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Are We There Yet? Has the Meltdown Bottomed Out?

The stock market has proven a wild and often nerve wracking ride.  One day it is up five hundred points, the next day it is down.   The government announces bailout plans, but the public isn’t sure whether they will work or not.   In fact, the government isn’t sure if they will work or not.   Nobody knows nothing, or so it seems.

Every company from CBS to Motorola announces a reduction in projected earnings.   In the media business alone, newspapers are folding.   Gannet is laying off 3000 people or ten percent of its work force.   The Christian Science Monitor, after 100 years of publication, is retracting to an online only position.   American Express is trimming its work force.  So is the publishing giant Conde Nast.   And horror of horrors, Men’s Vogue will cut is distribution from ten issues a year to only two.   There are four seasons, but there will only be two issues, annually.  Oh well.

So with all this bad news, including consumers burrowing deep and not spending their money on anything but necessities, we have the one question to ask.  Are we there yet?  Has the stock market about bottomed out?   When all this trimming finally stops, will we start the long, steep climb back up into economic viability.

I think we are getting close.   Once this election campaign is finally over with, whoever wins, the country will be ready to get down to business.   It will be new business in a lot of sectors.   Much will be different.  As for an economy that relies on nearly 70% consumerism, that is about to change.   Reality will overtake the fantasy of living so far above our heads we can’t see the daylight.

And, once the smoke clears, companies will reset themselves.  People will go back to work.   Those out of work will be able to find jobs.  Not everyone, but a fair amount.   Not this year, maybe, and possibly not until the end of the next.   But sooner than the Cassandras believe, we will start to realign ourselves.  It will be a start, but a good start is better than a poor finish.

So Halloween has new meaning this year.  Trick or Treat.

Check the out before you hire.

By Gordon Basichis

Gordon Basichis is the Co-Founder of Corra Group, specializing in pre-employment background checks and corporate research. He has been a marketing and media executive and has worked in the entertainment industry, the financial, health care and technology sectors. He is the author of the best selling Beautiful Bad Girl, The Vicki Morgan Story, a non-fiction novel that helped define exotic sexuality in the late twentieth century. He is the author of the Constant Travellers and has recently completed a new book, The Guys Who Spied for China, dealing with Chinese Espionage in the United States. He has been a journalist for several newspapers and is a screenwriter and producer.