Updated for 2011, this guide covers how to estimate, warranties and quantity discounts, an estimate form, design and engineering fees, service and installation hourly rates, a letter footage chart, and ...
Emerging market economics can affect your business.
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“In January, the Commerce Dept. reported the nation’s 2006 personal savings rate was a negative 1%, the worst showing in 73 years.”
The Associated Press, on February 27, reported on Alan Greenspan’s satellite-linked speech to a Hong Kong business conference, where the past Federal Reserve chairman said, although the U.S. economy has been expanding since 2001, certain signs indicate the current economic cycle may be ending. Greenspan said corporate margins are beginning to stabilize, and this, he claimed, indicates businesses are in the later stage of a predictable swing that could cause the U.S. economy to enter a recession phase by year’s end.
The National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, MA) says a recession is “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months; it’s normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production and wholesale-retail sales.”
Essentially, a recession is a decline in consumer spending caused by business cycles, economic jolts or both. The decline moderates factory production, and this causes management to implement layoffs that, expectedly, prolong the recession cycle by reducing personal income.
National economic levels are affected by various factors, consumer spending being the most highlighted because it affects the businesses — manufacturers, producers and suppliers — that affect our daily lives.
If Greenspan’s prophecy comes true, it will affect business spending worldwide, including yours and your customers’: less cash flow, less sign orders.
China’s stock plunge
CNNMoney.com writer Paul La Monica tied Greenspan’s remarks to a same-day report that the Shanghai Composite Index fell 8.8%, which was caused, business writers said, by Beijing’s government offices’ planned crackdowns on record-high market speculation. The combined news – China/Greenspan – triggered a consequential Wall Street selloff, a jolt that, by day’s end, caused the Dow to fall more than 400 points. Although not devastating, the jolt sacked this year’s gains for the Dow, Nasdaq and Standard & Poors.
The China stock fall was its worst in 10 years. Reuters’ Shanghai office said it effectively wiped out $140 billion of value. Analysts fear the incident points to an abnormality that may spread to Asian, then international, markets.
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