Slaughter Posted January 17, 2009 Share Posted January 17, 2009 Potentially 30 000 employees without a job and 567 stores closing. Best of luck to all involved! Hopefully quite a few stores will manage to keep going as a standalone unit or attaching themselves to other chains (can't imagine all 567 stores were doing badly). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FullAuto Posted January 17, 2009 Share Posted January 17, 2009 Same here in the UK, Woolworths closed, 800 shops, 27000 employees let go. It's the biggest so far, but there have been others, and some retailers (like Zavvi) are attempting to stave off going under by shrinking a little at a time while waiting for a buyer. This has benefited other companies, especially direct competitors (like HMV) who are left in a strong position and are buying up the shops with the best locations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slaughter Posted January 17, 2009 Author Share Posted January 17, 2009 We risk a second housing crisis if things keep turning sour. With the US subprime, it was people not rated as secure payers that struggled. Now we risk people rated as secure payers struggling. Scary... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted January 18, 2009 Share Posted January 18, 2009 Potentially 30 000 employees without a job and 567 stores closing. Best of luck to all involved! Hopefully quite a few stores will manage to keep going as a standalone unit or attaching themselves to other chains (can't imagine all 567 stores were doing badly).Right now, Circuit City is in Chapter 7 bankruptcy which means immediate liquidation of all it's assets to pay creditors. None of the stores (except maybe those in Canada which are run under a different enterprise) are going to remain open. Months before this, CC filed for Chapter 11 (which basically means restructuring), and before that the company laid off thousands in order to cut costs. It's fairly true that the stores were doing well (though I heard reports that the sales of flat panel TVs dropped due to the economy). In this case though, the stores themselves were not to blame - the company was grossly mismanaged plain and simple. And I'll bet that the former CEO made out like a thief when he resigned as he probably had a huge umbrella plan. We risk a second housing crisis if things keep turning sour. With the US subprime, it was people not rated as secure payers that struggled. Now we risk people rated as secure payers struggling. Scary...The housing crisis can't really get any worse than it is right now. The problem which landed everyone into this mess is the US government. They passed laws in the 90's intending to get more first-time homeowners by forcing the big GSE lenders (Fannie and Freddie) to allow more low income people to qualify for mortgages. While this certainly increased home ownership, it also had a very bad side effect: subprime borrower's financial information (wages and assets) were not checked to verify if they could pay off the loan. So the blame rests on 3 entities: the government for forcing GSEs to accept more risk, the GSEs for not standing up for themselves (and quoting moral hazard as a defense) and the subprime borrowers for not understanding what they were getting into. The second prong of this crisis is mortgage backed securities. See, mortgage companies can sell off their loans to securitization companies which pool other mortgages from different lending institutions. These companies then sell bonds to investors. This has good and bad consequences. Mortgage pooling lowers the interest rate for fixed rate loans allowing more people to get a better price for home loans. However, mortgage-pooled bonds are bought, sold and traded like any other security. Banks invested heavily in this sector because it offered a good return with little risk. (Is it just me, or is this a conflict of interest)? Little did the banks know that many subprime borrowers would default on their mortgage payments which lowered share prices and ultimately cut income. Now the common taxpayer is footing the entire bill for this fiasco: first to bail out the banks for stupidly putting all their eggs in one basket and second for the US government who forced GSEs to allow subprime lending which dealt a death blow to their bottom line. Anyhow, sorry for this. It's just my rant on the subject. - Zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted January 18, 2009 Share Posted January 18, 2009 My word, didn't see the demise of Free Radical coming. I'll admit I know nothing about Haze, but one apparently crap game causing the end of an otherwise decent company? That sucks. I shall now weep for there will be no Timesplitters 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FullAuto Posted January 18, 2009 Share Posted January 18, 2009 I was gutted too, but they're not dead yet. Some employees broke away and formed a dev called Pumpkin Beach, and about 140 staff were let go, leaving about 50 at Free Radical. So TS4 may very well get released yet! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted January 18, 2009 Share Posted January 18, 2009 Well the article I linked to suggests anyone attempting to get into the office will face the heavy mob of security guards. You seen something more recent on that one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FullAuto Posted January 18, 2009 Share Posted January 18, 2009 Le creatione de la Pumkin Beach! Some people stay on to work! Not brilliant news or anything, but it is something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted January 18, 2009 Share Posted January 18, 2009 Well that's better than nothing. Not by much, but there we go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FullAuto Posted January 18, 2009 Share Posted January 18, 2009 The thing I can't understand is that they shopped TS4 around looking for a publisher, and had no takers. Which I find a bit odd. The previous 3 games in the series were all critically and commercially successful AFAIK. It's an established IP (been around since the early days of the PS2), suitable for release on multiple formats. Okay, Haze was a bit crap but it wasn't so bad that it tarred FR's name irrevocably. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FullAuto Posted March 17, 2009 Share Posted March 17, 2009 Any more developments re: the financial crisis? Studios gone under? I know EA said they were back to taking less risk (big surprise). Anyone (hope not!) lost their job, or otherwise suffered hardship? Zavvi have been partially rescued by The Hut, so that's something. We're calling it the Credit Crunch here in the UK, it's hilarious, people talk about it as if it's a monster that goes around eating companies and killing employers. I actually got a job, so take that, Gordon Clown. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted March 18, 2009 Share Posted March 18, 2009 Cool, so how is it on your paper round? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FullAuto Posted March 18, 2009 Share Posted March 18, 2009 My paper round is just a sideline. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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