What's out and what's in

The new financial order (recession and the general economic slowdown) is dictating some interesting changes in our lifestyle.

OUT – SUVs. When crude oil reached $100 per barrel, and pump prices of gasoline breached the P50 per liter level, many Ford Expeditions and its equivalent Toyotas, Nissans, and GMs were put away in the owners’ garages for storage.

With a full tank amounting to more than P5,000 and lasting just two or three days, even the millionaires in the exclusive Makati villages could not ignore the huge dent that these gas guzzling SUVs were making on their weekly transportation budgets.

IN – Chery, motorcycles and mass transport. A number of companies have bought the China-made Chery, a compact no-frills car that can run anywhere from 15 to 25 kilometers on a liter of gasoline. Priced below P400,000, it makes a good vehicle for sales people.

As gasoline prices peaked over P60 per liter, aspiring for a motorcycle was every average working class family’s mobility answer. In fact, car sales reportedly were on the decline, while motorcycles continued to sell faster than hotcakes. For some people, it even made more sense to have their own motorcycles than to queue for a ticket to get an MRT or LRT ride.

OUT – Anything that runs on electricity. With the continued rise in the cost of electricity, people are controlling the use of appliances that run on electricity. The unproductive electrical items, e.g., toys, are now more often unplugged.

OUT/IN – The energy department has ruled the phase-out of incandescent bulbs by 2010 in favor of the more energy-efficient fluorescent lighting fixtures.

IN – Charcoal stoves are once again at the center of many homemakers’ kitchen. Not only have LPG prices risen beyond the normal household budgets, the take-home pay of our salaried workers are buying less with the recent spike in inflation levels.

OUT – Leveraging. Perhaps the costliest word in the dictionary, this financial tool took with it to its grave trillions of dollars in soured housing mortgage loans, the demise of several giant US banks and financial investment houses.

IN – Bail-outs. Rescue plans of all sizes and forms are being packaged for just about anything that has fallen victim to the global recession. These included even those in the porn business. Some were lucky, like AIG, which quickly got $85 billion from the US Feds when it waved the red flag. Others, the latest being the US automotive industry, are still gasping for help even after going through the Senate hearings.

IN – Financial stimulus. Central banks all over the world are releasing so much money into the monetary system to try to stave off a total freeze of lending channels. The US and Japan central banks now offer the lowest interest rates, at almost zero levels.

OUT – Decreasing patronage in full-service lunches and dinners at five-star hotels that normally cost over a thousand pesos per person have been noted. Restaurants and even the lobby cafes are visibly empty. Even the once-popular buffet meals have been affected. Watch the increase in traffic in the “jolly jeeps” and “carinderias” in your localities.

IN – Reintegration. Some 1.5 million Filipinos working abroad are expected to be repatriated back to the country as the global slowdown is prompting manufacturing firms in South Korea and other countries to immediately scale down production.

Erratic oil profits are also curbing new and expansion plans in many Middle Eastern countries, and many of our skilled Filipino workers working there fear that they too may soon find themselves out of a job.

The labor department is now trying to put together a “rescue” package for our returning OFWs that include a crash course in entrepreneurship, small business start-up kits, and some token financial assistance.

IN – Four-day work shifts. Instead of closing shop or going through a redundancy process, workers have opted to reduce working hours. Most affected are electronic manufacturing companies whose orders have been slashed with dropping sales of computers and electronic appliances or gadgets.

OUT – Nursing students. The demand for nurses abroad is still growing but our hospitals are not able to give them the required two years of practical training.Graduates now find themselves doing nothing, and with dimmed prospects of getting overseas jobs.

OUT – Department store chains. In the US and parts of Europe, retail outlets like Macys, Marks & Spencers and Walmart either filed for bankruptcy or closed non-performing outlets, and in the process, dismissed thousands of employees.

Should our shopping mall chains, which have mushroomed in the last few years in almost all secondary cities in the country, feel any anxiety attacks?

OUT – George Bush and the Republicans found themselves out of popular favor as the recent US elections have shown. “Anyone but a Republican,” was what many American voters expressed, an indirect accusation that the recession currently gripping their economy was the current administration’s handiwork.

IN – Barack Obama will start his four-year occupancy of the White House on January 20, the first African-American in US history to do so. His ascent to the presidency is testimony of changing social mores of a still predominantly white American society. But will Obama be able to save the US?

Most importantly, will he push for some sort of manpower protectionist policy that will ultimately affect the jobs of Filipinos in the US as well as those employed by business outsourcing firms based here in the country? If Filipinos are amenable to shortened work weeks, wouldn’t Americans similarly agree to lower pay checks?

During trying times like these, beggars indeed cannot be choosers.

SHARE – Those who have other “INs and OUTs” and would like to share, please send these to my email address below.

Should you wish to share any insights, write me at Link Edge, 25th Floor, 139 Corporate Center, Valero Street, Salcedo Village, 1227 Makati City. Or e-mail me at [email protected]. For a compilation of previous articles, visit www.BizlinksPhilippines.net.