Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems How is the Economy and Stock Market impacting your Audio/Video Budget

There's no such thing as free chocolate!

Yup. The stock market in the short/medium terms is often/(always?) a rollercoaster - arms in the air, enjoy the ride! In the long term it has survived every financial crisis and continued to make gains. This will be no different.

Mark

Is America ungovernable?

Tell the guys who invested in Northern Rock, Wachovia, AIG, Bear Stearns, Bradford and Bingley etc. etc. etc. that it will come back and i am sure you will have friends for life!

This may be a market correction but it is a big one. No one is safe from it apart from the guys with more money than sense, if you own a house, rent a house, own a car, own shares, have savings, have borrowings, heck-eat food then you will affected.

There will be a new way of living when this whole thing has blown over and borrowing money for free (whether you are a mulitnational corp or an individual) will be something we remember from the 'good old days'.

For sure. I am referring to the markets as a whole. And the smarter investor doesn't keep their eggs in one basket, anyway?

Mark

It's a really curious watch right now and would be great if we weren't all so involved (as mentioned above)

Not exactly to answer the question quoted, but, two books I found to be a good read recently

Colossus by Niall Ferguson and Blood and Oil by Michael Klare.

Both put some interesting words to the fragility of things and the especially the addiction to the petro-dollar.

Re-ship from locations in other countries you mean? A few online retailers do this (Axel Music, Movietyme to name but two).

A few tips about Tower. I wouldn`t recommend using them exclusively or for pre-ordering as they charge at the time of ordering and, to the best of my knowledge, don`t have a very good policy on refunding you the difference on a pre-order if they opt to lower the price at release. In addition, their ‘in stock` notices - rarely for brand new releases but particularly for older titles already on release - are not always accurate (and on this basis I would not put in orders for any difficult to find items they might be advertising as having “in stock”).

So they`re not without their quirks but I do think it pays to keep an eye on their offers from time to time as their prices fluctuate on a fairly frequent basis and, as I said, when Amazon are doing some offers Tower often try to undercut them by a dollar or two, BUT if you like to order in bulk from Amazon the savings they give you on shipping multiple items that Tower don`t offer may balance things out.

For me it`s just a case of shopping around and getting into the habit of knowing who to buy from and when. I primarily bounce between Amazon, Tower, Movietyme and DVDs Limited (I use the latter as they actually have a tiny little shop near me which is handy if I want something ludicrously early, albeit at a premium, for a screening for family/friends).


Having once known someone who used to work for Mars I can assure you there is.


I don`t know whether I could honestly say that the current state of the financial market is having any impact on my purchase decisions or not as I`ve not been in that much of a hurry to upgrade/introduce any new component into my home (save for the plasma last December) for a good eighteen months now and, as much as I would like to update my amps and speakers, it`s nothing that has been, or ever will be, of a high priority to me so what I can say at least is that nothing has come about recently that has forced me to cease thinking about making any purchases I had planned.

I`ve more important things to spend money on than my home cinema, but that`s not a decision the current market has forced me to make, merely how I`ve always looked at this sort of thing (expensive rewards for myself come about every two or three years). So short term I am OK… long term is more of a worry though as the market is affecting my ability to work more than anything since I`m in the middle of trying to raise funding for a project and of course nobody really wants to invest in anything right now (and its hard enough trying to raise arts funding in the UK as it is)…

I seem to recall Amazon saying internally that this wasn't allowed, but it was some years back so perhaps things have changed...

Thanks for the further tips.

Mark

...and i bet those were good days, yes gooood days!!!!!

Well I was going to get a 50" Plasma, but i will wait alot longer for prices to fall and cashflow to improve.
I feel its a time to stay as cash Liquid as possible.

Cheers Chris

Back up over 450 points today .....

Summary of the credit crisis