Quote Originally Posted by Mark B View Post
A article in the St. Petersburg Times the other day stated that unemployment in the Tampa Bay area of Floirda was at 10% and they did not expect any turn around until 2011.
I manage resorts on the beach in the Tampa Bay Area and Tourism is down for the year. We are having a good summer so far, but I am afraid that when the summer is over, my business will suffer.
My VX has been setting in the garage and I have been driving my 1999 amigo.
I might have to sell one of the vehicles. It will not be the VX.
I would like to retire someday, but at this point with the poor economy, it looks like my plans for retirememt will be postponed for a while.
Anyone else suffering from this poor economy?
Retirement age has been upped to 67 here!
At my day job our contracts (mainly with the US) for 2010 are sparse but just enough to get by, and 6 engineers have been laid off from a force of 25.
Our mining driven economy has not suffered as much as some but there has been a massive cull of non-viable projects and contractor/consutant labour. Process Engineers are doing supermarket nightfill

Housing has slowed with more foreclosures but our banking market is far more regulated than yours so while foreclosures are up 100% it is still a tiny % of total loans. Plus of course here you are held responsible for your mortgage debt and can't just walk away...

The car tuning/workshop side hasn't slowed at all - I have a feeling that the income of some our customers isn't entirely legitimately derived.......

Rob