That's what it looked like... Memories !

Back in 1990 when I was starting out in IT as a RPG-II and COBOL programmer, I invested most of my hard earned cash into a silver 1978 Ford Fiesta Mk I. The Fiesta had seen better days and especially on wet winter mornings its spark plugs and cracked wires usually played up. So every year between October and February I usually went to bed at night, having just watched the weather forecast and wondering if “Silver Shadow” (no, I did not call it that!) would start up the following morning. It was a gamble, a struggle and a daily unknown for me. Many a days I found myself outside in the cold morning mist, spraying WD40 contact spray under the bonnet or pushing it down the hill in a desperate attempt to jump-start it.

This little anecdote is not too dissimilar from what the economic outlook is like at the moment. The economy is more or less like that old car of mine back in the 90ies: Battered, bruised and nobody can make a guess at this point in time if it will start-up when we need it. Once people have attended to their Christmas shopping and paid their credit card bills, will it “wake up again” and take us where we want to go? Of course the economy will not go into some sort of Snow White-like eternal hibernation, but the question certainly is “will something or someone kiss it awake again?”. 2009 will certainly keep us all on the edge of our seats, that’s for sure.