Some of this week’s business news.
The downturn in global economic activity continues. This has been reflected in the performance of global stock markets so far in 2008.
October 2008 was the worst month for shares in modern history. Investors lost $5.7 trillion in October alone. The Irish market is down 63% in 2008, the UK market is down 45% and the US market is down 33.9%. Global investors have lost $16.22 trillion so far in 2008. This is a classic example of a bear market.
The ECB and the Bank of England have responded to the financial crisis by cutting interest rates by 0.5% and 1.5% respectively. Further cuts are expected in the coming months. What effects will these cuts have on the economy?
What was originally a crisis for financial institutions has now spread to the consumer. Irish car sales have fallen dramatically. They are down 55% on 2007 and this has lead to 2,000 people losing their jobs in the Irish motor industry.
Irish unemployment is likely to reach 320,000 in 2009. An average of 725 people are now being made redundant in Ireland every week. The days of full employment are over.
Dunnes Stores stay silent on takeover rumours.
Bank of Ireland keep losing their customers data.
Finally, another website worth bookmarking. Yahoo Answers is a useful site if you can’t find the answer or solution to a question. There are several categories on the site and they have a Business section as well.
If you have know of any other useful websites, then let us know by posting a comment or you can email them to mrhannon [at] geralds [dot] ie
SGC Business 
i think its a good think that these rates are been cut.
it will be more affordable for first time buyers to buy a house.
it will encourage enterprise.
its not good for savers, but mabe this might give the savers an incentive to start buying shares instead of putting their money in the banks, in hope of a greater return.
just wondering, is it possible to make a website for a business for no fee.
The only cost in building a website is registering the domain name and then hosting the site, assuming you know how to design the site using web design software such as Dreamweaver, Coffee Cup or even Google Sites.
There are lots of hosting companies that you can use to register your .ie or .com domain name and they will also host your site for an annual fee.
For example, with http://www.blacknight.ie, you can register a .com for €5.95 and a .ie for €24.99. Hosting costs from €72 per annum.
Post back if you have any more questions on building a website.
think that these cuts in interest rates will be good for the people who have morgages,theyll have a little extra cash.its not good for people who have fixed rate morgages,they could not benifit for this cut in rates
its bad for savers but a bank might give a good interest rate deal on a fixed amount.
to answer daraghs question about a website i think you can get a fairly decent website for free off microsoft office:
http://smallbusiness.officelive.com/
as far as i no
i think its a good think that the rates are been cut
it will be easier to buy a house.
savers will lose on this but it might get people ta tart outting money on shares
is it complicated when designing a website?
i found a website http://www.synthasite.com that say you can built a site with them 100% free, is this true?
I think its good that these rates have been cut it will make houses affordable but its not good for savers.
http://www.synthasite.com and other similar sites do allow you to build websites for free using their range of templates.
The best way to design websites is to just build a few, using sites like synthasite. Practice. Start off doing a site for yourself. You’ll learn as you go along.
There’s a lot of help available on the web if you run into a problem. Try doing one. You’ll find out quickly if you like web design.
I think that cutting intrest rates are a good thing.
It will mean that loans will be cheaper and interest rates will be lower.
Houses will also be more affordable which can only be a good thing.
However, it will not be good for people saving money in banks.
This is encourage people to proceed in taking out loans at the current late.
However, This lower rate will have to see a higher rise in people applying for loans as the government need to take in more for the economic downturn.
On the other hand,people maybe unaware of any hidden terms to these rates.
At the end of the day,its up to the people to choose,but it will not make the economy any better anytime soon.
This is just implemented to encourage more people to apply for loans.
More and more, you will see people doing promotions to encourage people to join companies
These cuts will have advantages as well as disadvantages.
Loans will now become affordable for first time buyers as the interest rates will be lower.
But savers will lose out as they will gain less interest they have saved away.
But this may encourage people to invest in shares. Shares are extremely low at this time and it may be ideal to invest now, with the hope of gaining a substantial profit.
It seems to be a good thing the lower rate means loans are more affordable as intrest rates will be lower!However savers are hit because the low intrest has been lowered so less to gain with putting money away.
Its a move to help change the economic turmoil where in at the moment banks are low in cash in unsteady times this will create more investment back into banks as more will try to get loans as the intrest rates are low.We need money in our banks and economy to turn around the situation where in now.This will help i believe to a point.
This has happened before if we take when japan faced a banking crisis in 1989 and rates where eventually cut to 0% by the late nineties to reinflate the economy.
The problem is how we know of these incidents seem to keep reoccurring and yet our government never seem to prepare for them and only react when we our in a recession??
I think that the interest rate cuts will be good for the economy. All the major Irish banks have confirmed that they will pass on the interest cuts to their customers. This is good news for mortgage holders as it will result in lower monthly repayments for those with tracker and variable rate mortgages. This will mean that people will have more money to spend on goods and services which is good for the economy. It may also encourage people to take out loans which will be extremely important in helping to stabilize the current situation with the Irish banks liquidity problems. Savers will loose out however but this may encourage them to spend money instead of saving. However I don’t think this cut is enough to help the Irish economy as people may wait for the rates to be lowered even further before applying for loans.
I think in some ways its good thet thez have been cut, but I think 1,5% in one go is too much because inflation will rise very quickly.
But I agree thet they had to be cut to support Europe in finding a way out of the finance crisis!
I think this was a smart move for the economy as this interest cut, combined with the current low price of property in the country will lead to more people taking out mortgages for houses which may even see the construction industry begin to recover. This is of course bad for anyone looking for a high yield savings account but something had to be done to try and stop the economic crisis.
I think that the cut in interest rates will be a good thing. It will have benfits for people borrowing money, which should make it easier for first time buyers and may encourage enterprise also.
It will make it difficult for savers though.
Yes i do think its good to cut the rates because with so many empty houses in Ireland if the rates had stayed the same they would be left empty but now the houses should start filling up since it will be easier to get loans!!this will also help the construction sector and hopefully the first way forward to get us out of this recression!!!!!
I think that it will be cheaper to get loans and mortages as the interest rates are lower so more people will apply for loans; but people who have money saved will get less interest than before.