CrunchGear

Hey John,

A Google search several years ago brought me here to CG after you posted an article about a watch.

Since that time I’ve seen demand for Swiss movements create a shortage of the more popular auto/mechanical movements in the industry - the 2824 - the 7750. Combine that with the value of the dollar vs. the Euro and the increased demand from emerging markets around the world and I’ve seen prices on true Swiss movements rise considerably.

I’m wondering if the worldwide demand will taper off enough to start bringing down the price of watches anytime soon?

I’m not so concerned about the material the watch is made from - gold, platinum, diamonds, whatever, just the movements. I’m also curious to see if the shortage of movements was, in fact, an actual shortage, or if it just an artificial factor used as a ploy by Eta to raise prices?

Anyway, just babbling. I really have to get away from the pc today. I may be selling off all my watches just to raise cash.

Jeez, how the heck am I ever going to survive with just one watch?

I can’t understand why people still use watches, Ok for jewelry, but otherwise just use your cell phone.

Dude, a nice mechanical watch is a wonderful touchstone for a gadget geek buried in a world of electronics.

Heck, I can’t afford a Swiss movement but I adore my Seiko 5 with the transparent caseback. When I’m down or dejected about technology (or the econosphere), I just take my watch off and rock it gently back and forth, staring at the balance wheel and movement.

teehee - you said “asses” =P

Dammit! I’m too late! (^_^)

Think you’ve got the gist right… but wtf does anyone really know in this environment? This de-leveraging process could take a while as the global economy has NEVER been this leveraged. We’re in uncharted territory so beware of anyone trying to tell you what’s going to happen with any degree of certainty (Jim Cramer). To add some ‘meat’ to your tiering- I think you want to look at any company that relied on cheap credit (Dell) in their biz model, they’re toast as cheap credit is gone.

Alex, regarding swiss movements… they are real assets (like art / diamonds / land etc) and should ultimately outperform paper money (all currencies are fiat, meaning there is no hard asset backing them). Global authorities will be trying like hell to reflate their respective economies which means printing more money… it follows that it will take more printed money to buy real assets- hope i’m making sense to you. Good Luck.

Genius.

Decent explanation of what’s happening (you had it JB)
http://media.pimco-global.com/pdfs/pdf/IO%20October_08%20WEB.pdf?WT.cg_n=PIMCO-US&WT.ti=IO%20October_08%20WEB.pdf

Weak at best. Stick to tech… weak there too, one step at a time. So glad I wasted my time reading that crap about watches.

Given that no global recession has occurred during the internet age (the dot come bust was a sector recession) I think a prolongued credit squeeze will significantly assist all the areas of the technology sector that thrive on open source and user contribution. Clearly there will not be a significant open source or UGC squeeze - so the value of these non-cash items will rise in significance against things that cost money.

There is always a bright side - so rock-on the credit squeeze; bring it on!

I have been unemployed for a year and a half, I used to buy all things tech that was my one habbit, no smoking or drinking. When I had a job I used to buy crazy thing’s like a bluetooth keyboard for my smartphone (which I don’t really use) The last thing I bought was a laptop and a LCD TV and that was a year ago, and I haven’t bought anything since. Thank goodness computers are so fast now you will never need a faster one, unless you throw away your money on gaming PC’s. The way I see it if you are tech obsessed and you REALLY look at what you have, what else do you need? A netbook? no, you probably already have a real laptop with a 12″ screen. If I had money to throw away I would buy a IPhone, but in actuality I have a PPC-6700 phone that I bought 4 years ago that does EVERYTHING the IPhone does, minus the screen size, but I had a HTC Falcon 5 years ago and it WAS the IPhone, same screen size, it just didn’t have wifi or bluetooth, it took 5 years for someone to add wifi and bluetooth to the HTC Falcon. If you have the bad luck to lose your job you will see that when it comes down to it Tech has been in a slump for a long time, which is good if you can’t afford it.

John,

In recessions, and dare I say depressions, of the past, the do-it-yourself and repair-what-you-have mentality became commonplace. Today, with our tech gadgets, that means people will hold onto the devices they have, and either add/modify the software running the device, get new applications (making the device seem new) or learn how to program the device itself. Likewise, I can see do-it-yourself multimedia becoming more popular - learn how to grow food, home medicine, & general education. Plus I can see a vibrant used device market emerge.

This leads towards a new emphasis on software development, free and open source software, and software optimization techniques. Many of the devices today are “fat”, in that their software (both OS and applications) are bloated with internal object orientated libraries duplicating the same functionality in hundreds of ways with only minor flavor variation. Our devices we now own could outperform the next hardware generation easily with a generation of consumers focused on keeping their same devices and new optimized software layers sold or open sourced to them that strip away this bloat, enabling zippier performance from the same devices.

I think things will be very interesting for the capable geek.

On the larger economic outlook, we may experience a global generation that does not invest. The idea is quite shocking, but the reality is one can not trust one’s money in other’s hands. The financial industry has “screwed the pooch”, as “they” say. It takes a generation to get over such events.

Prices should go down. Good for us:)

As times are bad, social activities and material purchases naturally decrease. I think Apple does a good way of making up for this by offering full price rebates on items that will soon be obsolete as they get ready to bring out their next batch of gadgets. They were giving away free itouches, with 100% rebates. This inflates their purchases making it seem that they are selling more than they actually are. Of course with gas and high movie prices, movie nights in will rise, but unless blu-ray players and DVD’s decrease drastically, they won’t hit mainstream quite yet. Netflix though will definitely see an increase in user ship.

Watches are not just about time, but about the style and class. There is nothing like wearing a nice watch on your wrist, it makes a statement about a person. The same way people blow money on a car that they don’t need.

Craig
http://www.budgetpulse.com

John:

The credit crisis will really effect companies that completely depend on credit. I know this is a majority of companies. But the few with cash in hand will actually start stealing market share from those paralyzed by lack of credit. This rapid growth of a few will encourage banks to offer them loans, because they have orders in hand. This credit availability will enable the few to buy the assets of those without cash.

Essentially, competitive advantage will be redefined, right now it’s a new and novel product or service, during this phase of credit crisis it will be dictated by cash in hand. My hunch is that Microsoft will do very well in this environment.

Rishi

every generation thinks that they are the first generation to experience what they are going through. the only thing history teaches us is that every generation repeats what prior generations have done before. Its real simple. There is a loss of trust in the economy, and in the government. It will not settle until its over. Remember they didnt call it the depression until way after it was over. But IMHO thats what we have. In the last eight years we have have a tremendous reduction in value of the US dollar against other currencies. We are having further repricing of cars, homes and other assets. We are having our financial assets repriced. Its all based on lack of trust. It’s too much credit and like musical chairs when the music stops you hope you get a seat. A second stimulus package may help but we still have to get through auto loans and credit card loans. If you can’t finance a Cadillac what would it be worth. I’ve been in cash for a while. Chiefly because I never understood this stuff. I used to own a stock brokerage firm and held financial principal and general principle licenses. It will settle and then we will see what happens. But the people who lost the most money in the depression which started with the stock market crash in 1929 weren’t those who sold after the crash but those who bought in 1930 to further watch an additional 70% reduction in value. It will take a jobs program, a rebuilding of US infrastructure and possibly a popular war to get the economy back on its feet. It will take years. Ebay just cut jobs and paid cash to buy a few businesses. This will continue. Raise cash. Learn to do more with less. This is a rethinking of the american lifestyle. and if you don’t believe me, wait till next year, it aint going to get any better. However, the way you get rid of debt is to make money cheaper. Inflation. We also need new leadership. A President who has control of Congress and can just push it through. Good Bless us all, but we will have to do it ourselves.

John, I agree with most of your conclusions (esp. the one on the entertaining industry) but one of your premises is slightly amiss. The REAL luxury goods will not see much decline; and as they still have high margins their respective companies will complain but only suffer mildly. In other words: If you lose 6000 of your 10000 million $ you are angry and maybe feel like a loser but you can still afford your personal life style and consume for yourself as before.
And the not so fortunate who are “a little crazy” in setting unusal priorities (e.g. a 5000$ PC instead of a new kitchen) will only slow down but not stop their “hobbies” (unless they lose their job of course).
Therefore Apple is the most interesting case to see. :-)

Also I think M. Rose is quite right. Investment banking brought us the final collapse but we all lived way beyond what was affordable.
That is my personal hope (being European, not US American) that it will be just a recession over here, not a depression.

Last but not least I dare fortelling that at least one new sector of industry, which is either tiny or does not exist at all today will rise out of this crisis (though I think it will be environment / energy related).

And my optimistic outlook for all geeks: this crisis will tell you apart from pure gadget consumers because you are able to either do your own interesting gadget (open source etc. as pointed out above) or “pimp” your cheapo stuff into something real interesting (instead of s.th. shiny, as presented in “pimp my ride” etc.)

John, I agree with most of your conclusions (esp. the one on the entertaining industry) but one of your premises is slightly amiss. The REAL luxury goods will not see much decline; and as they still have high margins their respective companies will complain but only suffer mildly. In other words: If you lose 6000 of your 10000 million $ you are angry and maybe feel like a loser but you can still afford your personal life style and consume for yourself as before.
And the not so fortunate who are “a little crazy” in setting unusal priorities (e.g. a 5000$ PC instead of a new kitchen) will only slow down but not stop their “hobbies” (unless they lose their job of course).
Therefore Apple is the most interesting case to see. :-)

Also I think M. Rose is quite right. Investment banking brought us the final collapse but we all lived way beyond what was affordable.
That is my personal hope (being European, not US American) that it will be just a recession over here, not a depression.

Last but not least I dare fortelling that at least one new sector of industry, which is either tiny or does not exist at all today will rise out of this crisis (though I think it will be environment / energy related).

And my optimistic outlook for all geeks: this crisis will tell you apart from pure gadget consumers because you are able to either do your own interesting gadget (open source etc. as pointed out above) or “pimp” your cheapo stuff into something real interesting (instead of s.th. shiny, as presented in “pimp my ride” etc.)

Спасибо за интересное сообщение. Не ругайтесь если не туда, но как с админом сайта связаться?