Unfortunately I think we’re heading for a longer downturn than the early 90’s as consumers now have such high levels of debt. Only quick fix to that would be rampant inflation and that wouldn’t be great for business either!

Keep up the good work with the podcasts - particularly enjoyed the interview with Clive B, who I notice has commented here - thanks Clive!

That said we did buy our first house back in Sept 90, paid our first mortgage payment at the heady interest rate of 15.95% and saw 30% fall off the value of our home over the following three years. Aside from that it didn’t affect me! Funny thing is we bought the house for that old fashioned reason: somewhere to live, rather than as something I expected to double my money on.

But to sail both counter to and with the wind:

As you know we sell into the retail sector. Sales for Jan-Jun 08 and up 6% on 07. A good performance. But Raw material and transport costs have gone through the roof and the weedy pound has hurt because we have significant euro purhcases and few euro sales. So I should probably be worried.

But I am optimistic. We have increased our marketing spend to stimulate demand and keep market share strong. That way if 09 is bloody (and I think it is 09 that will hold the hardest yards) but we maintain or improve market share, grit our teeth and keep our heads we should arrive the other side of the storm in a strong poistion to succeed as the economy turns up again.

We have the best team we have ever had on the pitch at the just the right time, and a brand which had zero value in 05 yet is now 20% of our business and has real international potential.

I’ll keep you posted, but I don’t intend to be on the casualty list.

On a related note, I think we’re in for a bit of a dot com bust. It’s just not sustainable to have all these Web 2.0 companies with an “advertising” business model. As soon as the economy goes soft, advertising money will dry up or at least slow down, and those hopeful businesses just will have to find some other way of making money. So I think we’re in for a shakeout — but it will be good because there are just too many players in the Web 2.0 space. There’s always a silver lining to any black cloud.

Anita

@Stephen The economy’s not purely built on inflated house prices. It’s built on a significant shift in people’s and banks’ attitudes to debt.

Power cells/batteries is where we really want innovation. Anyone who can invest a battery that can power my laptop for 12 hours and my electric car for the same period of time is going to be a billionaire. Wish I understood why this technology appears to be so hard to progress. Or maybe it’s the oil companies hindering progress?

At least it’s not bad news for everyone. Some first time buyers might have a chance getting on the property ladder in the next two to three years as prices fall.

And at least we’ll stop hearing Terry and Joanne talking about how they’ve “made five grand on their property in the last six months.”

Agree with Dave above. I was reading in Money Week this week that the dotcom bust caused people to stop, rethink and innovate new technologies such as broadband which helped stimulate the healthy internet we have today.

The article’s argument was the same thing will happen with energy given the current oil bubble we’re going through.

I really hope so as it’s killing me at the pumps.