These feel like heavy times, my friends.
Among national headlines in just the past few days were mass layoffs at shipping company DHL, the bankruptcy of top electronics chain Circuit City and a potential bailout for the gasping auto industry.
Spending cash is tight, credit is tight and even more Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck, which is what makes the news of failing businesses that much scarier.
While folks in these struggling industries are eager to paint happy faces on doom-and-gloom situations, the Northwest does seem to have fared better than other parts of the country. In large part, we avoided the four or five years of double-digit annual run up in home prices and continued to see businesses migrate to our region.
This could mean our region is going to fare better during a downturn or it could mean the worst is yet to come.
Either way, we’ve got to prepare now. Innovate, cut out the fat – but foster the resources that will keep your company going, such as top employees – and plan for the future so that as the economy turns upward, you’ll be in a position to seize opportunities like increasing market share and net revenues.
There is a reason we’re facing dark times – greed.
During the run up to the present situation, many residential builders, commercial and mortgage lenders and borrowers alike got greedy. They took advantage of a flood of inexpensive money in the U.S. economy and changes in the framework of banking.
Many Americans chose to live outside their means. Companies grew so fast, many, it seems, relying on credit to do so.
Before Americans as a whole became interested in carbon footprints and gas hit $4 a gallon, our country’s auto makers built bigger, bigger and still bigger vehicles because it was popular to drive Hummers, the ultimate symbol of excess.
While there is no doubt this country is in a mess, some good could come out of it. Perhaps with the decline of some mega-stores, we will see a rise in locally minded consumerism and a return to the way business used to be done.
Some small businesses are experimenting with barter exchanges as credit remains tight. This is exciting because it’s at the local level that we can sustain and grow our economy.
As reporter Charity Thompson discovered in her front-page story, while the economy is slowing to a crawl, at least 900 new businesses have opened since April in cities in Clark and Cowlitz counties. That’s not counting the cities for which there wasn’t available data.
And there have been several commercial land sales in Clark County in the million-dollar-range in the last few months.
So while there is no denying that the economy is slowing, even here in our little pocket of paradise there continues to be economic stimulation happening on various levels. Businesses can’t afford to be complacent or content to ride it out. Be vigilant, be resourceful, be visible and be ready.
