkish Delight in the smoking ruin that was Chipping Norton’s post office.

 

I believe the government knows this is a distinct possibility and that it might happen next year, and there is absolutely nothing it can do to stop Cameron getting both barrels from my Beretta. But instead of telling us straight, it calls the crisis the “credit crunch” to make it sound like a breakfast cereal and asks Alistair Darling to smile and big up Gordon when he’s being interviewed.

 

I can’t say I blame it, really. If an enormous meteorite was heading our way and the authorities knew it couldn’t be stopped or diverted, why bother telling anyone? Best to let us soldier on in the dark until it all goes dark for real. ''

 

Jeremy Clarkson, Dec 7th 2008

Edited January 25, 2009 by Mr Ed

[Steve Bullman]

nice read to start my day, thanks ed

[skyhuck]

nice read to start my day, thanks ed

 

Indeed!!!!!!!

 

Does any one know where I can get some cyanide capsules??

[Mick Stockbridge]

I,m gonna sharpen my combat loading skills on my p/action shotgun in case things turn ugly, after all turkish delight is my favourite.

[Andy Collins]

Chipping Norton still has a Post Office???? Sssh, dont tell the powers that be!