Day 1840 - I'm Calling it....

Yes folks the recession is over, officially December 15th as we exited the IMF Troika led Bailout. Nothing immediately changed and as is reported as of December 24th Christmas Sales are flat to lower than last year. However jobs are growing and employment is down while emigration is up. So a mixed bag, however with the inward investment that I can see in my own industry, corporations are positioning themselves for an upturn. The upturn will be gradual and largely unnoticed as the economy continues to shake out, a lot of repossessions and bankruptcies are to move through the system in the next few quarters, this will allow a lot of people in awful situations to move on. The biggest problem is still the banks, they don't have any money and are not in a position to lend, that is until an enterprising bank enters the market and they start to lose market share, remember BOS entering the market in '99 anyone..? However as it is the eve of Christmas and with good will to all, I predict using my patented Porsche barometer that from Q3 2014 we will see a significant improvement in the economy and peoples expectations, not quite there yet people but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel or is that just the door of Angela's hen coup as she checks her chickens

Day 1623 of The Recession

On a follow up to my last post, we are still in recession, although they would have you believe we are experiencing green shoots, let's see now, Greece is still owing 300m, Spain has 25% unemployment in its youth, although the King has sold his yacht, this helps some what. Our banking debt has been converted to Government debt ( our's) all 120m of it. However due to lack of supply house prices in Dublin have risen along side the rental market. The UK is moving decidedly toward the right with UKIP now challenging the Torys in their heartland. All in all a mixed bag, good points.......eeeem......it's not snowing, job market has stabilised, I am using my patented Porsche algorithm, this allows for the number of Porsche sightings to directly correlate with improvements in the economy. On the Porsche algorithm index of 1 to 5 with 5 being "Ireland has found to have the largest oil field in the world discovered in Ringsend" we are currently 1.5 a hug leap from being .5 a year ago.

Day 1398 of the Recession

In my last post I commented on the fact that Greece would be leaving the Euro and that Spain would be taking some Pain from the IMF, both clearly have not taken place. Yet the world is in no better shape and the Germans are using the tactic of delay in the hope that it will all improve if left alone. We have a new French Government in Place, the English are lost at see and have no focus, we are on the cover of Time for being good at taking abuse and Spain is in such a decline that I suspect that any amount of money is not going to prop it up. Fact being that if it was in anyway savable this would have happened already. Our much sought after separation of the sovereign debt from the bank debt deal, is now being pushed out to March of next year in the meantime we have to go through another painful budget with cuts around services and entitlements rather than with the people responsible for them, namely the civil servants. If we could get this deal across the line we would genuinely be in a better place and would make a much quicker recovery. Final note, the claim issued by the Central bank that it will take House prices 20 years to rise to Celtic Tiger levels, this is a load of bull, no one wants Celtic Tiger levels of house prices, we are all quite happy for a stable housing market where your house will appreciate in value along side inflation. Also it stated that wage cost are prohibitive, this is a direct reflection of the fact that we have the highest home ownership in Europe, it makes more sense in Germany for wage costs to be lower when over 50% of the population rent so a smaller % of your income goes out on living expenses than in Ireland.

Day 1278 of the Recession

As we head into the summer months, the world still finds itself troubled with Greece about to go its own way and Spain about to take some pain, how much is still to be decided. I am sure Christine Legarde of the IMF, who has been chiding Greeks for not paying tax while she enjoys a tax free salary, will decide how much pain to apply to Spain and Greece and leave Germany in a better position. Does it not dawn on people like Christine that the rest of us are the market place for German goods and if we have no money...... I am currently reading the biography of Harry S Truman, under the new deal that Roosevelt was implementing there were only 94 Republican Senators in the Senate and the house had less. He also had 4% of the population in 1935 controlled 80% of the money, so if Obama and America want to get a new deal in, they need to have less republicans around. Our own troubles in Ireland are compounded by the bank guarantee, we as a nation are now controlled by this debt, with no way to offset it. we have the faintest hope that NAMA will be able to sell off the 39B in assets and loans it now has at a small profit and only then will we be able to get out of the debt crisis we find ourselves in. This will prove to be a task too far, until we have debt forgiveness or indeed default we will not get rid of this debt. All those in favour of default stand up.......thought so, well you can sing for forgiveness.

Year end

Year end and where do we find ourselves as a country, people and individuals. out their in the Irish world, their are still people who are not affected by the recession, in fact they find everything a bit cheaper! and wonder why. The rest of us PAYE are Paying All Your Earnings to everybody but not recieving anything substantial for it. I am afraid that this is going to be the story for the moment and the conversation of choice around the dinner tables of D4. Slowley we see the 148 people classed with destroying the country getting their day in the courts as €€€ amount after €€€ amount is charged against them, we watch the deals being done and the bankruptcy's being entered into and take cold comfort from it.

Meanwhile people are ending up in John of Gods and St Pats and not understanding why they are there. The point being that as the year closes we all need to take a deep breath and listen to our fellow man, listen for signs of weakness, listen so they can talk and if you need to talk I hope that you find a listener. No judgements, no advice just listen. That's all people want and need for the moment, to understand that they are with the group and not isolated. So when you meet someone and go on about all the Christmas nights out and party's you have attended, listen and understand that they may not have been on any this year, may not have been out and have no prospect of getting out, they are only smiling at you to stop themselves from hitting you.

Day 1095 of the Recession

Well some of my ardent Blog followers may be wondering why I have waited 1095 days to make another pithy commentary on the recession, well to be truthful I was hoping it would have been over by now.... not to be.
Instead Ireland are been held up as the whipping boys for Greece to behave and come on side......listen hear Papandreau if you don't cut your costs we'll do to you what we did to Ireland......no no please Madam Merkel anything but that.
So my friends how has the recession been for you, comforted to know that while you struggle to keep a job, the cost of all basics are going up, your mortgage has gone up if you were not on a tracker and your income has gone down.
We now have a plethora of additional tax's with more to come, additional tolling to be added to the M50.
Funny how when you look into the recession and see that NAMA could sell 3 London hotels for the outstanding loans plus interest, then why couldn't these have been left with the banks and everybody sit tight and within 1000 days off load the loans for face value, a bit of funding to keep the banks on day to day running and they may have been able to sort out there own balance sheets without costing the tax payer
Funny how there is talk of over supply of apartments in the city, 25,000 talked of, yet when you look into it there is only 4,500 apts for rent and a shortage of apts in some areas with strong rents holding up in all areas of the city.

If we had all set tight what might have been for a lot less money.

Then and now.

The date was December 11th 1984, the venue was the Aragon Ballroom on Lawrence avenue in Chicago. The event was the 3rd leg of the Unforgettable Fire tour by U2. A young man who had arrived in the summer of '84 ( live aid hadn't happened yet for Bono) went to his first U2 concert. I remember them playing "Sunday" and at the end everybody was singing 40. It took a cold Chicago night in an ancient ballroom to make a fan. I remember them stopping the concert to allow the crowd to push back as there was crushing up front, I remember thinking how I hadn't really heard of them.

To the present and a warm evening in Croke Park on the 25th July 09, just a quick 25 years later and a dad brings his 11 year old boy to see his first rock concert, his arms wrapped around me and rocking out. When they played "Beautiful Day" early on the tears rolled down my cheeks...

A bit of cop on people!!

At a party recently the conversation turned as it inevitably would to the recession and how it affects people. At this point I would take it that everybody knows about the recession and is tired of talking about it. So a bit of courtesy to your fellow man while discussing the recession in a group situation.

It is not all right to ask "are you still in a job"
It is not all right to say " your industry is in a lot of trouble, redundancy's coming your way"
It is not all right to say " have you taken a pay cut yet!!!!"
It is not all right to say " have you heard about Bob...."
It is not all right to say " strong rumour going about, your company is about to close..."
It is not all right to ask " is your wife/partner still working?, then you'll be all right if you lose your job"
It is not all right to say " how's that 3 day week working out for you..."
It is not all right to say " are you able to pay your mortgage...."
It is not all right to say " so Bob your out of work since last summer, how are things going...."

Am I making my point clear here, its none of your business and if people cannot attend a party without being asked these kind of questions, then you should stay home and do us all a favour, because it might be you that's next.

Customer Service

When we look at the statement "customer service" and it's use over the last ten years, it doesn't look good, in fact it stinks. Companies who have used "customer service" to their benefit are better placed today to survive, while companies who viewed acceptable customer service as a spotty sixteen year old part-timer are wondering where all the customers are.

Retailing jobs have been devalued over the years into a temporary position on the way to another "better" position. However through out all the recessions, retailing is the one industry that emerges stronger and better able to adapt. The company that offers a true and effective level of customer service as a standard throughout its history will be better able to retain customers and compete with their competitors.

Hard to achieve, yes! harder for large organisations where the ideal is watered down by the time it reaches the front line. A quality manager who views his store as his "business" will actively promote customer service as it reflects on him how the store is perceived. However a "quality" manager will also cost, are you prepared to pay for this and then pro actively manage it so as the promised returns are achieved?

A very thin line between Operations manager, Area manager and Store manager must be achieved so as the Store manager perceives that he is part of the business and his opinions counts, you need a thick skinned area manager to achieve this and an Operations manager that is questioned on performance daily by the CEO. Remember the front line pay the back line.

Year end!

It strikes me as we near the end of 2008, that the capacity of events to surprise us is diminishing fast. Can this be a good thing? If you look back at the events both good and bad over the last year each of the main events would stand out on their own as a major news event. However because there have been so many major news events we are now sensitised to the breaking news and are not all standing around in front of the TV set saying " imagine that, it's unbelievable".

I ask the question again, is this a good place for the world to be in? What can happen that will truly surprise us, shake us up, put us into action? For myself I look back to the tsunami off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia.This happened in 2004 and resulted in the lifeforce of 225,000 people being wiped out in hours. This resulting loss of humanity, the largest single loss in terms of hours that the current population has seen. The resulting shock wave of anguish never materialised and set forth the view that we are immune to large news events.

This would suggest that a nuclear incident in a large city would not have us in too large of a panic, in other words after the first 24 hour news cycle we will have started to move onto the next event. So large or small, the effect of news to impact on our lives diminishes in direct proportion to the more outlandish the news becomes. Again the question, is this a good thing?

Happy new year to all, we as humans can only be positive and look after each other.

Flapping in panic

The world at a cross roads and a new President elect collide, the resulting supernova will be a birth or a death pain. The possibilities are now endless with all cards on the table, a serious of moves and solution's will now be pushed through many governments, given a mixed bag of results.

The fact that the way forward is uncharted, but still must be governed by rules, does not inspire a level of confidence. For those now in there mid forty's, when you look back to your younger years, the possibility then that the people in government new what they were doing gave a small comfort. These people were for the most part over forty themselves, now those who find that they are in there forty's are for the most part the people in government. This again as you look around your office at the buffoons employed their, does not instil a level of confidence that the situation will be remedied any time soon.

The current crop of forty somethings are those in charge and this is there time, from now on they will steadily become older than the next crop of forty somethings that will come into governments and therefore will start to lose the small grip they have on decisions being made that can effect them and there welfare. This will be a crucial time and the future will now more than ever reflect the decisions being made today in your name.

So while today's forty somethings can have an impact on decisions, it is time to get involved, time to monitor and protest decisions. Time to make a decision to engage with the political process and to leave a small legacy to how you will be treated and looked after in years to come. 20 years from now upon retirement age, do you want your pension plan to have dropped 30% and counting?

Day 93 of the recession

It is now possible to have any toxic debt you may posses bought by the US government to leave yourself free to enjoy your life style and like Catholic confession absolve yourself from any blame or guilt you might entertain, if you are a large bank that is. Wouldn't that be a nice position for any mere mortal who strives to fulfil all their obligations to their family's, co-workers, employers, governments. That our only requirement at the end of the day is to pay all our bills not amount debt that could sink a battleship and have some cash left over for an illicit drug (alcohol works for me).
It seems to me that GWB top 1% of tax payers has once again received a get out of jail card. Thanks to all the other 99% of GWB taxpayers who now have to foot this bill and live in an altered banking universe, where mortgages that seemed reasonable are now prohibitive, your job may be outsourced, your mortgage outsourced, your war outsourced hell even your government may be outsourced...

It is quite possible that when the dust settles and people are better able to understand the effects of all the turmoil, that we will have an era of a shrinking marketplace, with less cash to spend and less jobs to earn it from.

Day 3 of the recession

Dinned last night in a family restaurant around 6.30pm to 8pm, Wednesday night cold and windy, the place was packed. We need to be careful folks that we do not convince ourselves that we are in recession. The building and house business have gone into freefall, just an adjustment, but the fundamentals are strong, Let us not panic but continue to shop in a circumspect manor. Indication are that June has been a better month than May and hopefully the Summer sales will carry forward consumer confidence. August and September will be quiet, I am prediction a good Christmas. People will be so tired of restraint by then that they will give it one last fling.

Marketing & Footfall

Footfall & Marketing are so intractably linked that the two should always be referred to whenever you are producing a report. Footfall is the lifeblood of retail and Marketing drives footfall. Nothing in terms of marketing is too small, everything has some effect. It is important that you have some system of recording footfall, even if it is a basic beam system. With new technology available, the camera system which can distinguish between groups of people and count them separately is a relatively cheap piece of equipment. It should be on the agenda of every centre manager, large shop manager etc.

When referring to footfall during an event it is also important to give alternative information, such as past counts, weather for the event and past events, other events on at the same time and any other pertinent information. This will help contextualise your information. Don't be afraid of Marketing, encourage individual retailers to carry out there own, instigate marketing opportunity's in the area and with the local community. Involve your retail outlet.

Wobbley Moment

When you have been working on an idea and have developed it as far as a presentation to all and the day is looming for that presentation. It is never good when someone loses there nerve and feels compromised by your presentation. When this someone wants to cancel and regroup, to make a new presentation that they may have more control over or are afraid of the response to the presentation. It will take some skill on your part to walk all the relevant party's through the mess and finally get to the presentation. Of course you have to believe that you are right, even if the other party has panicked. You need to talk them through calmly what is going to happen what your expectations are what you envisage the result to be. Say to them that we have to follow through not in a bull headed way "by god Jim we are heading this way..." but in a reasoned, calm, thoughtful confident approach. Be aware of your own ability to deliver the presentation, practice, practice. Be aware and prepare for awkward questions. Use the stock answer "I'll get back to you on that...". You are in control and sometimes we do have to go forward even if it is a 50/50 chance that the whole thing could backfire.

If you find that it didn't go as expected use the line "sure the questions were aggressive but all in all they were positive because they were asking how we would move forward.....". Think it through, walk everybody towards the light and deliver. You may just come out as the saviour and that has got to be worth it.

Cool building

Retailers

Retailers as a group hunt in packs but when the going gets though it is each man for themselves, or perhaps lady in a nice pair of Jimmy Choos. Case in point, they all want business, they want customers, they want publicity. However when a day say like Sunday proves to be less profitable than hoped maybe they might opt out, just until things turn better. However everyone has to take the good with the bad and you can not opt in or out as suits. All in or all out, the customer comes calling once and does not like to be disappointed. Retailing unlike other avenues does not favour second chances, generally you get one shot. Those that do not want to play with the big fish need to answer some questions before they get onto the playing field, sorry a lot of mixed metaphor's there.

Contract Negotiations

A word of caution to all those out there who are thinking of moving companies, just to be aware that when you do all you can do by way of checking and double checking, contracts, job's, roles etc. Sometimes you still get caught out. My own position now turns out to not be what was advertised and they seem fit to tell me after 3 months in the role. So as precarious as my position is now, I still have to put in a performance and along with my new best friend my laywer, wait and see where the chips lay. At the end of it my goal is to preserve a role for myself and not to prove a point. Grandstanding and principal are for those who are flusher than myself and maybe more foolhardy. For remember it is better to have a role than not, it is better to move to a new role from an existing one and principal does not pay.

Think you had a bad week!!

My week started with a phone call...Saturday morning 8.30am.

When you have a large building to manage with different service partners on board, it is amazing how many have to attend one problem. A blocked sewer!!!!

It is also helpful when chooseing service partners that they are available, to find out on Saturday morning that my sump pump service partners were currently supporting Ireland in Paris at the rugby made the maintenance contract worthwhile.

They currently have in there possion the sump pump they took out on Monday ( nice of them to show up ) and are prepared to charge me for repairing or replacing, I am now looking for an alternative quote for a new pump and will if its the right price install it. They can hang on to the pump they took out, maybe frame it.