Recession, what recession?
So it’s all doom and gloom is it? Well maybe we should start insisting the media publish a few ‘good news’ stories for each bad one. After-all they pride themselves on balance and impartiality to the point of being in-humane (sorry that’s an axe I should put to one side).
So where’s the coverage on the news from Amazon?
Perhaps you missed it; but yesterday Amazon reported revenue up 18 percent to $6.7 billion for the quarter compared with the same period a year earlier. Wall Street had been expecting Amazon to generate sales of $6.4 billion for the quarter - but what do they know.
The increase was led by Amazon’s worldwide sales of its electronics and general merchandise which climbed 31 percent to $2.89 billion in the quarter, compared with its performance a year ago, thanks no doubt to our love of Abba songs, J K Rowling and Heath Ledger.
This is clearly good news for Wales as we have the largest of Amazon’s four UK distribution centres, which incidentally covers a mere 10 football pitches - in case you’re interested.
Apart from Amazon, the broadcaster BSkyB, supermarket giant Asda and Sandwich chain Subway are also doing well, and recently announced plans to create around 10,000 new jobs. And of-course we can’t overlook Shell and their record £22b profit for 2008, up 14% on 2007 - thanks must go to the Chinese and the commodity speculators for driving up the price oil (expect prices to return to $147 a barrel in 2011/2, so buy now while they’re low).
I’m not insensitive to the terrible news and the job loses at Corus, the Serious Food Company, or any of the dozens of other businesses who are suffering; but as we’re told the best cure is a restoration of confidence, then more good news is required if we’re to avoid Depression 2.0 (come on, the web is not responsible for this recession, so why hijack our terminology?). I just hope this article goes some way in that direction.
Tags: Amazon profits, Good news, Job loses, Jobs created, Recession