merc0447:
Starting to get busy at asda
on another note, asda grimsby hae covered up all of the parking ticket meter’s and they have a note on them saying "free parking merry christmas from asda 
i think the peugeot above took it a bit to far though…
merc0447:
Starting to get busy at asda
Can’t see the problem here. It’s a trolley bay and someone has put a shopping trolley in it.
merc0447:
Winseer:
Looking out my window, it looks like a normal saturday morning. There’s a fair number of people milling about, but very few are carrying bags.
Perhaps the “Mad” period will be when the january sales hit.
It’s not every day everyone wants to buy a new sofa, car, etc. after all, so the vast bulk of the public are waiting for the everyday item sales by the looks of it.
Its monday morning, you been smoking the funny ■■■■
Oops! 
I’ve not worked on Christmas eve for over 20 years that’s all. Getting up for a shift this morning has thrown me! 
Ex Haulier:
Winseer:
merc0447:
Well from a job point of view this is my quietest christmas ever, im quite enjoying it usually its a nightmare. From a shopping point of view i was in the fort today and you couldn’t swing a cat i got ■■■■■■ off and just left it was so mobbedI bet 20 quid the first ‘‘big name’’ to go to the wall will be HMV mark my words
It won’t be HMV as they are still involved in mergers & acquisitions too recently. I know people think of Comets, but there is really no comparison.
I would estimate that most firms are haemorrhaging money at the moment, with the survivors being those that can foot such a bill.
It’s a case of big over small regardless of how efficient the small firm is - big will stay afloat, small will fail on the slightest excuse now.Last January was dead for agency work, but the run-up to Christmas had me flat out for the whole of december, it not dying the death until the second week of January.
THIS year - Sporradic work from RM, and as for the other usual suspects at Christmas time? - Nowhere to be seen it seems. I would therefore conclude that the worst is very much yet to come on the jobs front, when even crappy last minute shifts are becoming scarce.
Went through Canterbury this week for the first time in a while, and noticed that the Habitat store seems to have become an Aldi.
An ALDI in CANTERBURY FFS!
Keep an eye on Waitrose, Nisa, Wilkos, & TKmaxx. I reckon they are all a proverbial “economic banana skin away from disaster” themselves, because there’s not really any more fat to be cut off is there?Mate, I hope your a good driver as you would [zb] on the stock market. If Waitrose or TK Maxx have problems I’ll eat your underpants.
If shares went up when the company has “a strong balance sheet” and down when they didn’t then playing the stockmarket would be as easy as anything.
Money is lost when everyone THINKS someone financially strong goes ■■■■-up anyway. Rocketing share prices are often as a result of a crap firm that gets rescued by someone with a lot of financial clout on an “equity” rather than debt basis. Invest in the firm that’s doing the taking over of a great name in a crap position, rather than the other way around. Eg. Buy VMED rather than TWT for those with some memory who’ve also played the stockmarket for real… (Telewest had a great product - fibre optic internet - that is now owned by Virgin Media. Anyone investing in Telewest lost their shirts though, so ‘picking a winner’ isn’t enough. You’ve got to pick the winning PLAYER as well!
Polly Peck and Marconi are two examples of “rock solid” companies that were both in the FTSE that blew up quickly enough for ordinary investors to lose their shirts as well. On the other hand, there are many who think that ESL or HMV will go ■■■■-up any minute on the basis of their debts and dodgy acquisitions. I would suggest that they have pretty good accountants as not to have gone bust already, and that is a sign of actual strength beyond their outward appearence i reckons. 
On the other matter, if I had actually bought my underpants at TkMax then I’d have to insist upon you eating your own, as I’d be too tight fisted to let mine go for you to eat. 
Shall we have a pint on ANY of your your four picks to go ■■■■ up over any of my four? 
Waitrose is employee owned and under no pressure from the stock market. As part of the John Lewis group it has one of the strongest balance sheets of any company I know. TK Maxx is part of the U.S. quoted TJX corporation. At it’s closing price tonight of about 40 dollars a share it’s worth about 14 times as much as Tesco, and is one of the top ten most profitable retailers in the world.
Balance sheet is everything, because you are only under pressure if you are highly geared (borrowings) which neither of the two companies I have talked about do.
By the sounds of the company which put out the report of 140 cmpanies in serious trouble. these are the type of retailers that are having a really hard time.
Book retailers, off licences and independent chemists are facing particular pressure
Competition from Supermarkets and the Internet are making their problems worse.
The Supermarkets and DIY and Furniture retail have seen a slight improvement over the year. Although I think DFS are still having a sale.
A car dealer I know says things aren’t to bad on car sales, but a lot of it is people downsizing to smaller more economical cars.
Shame these meaty balance sheets don’t reflect on staff wages eh?
A change in the nature of insurance will be a game changer in the entire distribution industry, and will affect strong-balance sheet companies as much as weak ones. In fact sheer complacency will see strong firms under-react when the “insurance crunch” comes, maybe as soon as next year.
Manville were effectively brought down by asbestos claims which they couldn’t get paid off by any insurances. The went into voluntary bankruptcy.
The company still exists, but is now owned by Buffet’s vehicle Berkshire Hathaway. Shareholders lost their shirts.
This only happened because the insurance wouldn’t pay out/wound’t cover the claims made against the company.
Sooner or later, someone is going to sue John Lewis or TkMax or some other large apparently immortal firm, and they may or may not survive it when their insurances don’t pay out for some newly invented (or old established!) reason.
BP are paying out billions, but have even MORE billions, and thus will continue to survive. John Lewis & TKmax on the other hand are only worth about £5bn for the former, and around £15bn for the holding company of the latter. BP have already budgeted more than the entire value of each of these firms for the gulf cleanup alone.
What would happen if a fire at a tkmax warehouse caused hundreds of rich people to be killed by say, a poison gas cloud (like Bhopal) that drifted to some affluent area some distance away from the warehouse (which presumably won’t be in a posh area)?
For John Lewis, say an improperly vetted worker (hired to save money) starts a bombing campaign among their stores? It’s all buried whilst the company and the security services attempt to clean up from within. BUT by the time it’s sorted, hundreds have been killed, and then the scandal that the firm knew all along and didn’t warn the public comes to light… Lawsuits that will easily strip bare the so-called “strong balance sheet” I would estimate, especially if the victims include rich Americans who’ll be chasing punitive damages in the tens of millions EACH!
It’s all about unlimited liabilities. The future won’t be the same as the past is what I’m saying. Even the biggest most solid companies can be brought down by a “black swan” event.
Firms can tread the working class underfoot as part of their business model maybe, but once the ruling classes themselves find their own kith and kin start to become the firm’s victims, we might see a different outcome to systemic fat-catting and corner-cutting to make that extra bit of profit.
The recruitment process at too many large firms today is about getting ‘any-old-staff for less money’. ‘Quality staff for more money’ doesn’t compute. That will come back one day and bite them in the arse I’m sure.
Finally, it has to be said that John Lewis have debts the same as just about every other firm out there - at quite a high interest rate too!
Are they as solid as everyone thinks?
Mate, if everyone thought like you no one would ever go out of the house. Your obviously a clucking idiot so debate over. Merry Christmas.
Don’t call me ‘idiot’ (or “mate” for that matter!) for being an over-thinker at worst.
The ‘Curse of Cassandra’ does however save me a lot of dosh at this time of the year, so Merry Christmas to you too!
At least we agree on us being done here. Until the next time then! 
merc0447:
Well from a job point of view this is my quietest christmas ever, im quite enjoying it usually its a nightmare. From a shopping point of view i was in the fort today and you couldn’t swing a cat i got ■■■■■■ off and just left it was so mobbedI bet 20 quid the first ‘‘big name’’ to go to the wall will be HMV mark my words
Yep,
Merc have to agree with you on that ref hmv,
Massive like for like sales decline,
Huge debt
Banking covenants likely to be broken ,
Old coe simon fox destroyed any value in this compmany for its shareholders .
not looking good for retail [ and i am still running one store in furniture as well as driving].
A report by begbie taylor indicates that 13,700 shops are like to fail in 2013 .
that alone could put over 150,000 out of work,
i am slowly coming to the view that this country is finnished unless we take radical steps ,the first of which is to withdraw fom the EU.
The government should stop spending money on enless wars that are only sluaghtering our young men and women as well as innocent foreign civillians and use the money to do some positive spending to rebuild this country into a proud nation we once were. [aimho].
WE ARE BEEN TAKEN FOR A RIDE and something must change.
happy new year.
I do most of my shopping on line those days.I see people wandering about in the shopping malls but few people appear to be buying anything.
Winseer:
Sooner or later, someone is going to sue John Lewis or TkMax or some other large apparently immortal firm, and they may or may not survive it when their insurances don’t pay out for some newly invented (or old established!) reason.BP are paying out billions, but have even MORE billions, and thus will continue to survive. John Lewis & TKmax on the other hand are only worth about £5bn for the former, and around £15bn for the holding company of the latter. BP have already budgeted more than the entire value of each of these firms for the gulf cleanup alone.
What would happen if a fire at a tkmax warehouse caused hundreds of rich people to be killed by say, a poison gas cloud (like Bhopal) that drifted to some affluent area some distance away from the warehouse (which presumably won’t be in a posh area)?
For John Lewis, say an improperly vetted worker (hired to save money) starts a bombing campaign among their stores? It’s all buried whilst the company and the security services attempt to clean up from within. BUT by the time it’s sorted, hundreds have been killed, and then the scandal that the firm knew all along and didn’t warn the public comes to light… Lawsuits that will easily strip bare the so-called “strong balance sheet” I would estimate, especially if the victims include rich Americans who’ll be chasing punitive damages in the tens of millions EACH!
Christ alive you live in some wierd fantasy land don’t you. I think theres a reason you work as a lorry driver and not a hedge fund manager…
My guess for three that won’t survive much longer…
Staples.
W. H. Smith.
Thomas Cook.
HMV, Clintons, WH Smith would be my guess in no particular order
alamcculloch:
I do most of my shopping on line those days.I see people wandering about in the shopping malls but few people appear to be buying anything.
Buying online is obviously a growing trend and people visit shopping centres as a day out, but may not actually make any major purchases, more likely have a look at the things they want, still can’t beat physically seeing the item, then buy it on the internet.
Maybe what we’ll see is the larger retailers stores becoming more like showrooms and collection points for goods ordered online instead of a place that you actually go and buy something.
switchlogic:
HMV, Clintons, WH Smith would be my guess in no particular order
I would agree in the retail sector
What has been brought home to me is the danger of the ‘domino effect’, had a customer of my contracting business go bust on me earlier in the year, I in turn had to put of 3 projects I was about to go ahead with with small local companies. Another customer who pays monthly phoned and ask for a ‘holiday’ for a couple of months as one of his regular customers (annual sale) was very late in paying them.
So its not just one business affected but it sets off a series of chain reactions, this is what is totally unpredictable! These is the sort of ‘Black Swan’ event that will take down seemingly solid companies.
There are a hell of a lot of businesses that won’t be trading by this time next year, in particular watch the Agriculture sector. I strongly believe that February-April will see a huge number of firms in all sectors wound up, both voluntarily and forced by their creditors.
All that is happening is a shift in buying habits and culture. Players such as HMV who didn’t see that MP3’s and digital music libraries were the future, have only themselves to blame. You have to be forward thinking and fast moving in today’s buisness world.
All this “this country is ruined” etc is complete rubbish. We have lots of issues that need to be sorted, but we have industries such as car manufacturing that are powering ahead. That industry is fast moving and willing to adapt and change to meet the needs/wants of the world markets. Toyota/Honda/Nissan don’t invest big sums in UK plants unless those plants are willing to adapt/change/ do what they have to do to make it work.
We’re going through a transitional period in the UK and other places. It’s happend before, and will happen again and again. It’s not a nice truth, but there will always be winners and losers.
I seem to remember the car industry was on its knee’s only a couple of years back till the government stepped in with the short term 2k scrappage scheme incentive.
Clintons and Thomas Cook are already in administration, so you can’t have them as a “I predict this firm to go bust” punt. 
Some ■■■■ will say COMETS next otherwise!
Firms with £100m that are losing £1m a day will survive the next 3 months.
Firms with £100k that are losing £1000 a day won’t, because it’s a lot easier to push up a £1000perday overhead even higher than a £1m per day overhead, which it’s actually easier to cut fat off…
Big and inefficient will survive. Small and merely “not quite good enough” will not.
All those firms that thought they could save the business by cutting the payroll will now find it was all for nothing. The next 3 months are critical to the rest of the decade ahead I reckon.
Winseer:
Clintons and Thomas Cook are already in administration, so you can’t have them as a “I predict this firm to go bust” punt.
Some ■■■■ will say COMETS next otherwise!Firms with £100m that are losing £1m a day will survive the next 3 months.
Firms with £100k that are losing £1000 a day won’t, because it’s a lot easier to push up a £1000perday overhead even higher than a £1m per day overhead, which it’s actually easier to cut fat off…Big and inefficient will survive. Small and merely “not quite good enough” will not.
All those firms that thought they could save the business by cutting the payroll will now find it was all for nothing. The next 3 months are critical to the rest of the decade ahead I reckon.
Having read your posts on this topic so far its fairly clear your not quite the business expert you think you are. Thomas Cook haven’t been in administration yet and Clintons Cards were bought out of it by an American investor in the summer. But hey ho Im sure we can look forward to the collapse of John Lewis when a member of staff turns out to be a terrorist or TK Maxx when their huge chemical plant explodes a la Bhopal…oh wait…maybe Tesco will go under when it comes to light they are run by a load of lizard members of the illuminati responsible for all the gun crime in the US.