What is a Recession?

40plus SG

Hi All

I am new with SGForums and thought I'd post my first message by sharing an online article I read recently.

This Story is about a man who once upon a time was selling Hotdogs by the roadside.
He was illiterate, so he never read newspapers.
He was hard of hearing, so he never listened to the radio.
His eyes were weak, so he never watched television.
But enthusiastically, he sold lots of hotdogs.
He was smart enough to offer some attractive schemes to increase his sales.
His sales and profit went up.
He ordered more and more raw material and buns and use to sale more.
He recruited few more supporting staff to serve more customers.
He started offering home deliveries.
Eventually he got himself a bigger and better stove.
As his business was growing, the son, who had recently graduated from College, joined his father.

Then something strange happened.
The son asked, "Dad, aren't you aware of the great recession that is coming our way?"
The father replied, "No, but tell me about it." The son said, "The international situation is terrible.
The domestic situation is even worse. We should be prepared for the coming bad times."
The man thought that since his son had been to college, read the papers,
listened to the radio and watched TV.
He ought to know and his advice should not be taken lightly.
So the next day onwards, the father cut down the his raw material order and buns,
took down the colourful signboard,
removed all the special schemes he was offering to the customers and was no longer as enthusiastic.
He reduced his staff strength by giving layoffs.
Very soon, fewer and fewer people bothered to stop at his hotdog stand.
And his sales started coming down rapidly, same is the profit.
The father said to his son, "Son, you were right”.
“We are in the middle of a recession and crisis. I am glad you warned me ahead of time."

Moral of The Story:
It’s all in your MIND! And we actually FUEL this recession much more than we think !!!

Yes it sounds a little exaggerated but the point is, a recession is perpetuated if all of us (including bosses and businesses) have the same mindset. It is a vicious cycle.

Stay focused, stay positive and know the opportunitites available .....

Deviancez SG

The story does prove a point. But it is dangerous to use this to generalise the situation. If it had not been a hotdog stand, but a shop selling luxury goods, the customer would have dwindled down very fast. Hotdog stand is like a provision shops or hawkers as these are basic needs. So in a recession, these businesses are expected to be less affected. It is wrong to be over cautious but one need to understand what is impacted most during recession.

Shotgun SG

Supply and demand used to be such a simple thing until people started to study it and tried to predict it.

Cats&Dogs SG

what do hotdogs and recession anything common?

sales and people..

when people stop buying .. everything else goes down

^Acid^ aka s|aO^eH~ SG

I agree... the article does makes alot of sense...

Worldlybusinessman SG

Supply and demand used to be such a simple thing until people started to study it and tried to predict it.

this sint true, prices will not go down, instead they may go up.. until the demand returns..when the demand returns, the seller will make up for the loss he had during the downturn.. so what if prices are down, people may stop spending too...

Like our HDB..

u must be joking, supply and demand is supposed to work freely, but when something is free, ppl tend to manipulate it..