Comics - Recession proof or not?

[kimik]

No question that Wall Street was blinded by its own greed and is heavily responsible for the mess we're seeing. However, they are not the only ones with cap in hand asking for a bailout - many people got in over their heads, buying houses they could never hope to actually pay for, because of their own greed and stupidity. They felt "entitled" to their piece of the American Dream and now they, too, are asking for a government bailout and consulting predatory lawyers to try again to get something for nothing. The banks shouldn't have given them loans, but there's no question that all but a few knew what they were getting into and didn't care, and are now trying to lay blame on anyone but themselves.

 

Good points. I can still remember seeing that interview with the Playboy Bunny who was going to get rich by using the money from her shoot to invest.....I mean speculate.....real estate!

 

All of the people who owned spec houses should and will get burned. However, the people I feel for the most are the ones with good credit who are going to get screwed by Wall Street/Big Banks with higher cc and mortgage rates to cover the losses from their greed driven predatory/unsound lending practices. If anyone should have rates frozen it is these people, not the ones in trouble IMHO

[divad]

predatory lawyers to try again to get something for nothing.

 

Just a tad redundant . . .

[Shark]

I'd like to thank everybody who has participated in this thread for their input. I thought I might get a few responses when I started the thread but the amount of input has been great. A lot of food for thought in here. Thanks again!

 

Mike

[musicmeta]

what would I do if, worse case scenario, they suddenly (or over the long haul), litterally became "worthless" to the masses... knowing that it won't affect me, or

 

 

I think, for the most part, comics ARE worthless to the masses. There's an idea out there that they are worth money, but that value is only real within our comic circles. Most people I know wouldn't pay $$ or $$$ or $$$$ for a comic book.

 

Comic book money comes after house, food, bills, clothes, and other practical expenses.

 

Very well stated. Only buy what you can afford AFTER the important stuff mentioned above.

[divad]

what would I do if, worse case scenario, they suddenly (or over the long haul), litterally became "worthless" to the masses... knowing that it won't affect me, or

 

 

I think, for the most part, comics ARE worthless to the masses. There's an idea out there that they are worth money, but that value is only real within our comic circles. Most people I know wouldn't pay $$ or $$$ or $$$$ for a comic book.

 

Comic book money comes after house, food, bills, clothes, and other practical expenses.

 

Very well stated. Only buy what you can afford AFTER the important stuff mentioned above.

 

When does the "after" ever come?

[Karma23]

No question that Wall Street was blinded by its own greed

 

Now there's a shocking new development

[nik]

Maybe in the "afterlife"

[october]

People should take Lou Dobbs with a big grain of salt. Outsourcing, and its economic impact, isn't understood by the vast majority of people who use it as a convenient scapegoat for half of our country's fiscal woes. It's nowhere NEAR the threat that most people think it is, and studies have shown that it results in a net wash. For every American job shipped overseas, there is another American job saved because a company doesn't have to close its doors. People think that the choice is between hiring American or hiring out of country when the REAL choice is often between hiring overseas or closing up shop...but that story doesn't get told because it doesn't tug the heartstrings or fuel disaffection. Then again, why let the facts get in the way of polical grandstanding?

[Karma23]

People should take Lou Dobbs with a big grain of salt. Outsourcing, and its economic impact, isn't understood by the vast majority of people who use it as a convenient scapegoat for half of our country's fiscal woes. It's nowhere NEAR the threat that most people think it is, and studies have shown that it results in a net wash. For every American job shipped overseas, there is another American job saved because a company doesn't have to close its doors. People think that the choice is between hiring American or hiring out of country when the REAL choice is often between hiring overseas or closing up shop...but that story doesn't get told because it doesn't tug the heartstrings or fuel disaffection. Then again, why let the facts get in the way of polical grandstanding?

 

I've read similar analysis but I wonder which jobs are being saved versus which ones are outsourced? Are we sending more white collar type jobs overseas and saving the grunt jobs, or is it the other way around?

[delekkerste]

People should take Lou Dobbs with a big grain of salt. Outsourcing, and its economic impact, isn't understood by the vast majority of people who use it as a convenient scapegoat for half of our country's fiscal woes. It's nowhere NEAR the threat that most people think it is, and studies have shown that it results in a net wash. For every American job shipped overseas, there is another American job saved because a company doesn't have to close its doors. People think that the choice is between hiring American or hiring out of country when the REAL choice is often between hiring overseas or closing up shop...but that story doesn't get told because it doesn't tug the heartstrings or fuel disaffection. Then again, why let the facts get in the way of polical grandstanding?

 

What utter poppycock...you must be getting rich off the sweat of the poor. Either that, or you're a heartless MBA student.

 

Just messin' with you...of course you're absolutely dead-on. (thumbs u

[Mr. Zipper]

I've read similar analysis but I wonder which jobs are being saved versus which ones are outsourced? Are we sending more white collar type jobs overseas and saving the grunt jobs, or is it the other way around?

 

Business schools, like politicians, use sets of facts that are not completely unbiased. I can't help but wonder what kind of jobs are being saved by outsourcing. In the past 10 years I've worked for 2 Fortune 100 companies that have essentially sent every IT and call center job overseas. Rank and file pension plans have been cut, benefit plans have been cut and raises are a pittance.

 

Yet, the top 5% gets more and more every year. Some of my work is in incentive/deferred compensation. I see what these men and women get while rank-and-file is being "right-sized." It's eye popping. The gulf between the average employee and the top 5% has increased at a staggering rate.

[adamstrange]

People should take Lou Dobbs with a big grain of salt. Outsourcing, and its economic impact, isn't understood by the vast majority of people who use it as a convenient scapegoat for half of our country's fiscal woes. It's nowhere NEAR the threat that most people think it is, and studies have shown that it results in a net wash. For every American job shipped overseas, there is another American job saved because a company doesn't have to close its doors. People think that the choice is between hiring American or hiring out of country when the REAL choice is often between hiring overseas or closing up shop...but that story doesn't get told because it doesn't tug the heartstrings or fuel disaffection. Then again, why let the facts get in the way of polical grandstanding?

 

What utter poppycock...you must be getting rich off the sweat of the poor. Either that, or you're a heartless MBA student.

 

I choose both.

[october]

People should take Lou Dobbs with a big grain of salt. Outsourcing, and its economic impact, isn't understood by the vast majority of people who use it as a convenient scapegoat for half of our country's fiscal woes. It's nowhere NEAR the threat that most people think it is, and studies have shown that it results in a net wash. For every American job shipped overseas, there is another American job saved because a company doesn't have to close its doors. People think that the choice is between hiring American or hiring out of country when the REAL choice is often between hiring overseas or closing up shop...but that story doesn't get told because it doesn't tug the heartstrings or fuel disaffection. Then again, why let the facts get in the way of polical grandstanding?

 

What utter poppycock...you must be getting rich off the sweat of the poor. Either that, or you're a heartless MBA student.

 

Just messin' with you...of course you're absolutely dead-on. (thumbs u

 

Speaking of getting rich off the sweat of the poor, the only thing more misguided than the crusade against outsourcing is the call to shut down sweatshops overseas. Talk about hotbutton politics clouding economic realities....

 

 

[skypinkblu]

People should take Lou Dobbs with a big grain of salt. Outsourcing, and its economic impact, isn't understood by the vast majority of people who use it as a convenient scapegoat for half of our country's fiscal woes. It's nowhere NEAR the threat that most people think it is, and studies have shown that it results in a net wash. For every American job shipped overseas, there is another American job saved because a company doesn't have to close its doors. People think that the choice is between hiring American or hiring out of country when the REAL choice is often between hiring overseas or closing up shop...but that story doesn't get told because it doesn't tug the heartstrings or fuel disaffection. Then again, why let the facts get in the way of polical grandstanding?

 

What utter poppycock...you must be getting rich off the sweat of the poor. Either that, or you're a heartless MBA student.

 

Just messin' with you...of course you're absolutely dead-on. (thumbs u

 

Speaking of getting rich off the sweat of the poor, the only thing more misguided than the crusade against outsourcing is the call to shut down sweatshops overseas. Talk about hotbutton politics clouding economic realities....

 

Of course ONE of the problems, is filling those jobs that were sent overseas , here...I'm not a huge fan of outsourcing, mainly because I rarely understand the tech people I have to call in India...and most are reading from a transcript...but for lots of the manufacturing jobs, we just don't have the people who are willing to work for those kinds of wages doing those kinds of jobs or willing to LEARN what is needed to do the jobs and we are not talking about minimum wage.

 

How do I know? A lot of years, working for the Dept of Labor and a lot of job fairs with available positions that personally, I would have taken, if I HAD to, but many people stuck their noses up at them...and yes, it's very sad when engineers and others have to take lower, or different positions, I've seen so much of that and it's heart breaking...and I remember interviewing a LOT of people who lost their jobs due to mass layoffs, IBM (they used to tell me it meant, "I've Been Moved"), General Foods, GM, you name it, been there, done that, the ones who were flexible, were OK, the ones who were not, really suffered..... When my husband lost his job, he took something way below his capabilites, and eventually he moved on...but he never complained that it was beneath him, he was happy to find something...( I think I have to give him a hug;)

 

How many people go to school and CHECK to see what careers make sense before they decide what to study? I know I sure didn't, it was not the thing at the time I went...but in the past 10-20 years, there have been lots of shifts...Health care (nursing) was hot one year, and the next year it was overcrowded, and then it went back, but the projections showed that would be the case, if anyone bothered to look. Certain types of teaching jobs are hard to find, there are just too many people who want to teach certain subjects and not others, well, if you want to teach English for example, you will have to compete with about 50 people for each position, switch to Math or Science and write your own ticket. For a few years (sorry Andy) jobs as attorneys, were just not available. People never took that into consideration, it was as if ...well, I graduated, I studied this, I am now ENTITLED to a job in that field...but there were lots of others in that same field...too many, it's just that they liked the sound of that particular field.

 

There is a lot of information on the web now...if you have kids on their way to college...make sure what they plan to study makes sense as far as the job market OF THE FUTURE goes...and make sure if there is a change...that they are willing to change with it.

I wanted to be an art teacher...those were the first people to be fired...so, I wound up switching...not my first choice for SURE;) However, I am lucky enough to be able to go with the flow...and it saved me.

 

[action1kid]

No question that Wall Street was blinded by its own greed

 

Now there's a shocking new development

 

What more proof do you want that Wallstreet is blind by their statement that there not sure if we are in a recession.Why cant they see it.?Because they look through the eyes of the the privileged class only, .billion dollar companies and Mega rich corporate ceo,s..YOUR NOT GOING TO SEE A RECESSION IN THAT CLASS UNTIL IT IS WELL EMBEDDED INTO THE ECONOMY. The eyes of the middle class are were you see a recession comming before everyone else.Any small business could have told you 2 years ago that this was coming.Sometimes being small has its advantage.

[JiveTurkeyMoFo]

I've read similar analysis but I wonder which jobs are being saved versus which ones are outsourced? Are we sending more white collar type jobs overseas and saving the grunt jobs, or is it the other way around?

 

Business schools, like politicians, use sets of facts that are not completely unbiased. I can't help but wonder what kind of jobs are being saved by outsourcing. In the past 10 years I've worked for 2 Fortune 100 companies that have essentially sent every IT and call center job overseas. Rank and file pension plans have been cut, benefit plans have been cut and raises are a pittance.

 

Yet, the top 5% gets more and more every year. Some of my work is in incentive/deferred compensation. I see what these men and women get while rank-and-file is being "right-sized." It's eye popping. The gulf between the average employee and the top 5% has increased at a staggering rate.

 

Of course, the top 5% DESERVE to be making that money...it takes a lot of balls and brains to "right-size" and "leverage their employees".

 

Let's not kid ourselves. I've met lots of people in upper management, very few of who I would consider to be exceptional leaders, thinkers, or do-ers. Most are corporate leeches who politic their way to the top and do whatever it takes to stay there. The corporate structure in America today is as Byzantine as ever, and there are few if any entitlements for loyal and dedicated employees anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

[Mr. Zipper]

Let's not kid ourselves. I've met lots of people in upper management, very few of who I would consider to be exceptional leaders, thinkers, or do-ers. Most are corporate leeches who politic their way to the top and do whatever it takes to stay there. The corporate structure in America today is as Byzantine as ever, and there are few if any entitlements for loyal and dedicated employees anymore.

 

I've met a lot of very bright, hyper ambitious high level executives. Some of them are visionary, widely-respected, and inspirational. Yet almost as many are there and stay there because they know how to play the game and suck the life out of everyone that reports to them.

 

The ones that fail are like baseball managers. No matter how badly they suck and how much they are despised, they get a huge severance and quickly land at some other company that will grossly overpay them. It's almost as mind-boggling as the prices SNE gets for common midgrade books.

[skypinkblu]

Let's not kid ourselves. I've met lots of people in upper management, very few of who I would consider to be exceptional leaders, thinkers, or do-ers. Most are corporate leeches who politic their way to the top and do whatever it takes to stay there. The corporate structure in America today is as Byzantine as ever, and there are few if any entitlements for loyal and dedicated employees anymore.

 

I've met a lot of very bright, hyper ambitious high level executives. Some of them are visionary, widely-respected, and inspirational. Yet almost as many are there and stay there because they know how to play the game and suck the life out of everyone that reports to them.

 

The ones that fail are like baseball managers. No matter how badly they suck and how much they are despised, they get a huge severance and quickly land at some other company that will grossly overpay them. It's almost as mind-boggling as the prices SNE gets for common midgrade books.

 

[Silver Surfer]

Had a chat with Marnin Rosenberg a few months back and he said that every recession he has witnessed it usually ends up being a banner year. Looks like 2008 will be no exception.

 

 

Considering we've only had 5 recessions in the last 40 years (and the two in the early 1980s practically ran together, so really we've only had 4), that statement doesn't really mean very much. Not to mention the world in 2008 looks a lot different than it did in, say, 1970 or 1981 - what kind of "recession" could you have had back then when you could already buy just about any book in existence with just the cash in your wallet.

 

We'll see how "recession-proof" the comic market really is now that prices are high enough to actually "recess".

 

Well lets not over analyse my comments too much. Perhaps "recession" is too strong of a word but lets just say when there is "market uncertainty". US might techincally not be in a "recession" but what do you call it when foreclosures at are an all time high and still climbing and the nationwide housing market (generally speaking) is in the toliet; brisk, rosey?

[Calamerica]

People should take Lou Dobbs with a big grain of salt. Outsourcing, and its economic impact, isn't understood by the vast majority of people who use it as a convenient scapegoat for half of our country's fiscal woes. It's nowhere NEAR the threat that most people think it is, and studies have shown that it results in a net wash. For every American job shipped overseas, there is another American job saved because a company doesn't have to close its doors. People think that the choice is between hiring American or hiring out of country when the REAL choice is often between hiring overseas or closing up shop...but that story doesn't get told because it doesn't tug the heartstrings or fuel disaffection. Then again, why let the facts get in the way of polical grandstanding?

 

What utter poppycock...you must be getting rich off the sweat of the poor. Either that, or you're a heartless MBA student.

 

Just messin' with you...of course you're absolutely dead-on. (thumbs u

 

Speaking of getting rich off the sweat of the poor, the only thing more misguided than the crusade against outsourcing is the call to shut down sweatshops overseas. Talk about hotbutton politics clouding economic realities....

 

Of course ONE of the problems, is filling those jobs that were sent overseas , here...I'm not a huge fan of outsourcing, mainly because I rarely understand the tech people I have to call in India...and most are reading from a transcript...but for lots of the manufacturing jobs, we just don't have the people who are willing to work for those kinds of wages doing those kinds of jobs or willing to LEARN what is needed to do the jobs and we are not talking about minimum wage.

 

How do I know? A lot of years, working for the Dept of Labor and a lot of job fairs with available positions that personally, I would have taken, if I HAD to, but many people stuck their noses up at them...and yes, it's very sad when engineers and others have to take lower, or different positions, I've seen so much of that and it's heart breaking...and I remember interviewing a LOT of people who lost their jobs due to mass layoffs, IBM (they used to tell me it meant, "I've Been Moved"), General Foods, GM, you name it, been there, done that, the ones who were flexible, were OK, the ones who were not, really suffered..... When my husband lost his job, he took something way below his capabilites, and eventually he moved on...but he never complained that it was beneath him, he was happy to find something...( I think I have to give him a hug;)

 

This is well-worded and makes sense...

 

 

 

How many people go to school and CHECK to see what careers make sense before they decide what to study? I know I sure didn't, it was not the thing at the time I went...but in the past 10-20 years, there have been lots of shifts...Health care (nursing) was hot one year, and the next year it was overcrowded, and then it went back, but the projections showed that would be the case, if anyone bothered to look. Certain types of teaching jobs are hard to find, there are just too many people who want to teach certain subjects and not others, well, if you want to teach English for example, you will have to compete with about 50 people for each position, switch to Math or Science and write your own ticket. For a few years (sorry Andy) jobs as attorneys, were just not available. People never took that into consideration, it was as if ...well, I graduated, I studied this, I am now ENTITLED to a job in that field...but there were lots of others in that same field...too many, it's just that they liked the sound of that particular field.

 

Even Computer Science PHD's got glutted eventually...

 

PHD's: the Microbioligists, Immunologists, Chiropractors, Photographers( yes, the degreed ones with 8 year post-high-school educations) can't find work...but if you are willing to work at Costco, Wal-mart, Best Buy as an overqualified ANYTHING you can fight your way up to...nothing...

 

 

 

 

There is a lot of information on the web now...if you have kids on their way to college...make sure what they plan to study makes sense as far as the job market OF THE FUTURE goes...and make sure if there is a change...that they are willing to change with it.

I wanted to be an art teacher...those were the first people to be fired...so, I wound up switching...not my first choice for SURE;) However, I am lucky enough to be able to go with the flow...and it saved me.