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Trend: people aren't eating out anymore

The very crowded can't- get - a seat cafe I go to was empty at lunchtime today.

People have decided to bring their lunch to work to save money.

The good news is that cafes are having to get real about the crazy prices they like to charge.

Take this story of dining in Oklahoma - where like everywhere, the recession is "scorching the restaurant industry."

A cafe owner had to do something drastic or his restaurant would go under too.

So he started an all-you-can-eat sushi for $9.99.

And it brought the business back.

The recession will end in... how about 2012?

About time someone started getting real about how long and how deep this downturn / recession/ depression is really going to be.

Hail courageous Mr Husing.

In California Riverside County has sunk into a deep recession — potentially the most prolonged since the Great Depression — and might not recover until 2012, economist John Husing says in a report to the Riverside County Board of Supervisors.

Months ago, Husing said he saw recovery in 2010. He now predicts the rebound won't arrive until 2011 or 2012.

Going for broke - courts can't keep up with company failures

The law can't cope with the number of companies going broke.

It's becoming a world wide picture.

NBR reports Auckland’s High Court has had to schedule extra sessions to cope with the increasing number of companies going under.

The number of businesses being placed into liquidation is rising dramatically as the recession bites: last week in Auckland alone, more than 100 companies were called in court proceedings to be closed or placed into liquidation.

In the UK, a company which broadcasts English Premier League football under the name GTV to tens of thousands of subscribers across Africa has gone into liquidation.

In Minnesota today, the newspaper, the Star Tribune's move to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy puts 1,400 local workers' jobs in limbo.

A bombshell of a week

What a bombshell of a week.

Carved out from the landscape are many thousands of jobs and businesses collapsed or on the verge of it.

Quote of the week: "Everybody is trying to figure out how to survive"

It's from Brian Bethune, economist at IHS Global Insight and makes it sound as if a Hiroshima-type bomb has devastated the land.

But he's right as it's the way many people are feeling.

People have stopped spending. Warehouses are full of goods no-one at home or abroad want or can afford or use. Manufacturing has stopped.

And the layoffs this week? Who can keep up. Ford, NEC, Cessna, Kodak, Black & Decker, Boeing Co., Pfizer, Caterpillar, Home Depot, Target Corp, Starbucks, Saks, Warner Bros, Intel. Here's a list of the 100,000 or more in the US alone.

The records keep falling. Worst January ever for the Dow, the US economy's last quarter shrunk by more than since 1982 - meaning the USeconomy shrank at the fastest pace in 26 years.

And US unemployment lines have stretched to the longest on record, a sign that the U.S. labor market continues to worsen.

(Bomb photo credit: US National Archives)

Online shopping mall takes a hit

Telecom has had a reality check.

It has decided to close its online shopping mall Ferrit.

“Ferrit has continued to grow during the past three years but the current retail environment has meant the break-even point has shifted out a number of years. The decision has now been made to refocus and resources will be directed to other areas,”

Cafes next to fall?

People with designer dogs and flash clothes don't have to worry - yet.

But others are reaching for their basics brand instant coffee instead of their usual $4+ coffee fix.

Independent research house IbisWorld says coffee, small clothing stores and car dealerships face the biggest threat of going under as a deteriorating economy leads to more job losses.

Tyre manufacturing, car retailing, international airlines and real estate are among the jobsu most at risk..\

The US is "broke"

It's not easy telling the grim truth.
There has been an outcry in some quarters over the suggestion that US is in such serious trouble, it itself is broke.
The doom message came from Peter Schiff who is president of Euro Pacific Capital and author of "The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets" in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.
"The bad news is that our economy is broken and there is nothing the government can do to fix it. However, the free market does have a cure: it's called a recession, and it's not fun, easy or quick. But if we put our faith in the power of government to make the pain go away, we will live with the consequences for generations."

Schiff is no fool. He had been preaching the decline in the housing market way ahead of when it happened and at a time others were predicting nothing but boomtimes ahead.

Now they are talking of the D word after job figures

Figures out today in the US are causing the dreaded D word to be used.

In December 524,000 jobs were lost.

The New York Times reported it as "reflecting a pervasive fear among employers that if they fail to shed workers quickly their companies may go under in a recession poised to become the worst since the 1930s."

And unemployment hit a 16-year-high of 7.2 percent.

One way to drive people to drink