A thought on the recession
Pfff… this crunchy credit’s getting a bit hard to swallow, I might have to cancel my numerous magazine subscriptions and cut back on my capitalist ritualistic Cafe Nero coffee drinking… sure.
You see, in the UK and pretty much around the whole world there’s this ‘recession’ thing. What, you didn’t know about that? I say the whole world, but you can only really have a recession if there was some previous economic growth, so third-world countries – I’m afriad you’re out of the game!
So in the UK there’s a recession, but there isn’t really a recession, but of course there is. Quite why we’re in this ‘current economic climate’ no-one knows, and to be honest absolutely no-one knows. Gordon Brown thinks he knows, he doesn’t know. Whoah I’m getting all political on a web design blog! I’m really sorry, but this is my blog so I retain artistic license.
Heavy pockets
Come on now, have the prices of banannas and that sweet French cheese you like really gone up? Petrol – going down, mortgage/interest rates have generally gone down, in fact the only things in my day-to-day routine that have become more expensive are train tickets; and that was going to happen anyway.
You could argue on the other hand that people have taken pay cuts or lost their jobs. But why? Because this whole god-darn recession bollocks is cycled by a fear culture. People are afraid to spend money because ‘there’s a recession’, when they don’t even know what the fuck a recession is! This cycles through the market and causes a chain reaction which ultimately results in businesses cutting away staff because their clients don’t want to spend as much money because their clients are scared to spend too much money… and so on.
I may be wrong. Please feel free to correct me if I am. I really don’t have the time to study economics and current politics while juggling my job and web designy stuff. But hey, if this recession has it’s way who’s to say I’ll even have a job soon – so that will give me all the time in the world to catch up on all that complex economics. It must be really complex because some of the best in business have still managed to fuck up royally!
But, the 2 things that annoy me about this situation are thus:
- Naughty newspapers. The media has fuelled everything. By striking fear in to everyone the media has successfully managed to reduce consumer spending which has crippled the GDP and fuelled everything further. Is there a hidden agenda?
- House of cards. In order to keep things afloat, business are having to reduce salaries, make redundancies and in some cases collapse like a house of cards with everyone loosing their jobs.
House of Cards
Business panic, or they get clever and consider that in a few months time cash is going to be tighter than it is now – so it’s time to cut away staff now to save a bit of pocket money (so top-level management can ensure they still get that chunky bonus and new company car at the end of the year).
Problem is, the majority of the time the staff that have to go are the people at the bottom of the food chain. The little people, the young people, the less-established or experienced, the production staff. Why this is bad:
- Young, inexperienced, little CV – it’s going to be so easy to get a new job now eh?
- You’re left with plenty of managers but no-one to manage – ace!
- You take away the people on the shop-floor, the production staff in a design agency, the assistants, interns, trainees in any company and things will start to fall apart. You remove the bottom cards from a house of cards and it’s going to fall. And the cards in the middle are going to get crushed.
I couldn’t decide which was a better analogy – house of cards or human pyramid… the pyramid might have been funnier!
My advice to the people at the bottom
Coming from someone else at the bottom – if the big-wigs are looking to chop out some company expenditures and you’re top of the list, work your ass off. If you’re really appreciated then hopefully you’re company will go out of their way to keep you on. If not, maybe it wasn’t the right place for you, try somewhere else and in 6 months time you might be looking back laughing, thinking “What the hell was I doing there?!”.
And if that doesn’t work out, run away to Australia. Everyone else is!
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Clay McIlrath said:
Dude, you’re right on with this post. Every word hits it.
Now here’s a possible solution..
What’s the best way to reverse the media’s negativity and get people to spend..? Use the media to spread an anti-recession campaign. We can’t leave it up to the guys at the top of the pyramid to fix this.. if we’re messed up in our thinking at the bottom, that crookedness only travels up. So we need to rebuild a foundation.. a belief in spending again.
With that said, what do you think about a website/team that starts an anti-recession campaign? Something that lets you track your progress and encourages spending, similar to a go green site i’ve seen (don’t remember the url), and the more you spend and give to the economy the higher your authority and sharing. We could do the whole shabang.. chain emails, viral marketing, blogs, fundraisers.. if you’re interested, let me know.. it would need a good team of developers and writers
Jaymie Jones said:
Right on! I agree 100% with this article/rant.
Newspapers and reporters are nothing but fear mongers. What do you usually see on a news report or in a paper? its all doom and gloom, and then they see this great golden “recession” ooo this will keep us going for years, god bless this “recession”.
IT IS STUPID!
Craig - Abrishca Digital Media said:
They say we are having a recession here in Australia also, but so far I have experienced nil effect! I believe it is the BIG players that will get hurt the most – they have the most to lose….
Darren T said:
I agree that recessions are largely fuelled by the media. They report a recession, everyone believes there’s a recession and reins in expenditure accordingly, therefore the recession deepens. Classic self-fulfilling prophecy.
If they reported an ‘economic slow-down’ there would be much less in the way of widespread spending panic. But then ‘economic slow-down’ doesn’t make for attention-grabbing headlines, and they’re what sells newspapers. It’s a dying industry desperate to wring any last drop of sensationalism out of whatever they can get their hands on, but unfortunately it goes straight to the global economy’s bottom line.
Katie said:
I think it is tough for any company at the minute, hopefully making sure you can offer something someone else may be can’t will help you. I work for a digital design agency and each week we hear of another company that has gone out of business it is really sad and I feel awful for the people.
nathan said:
Well that’s a positive first batch of comments, I was expecting some aggression!
@Clay – I think an anti-recession campaign website is quite ambitious, fight back against the brainwashing media! I’m afraid I don’t have the time to put into something like that but all the best if you go for it!
@Craig – I’m interested to know how the economy’s faring in Oz. It seems half the English population are escaping over there at the moment!
@Darren – too true. I find it amusing that an actual economic recession was only officially announced a fortnight ago, yet the papers have been declaring it for months! So now the media predicts the future? Or just helps to create it? Well they’ve done a bloody good job this time of fueling a crisis that’s putting thousands of people out of work and even homeless.
@Katie – it is indeed awful. It affects everyone as well, not just the people loosing their jobs and companies going out of business but everyone’s moral. The fear of loosing your job can be really depressing, I know this not so much from experience but from witnessing friends and family who’ve been through it, and it’s a knock-on effect.
Thanks for the views guys.
Craig - Abrishca Digital Media said:
@Nathan – I’m not sure if it is the same everywhere, but here in Oz it has affected some but not others. BUT…I live in a regional area (not capital city) and I believe we are faring quite well. Fingers crossed anyway
Matt said:
Nice post, that is a pretty good picture of whats going on right now all over. I don’t think there is an end in sight, but working hard can’t hurt your chances of keeping your job.
Patrick said:
Agree on the working hard, but it is very frustrating seeing the chain reaction of clients unwilling to commit to what they need to do to maintain and grow their businesses. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Ah well. Nose back to grindstone…
Day Two Webdesign said:
Well Nathan, how about we get this post of yours more on-topic than you might have thought for!
Webdesign services actually are a good way to make use of a ‘recession’ situation. After all, a good new website can help to attract new customers, do more business, and hire more people.
That means YOU can have the Obama touch (or was it Midas?)…!
Just by doing what you do! Well is that great, or what?!
nathan said:
@Day Two Webdesign – I’d like to think that the current climate is good for our industry but I know a lot of big companies are cutting their marketing budgets. We’ll see how things pan out eh!
Thanks everyone for your comments
Will said:
Recessions are a funny thing. A friend of mine just started his own IT Consulting shop. He does front end development and some backend. He is thriving now because big companies are looking to save on web projects and don’t want to pay big digital shops $200 per hour to design the graphics, develope HTML and write .Net or Java code. So they are willing to go to guys like my buddy for smaller projects who are just as good but charge probably half as much.
Sanghmitra said:
The causes of recession are in my list of things everyone knows can be avoided if they behave in a particular manner but they won’t. And whats with your ‘hidden agenda’? You believe in those conspiracy theories.. zeitgeist kind?
Gold Coin Rate said:
I some how feel and like to see the positive side of the current recession, all together. This period of tough times will definitely teach us how to sail through troubled waters and also, the necessity for savings. Am I right dude?
Dape said:
Some of the things you say are correct but not all. The comments I hear about the recession is that we are all heading for doom and gloom. We should be optimistic about what comes next because if anything the media brings to our attention elements of corruption and misguided funds. Recently there has been much controversy regarding the ‘Fat Cats’ in the UK and how they seem to have rock solid contracts,that even pay them bonuses when they fail to perform, which in my eyes is madness but it just goes to show how powerless the average person has over there future. There will always be people that lead and there will always be people that follow, I belong in the second group, unfortunately. I am very lucky to have a well paid job that pays the bills and such like and as time goes on I become more grateful to the powers that be, that reward me for my hard work. I can remember when I was on the picket line in the miners strike fighting for an ideal, thirty odd years on and those mines are now housing estates or retail complexes. The point that I am making is what ever is happening now will just be a memory ten years from now.
nathan said:
@Dape – that’s weirdly reassuring point, that whatever’s happening now will be just a memory in 10 years. Regardless of that, it doesn’t quite make the situation any better. It doesn’t help divert the anger and frustration of those out of work due to, or at least partly due to other people’s incompetence.
John said:
I agree with your analysis of a fear-fueled recession. People don’t know how secure their jobs are so they don’t spend so the people whose goods they’re not buying don’t have the money to spend etc.
As a new web designer I’m pretty narked – I spent months learning SEO and finally got our website up to no 1 for our local town just as the recession kicked in!!
Jeff at Free Movies said:
Just look at the violence in the recent protests. Even the head of the Homeland Security Department said the world is on the brink of chaos. I believe the frustration among the unemployed, and mothers/fathers unable to feed their children, is fueling the fire that will take back the wealth stolen from them by politicians and corporate executives.
Designaweb (BSE) Ltd said:
The recent recession is definitely having a knock on effect on all industries. I have found that more recently; new clients who are enquiring about a new website project are more interested in the price than the actual services you will provide in the package. You can also find that you are up against several competitors that may even do the web design project at a loss as long as they get the job. Don’t get me wrong I believe competition is a good thing but if we end up working for nothing it will prove to be a loss to both the provider and the end client.
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Glendelm Web Design said:
You’re spot on with this post. And I agree with the person who posted before me, this blog is absolutely fantastic, and I too have learnt a lot here.
Thank you,
Matt