The state of things today...

So here I am and being round the forums have made me realise how few people actually know what is going on with the economy (Bar a select down-to-earth members and older members). So I thought I would do a blog to briefly outline the effect and share my business related knowledge with you regarding the unprecedented times we are currently facing.

First you need to understand the economic cycle or business cycle which consists of 'Boom', 'downturn', 'recession', 'slump/depression' and 'upturn'. This is fairly easy to understand (See diagram below) this is the shape of the economy over years and years and it is an inevitable cycle that carries on, with the general trend going up or the economy growing the longer time progresses. The government tries to control this by using fiscal and monetary policies to make it go smooth and slow (controlling tax and interest rates to make people buy more or less. I'll explain later on)

So as many of you know, we are now in the recession stage and some might go so far as to say 'Depression' (Gordon Brown you twit I'm looking at you, depression is basically very severe Recession). So what is recession? Well it is two quarterly (6 months) falls in GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in a year. In layman's terms it simply means that the amount of produce firm sells is greatly reduced and everything starts to get worse....

How did we come to be like this then? Well the world has been riding the last boom for far too long and that only hit home around late summer last year. PANIC. Banks realise they have been spending money that they don't have, the same with the businesses. The banks start reclaiming money and showing how much debt each company has and suddenly because of the banks reluctance to lend businesses start to fold and go into administrative phases where they assess the damage and this is the opportune time for other companies to buy out others/merge....except for the majority of them are in exactly the same state.
One of the biggest mistakes that they made which gravely affected the economy was the collapse of one of the biggest investment banks in the world, with investments all over the world. Lehman brothers. Lehman brothers was going into administration and the US government decided to let it collapse which I should say, allowed the economy to get as bad as it is currently. This means that all of the companies that had investment from Lehman brothers were also in serious danger as they suddenly had a lack of capital as a lot of money was recalled from these investments for various reasons. This has been assured by many financial newsreaders of the like of Bloomberg. Hence, putting the economy into a downward spiral with shareholders and other investors/stakeholders (anyone who has part of the business) losing confidence in the economy.

With the loss of confidence comes more panic. Consumers start to spend less and save more causing less sales for businesses which leads to the producing less, which means to a loss of jobs as businesses are not producing as much and therefore have less use for a large workforce. Because of the lack of money coming into the business, they have to try and keep costs down so they reduce wages in line with the business, so workers have less disposable income to spend on luxury's such as cars and holidays or even named brands, such as why Morrison's and Lidl flourish in a declining market due to their prices being so cheap. It's a vicious cycle and it keeps going.

To control this the government implements fiscal and monetary policies (as I said before) and acting with the Bank of England to Lower interest rates so that spending and getting loans becomes more attractive than saving their money (due to the very little interest that would be received if their money was sat in the bank. However, because of the worsening of the economy, Banks are highly reluctant to lend any money as it could put them in a worse position and they don't know if they will get their money back due to people losing jobs and getting lower wages.

This is also the same problem for people trying to get onto the property ladder, they can't get a mortgage to buy a new place to live or get a base rate tracker mortgage (A mortgage that follows the base rate of the interest rates of the bank of England's interest rate) so more people rent instead of buy leading to the decline of homeowners. Contradictory to that, people that had a base rate before the collapse are doing better as they are no paying peanuts on their mortgages (such as my family who now only have to pay £20 a month!)

The other problem with the state of the economy (stay with me) is the shares. Shares are, for the people not in the know, a way to invest in a business and you get a return from that in the form of dividends at the end of the year. Share prices are constantly changing and there are good times to buy and bad times to buy. Now is a good time to buy shares as they are so god damn low. Take Barclays for example, if you put £3000 into their shares 3 weeks ago, you would now have approximately £30,000 as the share price has doubled over the last three weeks (since they said they don't need to borrow any more money and supposedly have enough capital [cash] to ride out the rest of the recession>their shares then doubled). Now if you had shares previously this is confusing (but logical) say you bought shares at £1.00 then the economy collapses by 50% so now your shares are worth 50p (half) compared to what you bought them at, it's no good selling them. But to get your original share prices back, the shares have to increase 100% to get back to £1.00 as 50% increase would only warrant 75p total (50% of 50 is 25. Logical but confusing!) so now people with shares are reluctant to sell shares as they don't have as much value and they will also avoid buying as many shares unless the share price looks ridiculously good and the company looks like it has a solid core.

As of late, the economy seems to be picking up slightly with more often than often a day's or a weeks trading seems to be in the green instead of the red (as it was more often than not in previous months) and now is a good time to invest in banks etc (don't blame me if you invest and lose please, I AM NOT HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR YOUR ACTIONS ) as they are now all protected since Northern Rock almost went under it is now part government owned which means they now have to protect the other banks by nationalising them (part owning) such as Lloyds TSB is about 70% government owned and many other banks have merged (HBOS group Halifax etc) so money is relatively secure, it's just that you will get less return on investment in nationalised banks.

So, how does this all tie into the forum? (let's make this relevant shall we?) With people not spending as much leads to lack of holidays and going out to cinema's and restaurants etc. So what do you do? Yep, Home entertainment people. Right now it's thriving and the biggest market is video games. So Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony (not so much) are reaping the benefit of people being entertained in their own homes amongst families (so particularly Nintendo for this) Leading to a thriving and strong market. Iawata is benefitting off our money in the economies time of need!

I hope that clears up some things, I may have some incorrect facts in there so feel free to reprimand me and I will change what I can. The best bit, this blog counts as revision! Shweet!
Echoes221.

It's times like these....

It’s times like these when you realise how much you love a specific community. It’s always there when you need it, anytime and anywhere where there is access. No, I’m not talking about your friends that you see at school and go out and socialise with, I’m talking about C3.
This blog is in honour of my 2000th post and many of the members on this website who all have their quirky idiosyncrasies. This site is always here when you need it and to some extent is even more procrastinating that facebook. It always seems to lurk in one of the tabs on my trusty fox and keeps me occupied during those futile seconds (always seems that short) of work break and has helped me to survive this last 7 months. As many of you know I have been on a gaming ban courtesy of my slightly lower than usual AS grades, therefore no console or games for a year (even though I have like 3 on my PC ) and C3 has kept me up to date within the gaming world which can be hard to catch back up on if you leave for such a long period of time.

So here’s my thanks:

First to gryff....*correction* Jeorge for creating a great website that keeps me entertained on the Friday nights when my parents forbade me to go out. It always manages to make me laugh and think about topics and voice my views. Courtesy of C3 it has also allowed me to write several reader reviews (more coming up soon folks  ) which has helped me further my writing skills and think more avidly about games in detail. I think he also requires a pat on the back for all of the site changes he has made as of late. The site is more aesthetically pleasing and easier to use than ever before as well as sorting out many nitpicks such as being able to easily edit reader reviews, the thumbs system and those awesome headers along with a modified user area to match. Well done and keep it up, I know it must be painful to trawl through all that code!

Second to the moderators, they never fail to keep the site clean, healthy and relatively abuse free and whipped many a member into shape (me included back in the day). They also always nearly have something intuitive to say as well as the one that really posts a lot (*shifts eyes to superlink*). There also epic moments such as the infamous triple lock and the wars of the LoK (much of which I missed)

Third, to the main members that create some brilliant opinions on a plethora of subjects that span anywhere between gaming and paedophilia. To name a few....Martin_, Linkyshinks, Superlink, Jacob, Knighty and Modplan Man. They always keep me interested and often enough encourage me to write posts that encompass my own thoughts combined with theories of others and create some large posts which surprise even me!

Fourth, to the rest of the members that makes this site enjoyable. If I’m ever in the neighbourhood for a conversation about anime or manga. There’s always simon_,Ikana, saunderscowie, superlink and a few newer members (such as Aki_T) that I can bounce my opinions off and have some nice little dreams of upcoming manga and related games (ultimate stars anyone?). Mixed in with that are the random conversation that span over the 160 odd pages of ‘Last Post Wins’ that often or not can be completely random or rather funny. I think at this point I should probably mention ArtMonkey for his humour that has me constantly cracking up and his love for classic games and tits: P

Fifth, to all the other members on here that help make this place enjoyable, whether thats some mad contraption that Jump_Button has come up with in little big planet or even some of the newer members that make valid points and interesting comments on a subject. Also to Mr. TaoFire to his photoshop teaching ways and some of his awesome sigs (though I can never agree on a sig that takes 10 mins ) but you sure do get some awesome results dude. I’m sorry if I’ve missed anyone out, you can hate me later.

This blog may seem pretty morbid and that’s because I have realised how much time I am spending on C3. I’ve posted 1000 posts in just over 3 months and I have come to realise......That I need carry on and post more! What? You didn’t think you where getting rid of me that easily did you?

Pointless

So I thought I'd do one of those pointless 3 word jobbies on the blog and here it is:

"Isn't this annoying?"

That’s it for the blog!

No, but seriously, this kind of thing gets on my nerves, the same thing happens on the reader reviews threads as well. Do some people have an inability to read rules? "Please make this 100 words or longer" do they not see the last two digits so they only post above 1 word. I know blogs you can say whatever you want ECT. But still, Blogs should/shouldn't be worth reading (not sure about this one) and give people an insight into a little bit of you/your life. Introducing yourself is for the forum and specifically the introductory thread. Though I have no objections as long as it’s longer than "I'm new here...hey”. And while of the fact of new users. Whets the point of introducing yourself if you drop off planet interwebz 3 seconds later! I can think of countless times.... OK yes, I know, I've gone off on a pointed rant here sorry .

On a further note. I've been accepted to 4 of my universities and the 1 that has yet to be decided is because I am due to do an informal interview! I'm all set for Uni's hopefully. Just still working my Butt off trying to get god even knows where. As well as trying to read 2 boring ass books for English (postcards Annie proulx and Atonement- McEwan) that’s me currently in a nutshell

British Weather...

Don't you find England such a random and often unpredictable place to live in? Sure,It's usually grey and cloudy, but thats what it is around 70% of the time. The other 30% is just completely random.

What I mean by random is things that are unprecidented. For example. It snowed it october, the earliest snow since the 80's I think it was. And In one week, It was boiling hot and sunny, the next day the same and the day after that it was Snowing? I mean, that is completely random in my opinion.

The current weather is nice, Snow breaks up the usual flow, and we have had so much of it! I can measure about 7 inches in my garden of pure powder. Sure it's not much compared to somewhere like tignes (favourite snowboard resort ^^) But its alot for england. The last time I rember it snowing this much was back in february either 04 or 05 (cant remeber) where there was a freak snowstorm, My afro turned white and my face almost fell off from the cold.

These things create memories, Me and 11 other freinds built a 10ft snowman which we nicknamed David Mittens and stood for about a week and a half after all the snow had gone ^^.

But back on topic. It's not just snow, We get really hot snaps and it can be baking hot. Other countries wheather patterns are completely predictable compared to ours (e.g. monsoon season, snow season ect ect).

The point I am making is that England is not all doom and gloom but can actually suprise you. Sure we've had two crap summers in a row (which I coincidentally missed as I was living it up in sunny ol' Italy ) But who knows what the next summer is going to bring?

Snow in the middle of august... Well I never!

Popularity and the BBFC

Popularity
The popularity of the Wii has taken the world by storm, quite literally. After just over two years of sales, it can often be hard to find the little white box of joy on many of the major retailer’s shelves. So just how far can this console go?
It has gotten under the skins of many people and got the whole country more involved in video gaming which was before seen as to be a ‘nerdy’ activity, reserved purely for geeks and ‘otaku’. Because of this worldwide realisation that games can be more fun, other related products have come out such as the Vii and other copy cat ideas. But what about in the non-gaming related society?
I was in town the other day in Cybercandy (typically) and noticed among the many Betty Boop and the usual Simpsons labelled brands of sweets (and amongst the tonnes of Hello kitty merchandised sweets) this; Wii gum:

It’s ridiculous in my eyes but also kind of funny. It would be good to trick your friends with ect.
The BBFC
I recently bought Call of Duty 2 for the PC, and brilliant as the game is, I’ve realised how strict the BBFC have gotten in recent years. The game was released back in 2005 after the multi award winning Call of Duty, and plays just like a WWII game should be, but better. Now the thing about the game is that it is a 15, rated of course by the BBFC. Now, last time I checked the language spoken in 15 games did not span to things like “Die you Nazi Wank*rs” or “I’m going to follow that Nazi bast*rd to hell!” I know every teenager who plays this game, even before 15 has heard the lingo in the playground so to speak. But it makes you realise how much the majority of new games are censored now. I remember playing Timesplitters 3 (same rating) that game came out only a few years back and hearing nothing of the sort, you would have to revert to games with an 18 label to hear that kind of language. What’s happened? Games do not need to be censored to this level!
[/rant]

Shovelware, Shop Attendants and winning competitions

For the less gamerly-abled of us, Dont you think its really annoying going into a shop and looking for a game on Wii? Look at the ammount of 'Shovelware' there is for it. How are they meant to know which games are good and which arnt?
The simple asnwer, Ask for help. This is the logical choice no? Well this is what annoys me, Shops have to sell their games so often you get happy shoppers walking away with probably the worst games on the Wii. This is the doing of the shop attendant doing what they have been told to do; to shift stock. The customers are satisfied becasue their kids will happily play it OR they will get home play and go WTF is this! Cant nintendo just stop the ammount of crap that comes out on their system at about a rate of 10:1.
The moral for you gamerly challenged. Do your research, have a look on some websites or get yourself a decent magazine before you make your purchases. It will save you money and will make a better gaming experience. Now...If you could just locate that game withing the wall of shovelware.....

Winning a competition:
I never win at anything, ever (except games derr). When my business teacher offered if I would like to enter a national sunday mail competition I went through war in my head. "I never win so why bother" "But he may give me a better statement and it will look damn good on my UCAS" The latter won out. So I completed the essay for the deadline at the end of october and forgot about it (If you were given £10000 on your 18th birthday how would you invest it in the long run and why). I dont give the competition any consideration and get on with my studies.
Im through checking my email on the 5th of january and see a email from the competition presuming its saying you unfortunately did win *click*
"Congratualtions, you have won the overall competition, you have won a laptop"
Well What can I say, I was in shock, extremly happy but in shock. My parents were extactic.
I win a £500 laptop, 1 Weeks work experience with the financail mail, and £1000 of business equipment for my school and my Photo and Essay get a place in the sunday mail!

Im still sat here shocked that it happened to me. 1 person out of 700 applicants, what are the chances. you never know unless you try. and hey, if you fail what do you loose? just the time it takes to write 750 words!
So Now its definate that I will be studying business at Uni, Moving on Up Ive found my calling in life.
Also that week, Razer deathadder and goliathus, new matress and possible look ins from DMU and UEA.
Best week of my life. Correction. Best week of my life so far.