Categories: General
      Date: Jan  1, 2008
     Title: "Secret" of growing your business in 2008

I think the U.S. will not fall into a recession but will only grow 1% in 2008. What does that mean? Why do I think that? It will mean only one thing: YOUR business will do great! What? Let me explain futher.

Bear with me as I do a wee bit of backtracking. I will explain afterwards.

I promise to reveal the secret if you are willing to read to the end. I promise.

This is what happened so far in the story as far as I can tell...

• The U.S. Government needed money for their projects.
• Government lowered interest rates and flooded the market with money.
• This made people feel good.
• Mortgage people took this as opportunity and sold cheap home loans to home buyers.
  • Some of these buyers were not credit worthy
• Housing was going up because there were more buyers buying more and more homes
• This produced more activity and more taxable events. (Translation: They got more taxes.)
• Then mortgage bankers sold those mortgage notes to buyers.
  • In this case, Wall Street bought them.
• Wall Street repackaged these home loans as bonds and sold them to individuals and other buyers.
• Others used these packaged mortgaged loans to do leveraged buys.
• Times passed
• Government raised rates
• Buyers kept buying.
• Homes kept going up
• Government raised rates
• Then buyers started getting stuck because they could not refinance their way out or they could not sell to someone else.
• Loan amounts on adjustable rates came due but they could not replace them with other adjustable rate loans
• Monthly payments started to skyrocket as the loans adjusted.
• Banks started getting scared.
• So a lot of people stopped paying their mortgage payments
• The people who bought mortgage notes and packaged bonds stopped getting paid
• The bond insurers started paying money.
• Less and less return came from these packaged money machines
  • These money machines, like mortgage notes, bonds, and leveraged sky high deals, started tanking.
• Companies had less money because they invested there too
• So to make more profit they started laying people off so that they would remain profitable
• People without jobs stopped spending money after they used up credit cards
• People got scared
• Consumers as a whole stopped spending
• Investors started holding onto their money
• The economy slowed down
• People asked the government for help.
• U.S. businesses started shrinking and other countries started investing more into U.S. Companies.
• Stocks kept going down
• Bond values went up and bond rates dropped
• The 10 year treasury rates dropped. (Note: 10 year treasury rates determine mortgage loan rates.)
• However, banks now have a higher standard for loaning money -- and people are stuck with old loans that has readjusted and stuck at a higher rate!
  

What do you think will happen next?

My predictions

What I think will happen next is going to be amazing. These are my thoughts...

• I think US stock market will keep going down until June of 2008.
• There is enough fear in the market to cause a self-fulfilling prophecy.
• Smart investors will buy up cheaper and cheaper stocks little by little so that market will keep going down - so they can buy it cheaper yet still
• The US will grow more slowly but it will not matter
• Other countries smart enough to understand the game will buy up U.S. assets in droves
• Because in the long term, everything is great. As a consequence, U.S. Companies will keep growing.
• Small businesses will change the economy as we know it.
  

Why?

Because of this amazing event that will take place. Small businesses in the United States – and the world – will discover the power of the internet and the global economy in 2008. This global economy is not a single economy but mutiple economies weaved in together. Some parts will do great while others will do badly. And....

Your customer is the whole world!

You are not bound to one economy. You are free to serve everywhere! A simple Paypal account can accept all currencies and convert them back and forth. India can take jobs from the United States but so can you. You may even take jobs from India or Europe or Asia or other parts of United States in this fractured global economy in some area of expertise. It flows both ways! This is the opportunity!

Whether you are working for yourself or for someone else, you are part of a business. Your business can have clients everywhere. Not just where you are reading this. Why aren’t big businesses doing this? They are – but they are unable to reach everywhere where it requires personal touches and customization.

So they are going to leave significant parts of the global market untouched! Let me say it again – UNTOUCHED!

This is where you can shine with your business! You can evolve your business and your products so that you can serve the customers of the world. Internet, credit cards, Paypal, and Microsoft has changed the world. Your customer is everywhere.

The market will do what it will do. It will go up the first part of the year and go up in the second half – or it won’t.

However, does it matter? Not really.

You may be an employee or a manager in a company, you may own a small company or be apart of a big one – no matter what happens out there, have a great and properous 2008.

And... go global!