not everything is falling

some businesses are failing. in fact, a lot of businesses are failing completely. a lot of people are going unemployed or underemployed. there are many industries which are built on the notion that people will always have disposable income that they would rather spend on consumer purchases than save for later times.

some businesses are thriving. nintendo had a great year, as did amazon. walmart, mcdonalds, etc will all do fine throughout this, as low cost sellers. differentiation companies, like starbucks, will have to rethink their entire perspective or face a grim year or two. and this will last at least through 2010.

so in the meantime, we have to look at this as an opportunity. in 2 million minutes, one of the commentators notes that Americans lack the basic economic urgency that Indians have, and thus are not as committed to innovation. well, I wouldn’t count on our security blankets to last too much longer. the financial bailout has done nothing. the auto bailout will do nothing. in the end, we will probably have to nationalize large swaths of public companies just to stay afloat. and to those laissez-faire free-market proponents, I’m sorry, you had your chance, people got greedy, and now we’re SOL.

what I ask myself, as a hopeful entrepreneur, is how to develop and deliver value to someone in a time when money is sparse, consumer confidence is low, and no one wants to buy anything. mainly I see that I don’t want to enter the job market anytime soon. even still, my prospects as far as employment opportunities/future education are looking great, so I’m not terribly worried. I’m worried for the rest of my peers. this may not be something that we bounce back from and grow stronger because of; this might be something that irrevocably changes the dynamics of the global economy. so what side of the globe will you be on when all is said and done?