Retail sales across the 15 euro nations fell more than expected in October, increasing the chance of an interest rate cut.

A few months ago Sequoia Capital doused the ever ebullient Silicon Valley with a bucket of ice cold reality when it laid “good times” to rest. Today, one of Sequoia’s all time stars laid a big wreath on that grave in the pages of The Wall Street Journal. Google. And while it didn’t implicitly state that it might face tough times next year, comments by its CEO amount to a proverbial bear call which could mean bad news now only for Google but also for rest of the media and advertising sector.

“We have to behave as though we don’t know what’s going to happen,” Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt told the Wall Street Journal. It seems like a prudent move. But I see it as a big red flag and I think Schmidt is preparing us for what could be a terrible 2009. The WSJ says that Google executives have been preparing for slower growth for a year but “the economic crisis is forcing them to step up their efforts.”

According to conventional wisdom (and investors) Google is the best positioned company to survive and perhaps thrive in the current advertising slump. If the leader of the pack is feigning ignorance about its chances, what can one say about mere mortals.

I find it hard to believe that a company that keeps world famous economist like Hal Varian (who muses on economy and Google’s prospects often on the investor calls), doesn’t know. As a company Google collects enough data on a daily basis that it can take a fair pulse of the broader economy. Remember, they could accurately track the spread of flu across America just based on searches, so why can’t the track the economic-sentiment? Additionally it sells ads to everyone from mom-and-pop shops to consumer durable giants and it has a fair idea on the degree of tightness people are holding their billfolds. They have enough intellectual horsepower on campus to put two-and-two together.

Beyond Schmidt’s statement, one has to look at their other moves such as plans to slash 10,000 or so of their contractors, slowing cap-ex investments and killing off projects. These point to tough times for the company that has lived a lush life so far.

Projects that are too pie-in-the-sky are going to be killed. Schmidt calls it the “dark matter.” Google Lively and Google SearchMash are two of the many projects, which will soon not matter. Google is contemplating killing of Google Notebook and Google Audio Indexing as well. Google Page Creator has given way to Google Sites. In that vein, Google is going to prune overlapping products. No more the 20-percent time for pet projects for engineers, though it might come back once the economic wheel churns. These are smart and prudent moves even if they are prompted by desperate need to control costs and meet their numbers.

I know it might sound hokey but rich don’t stop driving their Aston Martins just because the price of gas is going up. They do so when they are not as rich! The same analogy holds for Google and its cost cutting efforts. Just remember how much of PR they milked out of their 20-percent philosophy. They are essentially eating a cow-pie on that. They wouldn’t be doing this unless things are really really and REALLY tough.

Google needs to keep its sales machine going at a time when it is facing the same malaise as that of broader market – slowing spending on marketing and advertising. There is some argument that Google is going to win because of their performance-based advertising system.

While that is true to some extent but what happens when the economy goes into a deep freeze? If you don’t have money to splurge on a large screen Plasma TV, there is little chance you are going to search for that, and fewer the opportunities for Google to sell more ads against those searches. Of course, if there is no intent to buy amongst the searchers, then there is less inclination to click on those ads as well. And that is not good news for Google.

Google, of course is going to try and meet its targets by taking more out of the pocket of its “adsense” partners and undercutting competitors. WSJ points out that the company is focusing heavily on display, mobile and other ad-opportunities, which can only mean bad news for their rivals.

Related: Why Silicon Valley Should be Worried

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/30491?ns=guardianpageName=Comment+is+free%3A+In+this+recession%2C+we+want+comfort+culture+to+go+with+our+comfort+foodch=Comment+is+freec3=The+Guardianc4=Recession+%28UK%29%2CEconomic+growth+and+recession+US%2CCredit+crunch+%28Business%29%2CTesco+%28Business%29%2CSupermarkets+%28business%29%2CRetail+industry+%28Business%29%2CFilm%2CStage%2CCulture+section%2CBusinessc5=Credit+Crunch%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CBusiness+Markets%2CTheatrec6=Jonathan+Freedlandc7=2008_12_03c8=1127725c9=articlec10=GUc11=Comment+is+freec12=blogc13=c14=Comment+is+freeh2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FComment+is+free" width="1" height="1" //divpMan cannot live by bread alone - he also needs some shepherd's pie and a dollop of rice pudding. That, at least, is the word from Tesco, reporting an extraordinary surge in sales of comfort food. As we feel the first chill of the recession, and as American economists declare that the downturn in the United States began a full year ago, making the current slump already longer than the average recession since the second world war, the supermarket chain has noticed a run on its cosiest products./ppSales of lamb hotpot are up 615% on this time last year, while beef casserole and dumplings have leapt by 279%. Deep-filled pies are selling at more than double the usual rate, as is cheesecake. Hot cakes are selling like hot cakes. /ppCould that be down to the wintry weather rather than the frozen economy? No. Tesco saw the boom in reassuring ready meals and cosy grub during the period from May to October. This isn't about staying warm, says the store, along with other retailers who've noticed a similar pattern on their shelves. It's about Britons cheering themselves up, padding their tummies as they tighten their belts. And notice the dishes in demand: traditional British fare, as if we're fleeing scary global economic forces, seeking refuge in the familiar smells of mum's kitchen and school dinners./ppSo much for what we're putting into our stomachs as the economy plunges downward, with most forecasters expecting the thud to come once the fleeting lift of Christmas is over. What will happen to our other appetites, those located not in our mouths but between our ears? What is the brainfood we'll be seeking out as times get tougher? Put simply, what's likely to be the culture of this recession?/ppNot so different from the food, as it happens. While Waitrose reports an 80% increase in sales of loaf cakes, ITV is cheering a rise in the television equivalent: viewing figures for I'm A Celebrity are up on last year. The X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing are doing a roaring trade too. And what has just become Britain's fastest-ever selling DVD? Mamma Mia!./ppThink of it as comfort culture to accompany the comfort food. We want to be eased through the freeze, and Ant and Dec can be relied on to do that just as effectively as a slice of steak and kidney pie./ppOf course, this habit has a long history. Cinema audiences developed the desire to be transported into mindless escapism, watching Busby Berkeley's synchronised swimmers make pretty shapes in the depths of the Great Depression. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made their top-hatted and ballgowned debut in 1933, the same year unemployment in the US hit 25%. If today's audiences are blocking out all thoughts of the credit crunch in favour of watching Meryl Streep play the Dancing Queen on a sun-kissed Greek island where the skies are permanently blue, they are doing no more than honouring a tradition started by their grandparents. /ppBut it's not all mindless. Brucie and Cheryl Cole are far from the only cultural providers experiencing a boom during the bust. In a declining newspaper market, the Financial Times and the Guardian both saw their sales rise as the financial crisis hit. (The number crunchers on the Guardian's website have seen big increases - led by serious news, with massive leaps in interest in business stories.) Richard Reeves, director of the thinktank Demos, says he has spotted three different people reading JK Galbraith's The Great Crash on his morning train to work. "People want more entertainment," he says, "but they also want more enlightenment."/ppIt seems we either want to escape the current turmoil or understand it. The latter might not always mean digesting dense economic tracts. Nicholas Hytner, artistic director of the National Theatre, has noticed the spectacular response the musical Billy Elliot has just received on Broadway. A tale of declining industry, hardship and the threat of joblessness, "It acknowledges pain, individual achievement in overcoming that pain and collective solidarity in the face of it," Hytner told me yesterday, suggesting that Billy Elliot had come at just the right moment for New York theatregoers. He has no plans to stage either a feelgood musical at the National - there will be no "sugar rush of escapism" - or an instant play about the recession. That kind of second-guessing of the audience never works, he says./ppStill, artworks that offer neither escapism nor explanation might struggle in the great freeze. There will surely be a diminished appetite for miserable stories that don't even offer the consolation of enhanced understanding of the upheaval. I'm told there were an unusually high number of empty seats at the Oxford Playhouse when the touring production of Liberty, set in the France of 1793, arrived this autumn. Apparently people weren't in the mood to spend an evening contemplating Robespierre's Terror. (Users of guardian.co.uk were similarly reluctant to wallow in the details of the Baby P case.)/ppTwo big movies were released last week: Four Christmases, a light comedy with Reese Witherspoon, went straight to number one. Trailing behind it was The Changeling, Angelina Jolie's grim tale of a mother's search for a missing child. Similarly, it will be fascinating to see if the publishing subgenre known as "misery lit" continues to enjoy its past dominance of the bestsellers list. Right now, the hardback non-fiction top 10 is entirely made up of the comfort food of celebrity biography, topped by Dawn French's Dear Fatty - surely the literary equivalent of a sticky toffee pudding./ppThere are other clues to the cultural future besides the twin paths marked escape or understand. Price is one. Just as local pizzerias are holding up while posh restaurants expect to struggle, so culture that comes cheap has better prospects for survival. Sky subscriptions and DVD sales are so far weathering the recession. When you're counting the pennies, a ready meal and a film on the telly suddenly looks like a good bet./ppParadoxically, that could tilt the landscape towards high culture. If government subsidies get cut, many in the arts predict it will be smaller, grassroots projects that feel the knife: they're easier to slice than the heavy-hitting opera companies and art galleries. And while commercial theatre might take a pounding, the major subsidised institutions will still be left standing. /ppBut what if things get really severe? Reading could make a comeback, predicts John Carey, former Merton Professor of English at Oxford. In the 1930s, he says, some of the poorest turned to books for diversion. "Reading is astoundingly cheap," he says. "Libraries must be the cheapest form of entertainment possible." Classics were especially popular: they were inexpensive and available. "Social histories of the time are full of references to Dickens," says Carey./ppStill, the biggest cultural impact of the recession may be unseen for decades to come. Hytner notes that the great plays of the depression era - by Arthur Miller or Clifford Odets - came years later. It is the children of the slump, those witnessing their parents losing their jobs or businesses, who we should be watching. The seed of their future work is being planted right now. /ppa href="mailto:freedland@guardian.co.uk"br /freedland@guardian.co.uk/a/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/recession"Recession/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/useconomicgrowth"US economic growth and recession/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/creditcrunch"Credit crunch/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/tesco"Tesco/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/supermarkets"Supermarkets/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/retail"Retail industry/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/YJLdrZRupLEbqAyvMC8RCxJtgGk/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/YJLdrZRupLEbqAyvMC8RCxJtgGk/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

pFiled under: a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/japan/" rel="tag"Japan/a, a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/plants-manufacturing/" rel="tag"Plants/Manufacturing/a, a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/toyota/" rel="tag"Toyota/a, a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/earnings-financials/" rel="tag"Earnings/Financials/a/pa href="http://www.autonews.com/article/20081202/COPY01/312029894/1176"img vspace="4" hspace="4" border="1" align="right" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/12/toyota_250_opt.jpg" //aManagement bonuses will be slashed 10 percent at Toyota as a result of the global economic slowdown. About 5,000 managers will take cuts as the Japanese automaker reels from falling global sales that are hitting its local market hard. Toyota vehicle sales in Japan dropped 27 percent in November (excluding 660cc minivehicles) and Lexus sales dipped 24 percent -- mirroring the same sales issues that both brands are having in the United States. As a result, the Japanse Juggernaut will halt production for two days on one of the Tahara production lines manufacturing the Lexus LS, GS and IS models, which will prevent about 5,000 luxury cars from being built, and idle another factory in southern Japan for two days, as well. Toyota is also expected to announce lower sales and production estimates at its year-end press conference that happens at the end of this month. That news will follow the 1 trillion yen ($10.7 billion) yanked just last month from its annual operating profit forecast. p /p p[Source: a href="http://www.autonews.com/article/20081202/COPY01/312029894/1176"Automotive News/a, subs. req'd]/p p /p p /pp style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/02/as-sales-slump-toyota-cuts-bonuses-and-vehicle-production/"As sales slump, Toyota cuts bonuses and vehicle production/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.autoblog.com"Autoblog/a on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:01:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/02/as-sales-slump-toyota-cuts-bonuses-and-vehicle-production/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/forward/1388772/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/02/as-sales-slump-toyota-cuts-bonuses-and-vehicle-production/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/7cyMl4l_iNP_JPNVvK4NKXtNLEw/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/7cyMl4l_iNP_JPNVvK4NKXtNLEw/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?a=5Ywtvpn2"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?i=5Ywtvpn2" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?a=LMjOjfsH"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?i=LMjOjfsH" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/autoblog/~4/gRtv3IrJUQQ" height="1" width="1"/

psource: a href=http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087amp;sid=aXTWFDfLt8KMamp;refer=worldwideBloomberg/a/p p style=text-align: justify;Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economy, now officially in recession, may be in the midst of the longest slump in the post- World War II era as job losses mount and credit dries up.nbsp; nbsp;nbsp; /p

psource: a href=http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109amp;sid=ay7HZbCLGLEAamp;refer=homeBloombergbr //a/p p style=text-align: justify;Chinas export orders and output shrank in November by the most since records began as the global financial crisis sapped demand for the nations toys, textiles and computers.nbsp; nbsp;nbsp; nbsp; nbsp;nbsp; nbsp; /p p style=text-align: justify;Exports and property together have contributed about half of the expansion in Chinas GDP, estimates Shanghai-based Andy Xie, an independent analyst who was formerly Morgan Stanleys chief Asia economist./p p style=text-align: justify;“The global financial crisis wont get China to zero percent growth and neither will recession in developed economies,” said Tao Dong, chief Asia economist at Credit Suisse in Hong Kong. “If theres a collapse in the property market that might do the job.”nbsp; nbsp;nbsp; /phr width=100% size=2 /pJainbsp; de + en +nbsp; peur cher amis..que cette crise ne sarretera pas à létape de la récession.../p

The men from Detroit will jet into Washington tomorrow -- presumably going commercial this time -- to make another pitch for a taxpayer rescue. Meanwhile, in the other American auto industry you rarely read about, car makers are gaining market share and adjusting amid the sales slump, without seeking a cent from the government. nbsp; nbsp; These are the 12 foreign, or so-called transplant, producers making cars across America's South and Midwest. Toyota, BMW, Kia and others now make 54% of the cars Americans buy. The internationals also employ some 113,000 Americans, compared with 239,000 at U.S.-owned carmakers, and several times that number indirectly. nbsp; nbsp; The root of this other industry's success is no secret.

psmallSylvie Barak a href=""/a, Tuesday 2 December 2008. 12:26:00/small/ppi Slovenly silicon sales /i/ppTHE SEMICONDUCTOR equipment market is set for a fall, according to global industry outfit, SEMI, predicting a 28 per cent slump after 2007 growth of 5.7 per cent. SEMI reckons the semiconductor equipment market will only reach $30.91 billion in 2008, and expects it to fall a further 21 per.../pimg width='1' height='1' src='http://feeds.theinquirer.net/c/554/f/7127/s/27bebcf/mf.gif' border='0'/div class='mf-viral'table border='0'trtd valign='middle'a href="http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/sendemail2.html?title=Chip shop slump cominglink=http://www.theinquirer.net/feeds/rss/generic/en/GB/inq/latest/gb/inquirer/gb/inquirer/news/2008/12/02/semiconductor-equipment-market" target="_blank"img src="http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/emailthis2.gif" border="0" //a/tdtd valign='middle'a href="http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/bookmark.cfm?title=Chip shop slump cominglink=http://www.theinquirer.net/feeds/rss/generic/en/GB/inq/latest/gb/inquirer/gb/inquirer/news/2008/12/02/semiconductor-equipment-market" target="_blank"img src="http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/bookmark.gif" border="0" //a/td/tr/table/divbr/br/a href="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/24193242350/u/89/f/7127/c/554/s/41675727/a2.htm"img src="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/24193242350/u/89/f/7127/c/554/s/41675727/a2.img" border="0"//a

MySpace sees opportunities to buy start-ups for a fraction of what they would have cost six months ago as the economic slump slices millions of dollars off their price tags.

psmallSylvie Barak a href="http://www.theinquirer.net/"the Inquirer/a, Tuesday 2 December 2008. 12:26:00/small/ppi Slovenly silicon sales /i/ppTHE SEMICONDUCTOR equipment market is set for a fall, according to global industry outfit, SEMI, predicting a 28 per cent slump after 2007 growth of 5.7 per cent. SEMI reckons the semiconductor equipment market will only reach $30.91 billion in 2008, and expects it to fall a further 21 per.../pimg width='1' height='1' src='http://feeds.theinquirer.net/c/554/f/7127/s/27bb55c/mf.gif' border='0'/div class='mf-viral'table border='0'trtd valign='middle'a href="http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/sendemail2.html?title=Chip shop slump cominglink=http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/12/02/semiconductor-equipment-market" target="_blank"img src="http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/emailthis2.gif" border="0" //a/tdtd valign='middle'a href="http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/bookmark.cfm?title=Chip shop slump cominglink=http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/12/02/semiconductor-equipment-market" target="_blank"img src="http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/bookmark.gif" border="0" //a/td/tr/table/divbr/br/a href="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/24193236535/u/89/f/7127/c/554/s/41661788/a2.htm"img src="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/24193236535/u/89/f/7127/c/554/s/41661788/a2.img" border="0"//a

Asian equities slid after signs of a deepening economic slump slammed stocks worldwide the previous day, driving U.S. Treasury yields to their lowest since the 1950s.

Greene King, the pubs operator, unveiled a 15.2 per cent slump in interim profits this morning as it warned of a worsening economic climate in 2009.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks tumbled on Monday as signs of a deepening economic slump around the world erased much of last week's sharp gains, with banks and retailers among Wall Street's biggest casualties.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.reuters.com/~f/reuters/topNews?a=X5V10hxI"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/topNews?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.reuters.com/~f/reuters/topNews?a=slcG1cR0"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/topNews?i=slcG1cR0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.reuters.com/~f/reuters/topNews?a=27FQS6F6"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/topNews?i=27FQS6F6" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/reuters/topNews/~4/MbYhi03VwjI" height="1" width="1"/

NEW YORK (Reuters) - MySpace, the online social network owned by News Corp, sees opportunities to buy start-ups for a fraction of what they would have cost six months ago as the economic slump slices millions of dollars off their price tags.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/Reuters/InternetNews?a=fYhfC0Vl"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/Reuters/InternetNews?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/Reuters/InternetNews?a=qUKfcs9S"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/Reuters/InternetNews?i=qUKfcs9S" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/Reuters/InternetNews?a=KCPHtPpe"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/Reuters/InternetNews?i=KCPHtPpe" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Reuters/InternetNews/~4/WbKy-R8v5Pc" height="1" width="1"/

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks slid on Monday as news pointing to the deepening economic slump around the world punctured last week's market enthusiasm, with financial services companies and retailers among Wall Street's biggest casualties.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.reuters.com/~f/reuters/topNews?a=jBP4VIf7"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/topNews?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.reuters.com/~f/reuters/topNews?a=aTcQ2EBn"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/topNews?i=aTcQ2EBn" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.reuters.com/~f/reuters/topNews?a=LY6D1heg"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/topNews?i=LY6D1heg" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/reuters/topNews/~4/LD7fX0fcn8E" height="1" width="1"/

Martyr4BK writes "Businessweek has a slew of special reports today on open source software discussing the benefits for buyers who are cost conscious and open source being the silver lining for the economic slump. They even have a slideshow of "OSS alternatives" like Linux, Apache, MySQL, Firefox,Xen, Pentaho, OpenOffice.org, Drupal, Alfresco, SugarCRM, and Asterisk. These are all good examples (we use a bunch of them already), what other open source software can I use to drop my companies IT costs, and maybe get a decent bonus for the year."pa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/01/1555207amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/12/01/1555207"/a/ppa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/01/1555207amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/s3cbl2Cg66DnN6-KbMQtRc_H8QE/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/s3cbl2Cg66DnN6-KbMQtRc_H8QE/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/XAh4ReVaDP4" height="1" width="1"/