“Weak” Economy – What Does This Mean for Your Business, Boomers?
July 5, 2008 by Jean Murray
Well, I didn’t want to rain on the parade yesterday, but it looks like no good news in sight for the US economy. Bloomberg reported on Thursday that, for June:
- Jobs were cut
- Payrolls fell
- Unemployment remained at 5.5 percent (too high)
- Home prices continue to fall
- Gas prices continue to rise (causing people to adjust their 4th of July travel plans)
- And Starbucks will close 600 U.S. locations. I consider Starbucks kind of a bellwether- if they are cutting back, that means people are drinking less high-priced coffee, which means discretionary spending is being cut back. People are doing a lot of belt-tightening.
Is this a recession? What does this mean for your business? What are you doing differently?
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Most boomers have been through a recession or two or three. I reckon it’s about combining cold-eyed business pragmatism with entrepreneurial bravado.
I dug out some interesting official stats from the other side of the pond on the topic of recession in a recent blog post.
The pattern looks very similar to what happened in 1990/91.