Robert Scoble

It's bad times...... - yanchao

This is for Barcelona? - Paul Denlinger

Yes, Barcelona. - Robert Scoble

Just look at the Container Ship Time Charter Assessment Index. It's down from 1 022 points in February to 416 points. - Marcel Janus

If I may be honest, I'm sick of reading how bad economy is. Heck, what is the economy? Isn't it but the sum of single business and their relations? If a single business is in trouble, then likely because it isn't producing something useful, isn't able to sell it or doesn't have the funding and the stamina to survive the dip. Maybe on the big scale it isn't that different. Maybe we weren't producing the things that we needed. Maybe we didn't build good, strong relationships. Maybe we, as a society, have become crybabies and simple lack the stamina to push through this. - Dushan Wegner

The guy at dinner that Robert mentions was Jordi Soler (@jordisoler). He's really remarkable. He's running a family-owned business that trucks containers around Europe, and is totally plugged into the web tech scene, reading all sorts of blogs, signed up to lots of services, etc. And a really nice guy. - Terry Jones

I'm the guy working at the docks. The Tweetup was excellent and I learned a lot about startups with you guys. As to the economic situation, yes, here in Barcelona times are pretty rough right now. I'm still holding up because I have a little family business, but right now big companies are suffering a lot and firing workers. Business is clearly slowing down and we can only hope that the situation recovers soon. - Jordi Soler

company I work for had a round of layoffs.. thankfully they can't trim the IT dept down any further since there's only 2 of us providing support for our global operations! - alphaxion

Ever ask someone you don't know really well - how's business? I stopped asking because the vast majority of the time all I've heard is "not bad" or "good". All around me I see signs that things aren't good. - Wayne Schulz

Wayne, I ask all the time, and I've been getting "not very good" or "things are slow" from cab drivers and shopkeepers, so while in general that is the response you'll get, it's not the one I'm getting lately. - Chris White

The economy will remain this way until people stop complaining about it, and start doing things to help it. - Spencer

Spencer, kind of like the weather. Seriously, this is not just people complaining, it's people explaining. Getting an understanding of what is happening in a global economy is useful to individuals. IMO, this economy can't be fixed without going through some pain, which includes de-leveraging the over-leveraged economy. This means stop bailing out companies, and stop lowering interest rates and printing money. Real estate is over-bought, and needs to come down in price. - Chris White

Robert, it's much worse than 20%. Marcel is right. Look at the BDI (Baltic Dry Index). It's 1/15th of what it was 7 months ago. - Chris White

Hi Robert, hi to all! Regarding Jordi Soler´s comment, I wanna say that in the case of Germany, where Im based (Berlin) we are not feeling the same. During the last Web 2.0 Expo berlin, I met a few local VC´s, and they told me that is ok in Germany and the crisis is not extremely hard like in UK or Spain. I was in London for 10 days in Nov, and for example the Restaurant Industry is suffering a lot! I think the press needs to take care about what they r publishing,& dont let the panic grow up! - Rami Morante

It all depends on where you are. Right now. confidence is the key issue in the UK/US. In Spain, the dependence on construction and tourism is creating a nightmare. Unemployment is on a steep rise. ;( - Dennis Howlett

Oh dear, I heard the other day that construction ( in Australia ) is going to shed tens of thousands of jobs. That's a lot of jobs. - Will Higgins

well, one this is certain you americans need to demand that the private company printing all your money and devaluing it while adding a tag of debt to it is dissolved and a return to the gold standard so your fiat currency can go bye bye. - alphaxion

@alphaxion: the gold standard in dead in the world and nothing will return us to it. There simply isn't enough value in gold to offset the value of the world economy. If you don't like american currency, then don't buy it. - Bob Blunk

It's a little difficult to not deal with it at some point, considering oil is sold in it and the status of reserve currency. It still doesn't change the fact that every time the fed reserve prints off another round of cash the money in the pockets of americans gets that little bit more worthless and their government that much more in debt (since every dollar printed by the fed comes with a bit of debt and is charged with interest). The house of cards must come down at some point. - alphaxion

Yes. Point well taken. But the fact the our current economic system is failing is not a reason to take a step back to the gold standand. We abandoned that system for the current one and we will eventually, after much pain, move forward into a new system. - Bob Blunk

Another point is that we need to stop looking at America to fix the world. That is not reality anymore. I would not look toward the British Empire to solve our problems, so why are we banking on the US to help. The US no longer sets the course. We need to look toward Asia and China for our new course. - Bob Blunk

hey, I'm not asking the americans to fix anything for me, I'm commenting on how they can fix something of their own. And it needs to be done fast - China (largest holder of american debt) is ditching dollars for euros, Iran is attempting to sell oil dirt cheap in euros. What would you base your currency on? Since the whole point is that paper money is just a promise that there is the equiv value of gold backing it up. Would you switch to a carbon credit one? - alphaxion

a currency NEEDS to have an inherent value to it, be it the promise of a valuable commodity backing it up or made out of said commodity otherwise where is the point? where is the value? And I don't think anyone should look towards anyone else for their "course", we should each come up with our own course or world leaders should meet up and thrash out a joint one - problem there is with the differences in vested interests. - alphaxion

there is NO such thing as "inherent value" - none at all. ALL value is embodied via a network - i.e. "gold" (or any other "valuable commodity" only has that value because people agree upon it - and that agreement can and will change over time. Money is one such thing - it has no inherent value - it only has the value that networks of people give it. Non-government issued currencies do gain real "value" occasionally (call minutes in Africa, virtual gold in online games/virtual worlds) - Shannon Clark

oh, and the gold standard is very much not dead in the world - many of the currencies are still linked to it. It's also very interesting to note that the Chinese are using a currency system very similar to the original system of the USA when it first came into existence. - alphaxion

I wonder if copper is going to replace gold. - Shevonne

How about basing it on water or salt.. nice n common ;) - alphaxion

@alphaxion which currencies are still linked to the gold standard? - sixbit

a little bit of reading and I realise that I hadn't grasped the term right.. the actual "gold standard" itself died off quite a while ago and is in fact against the IMF rules to be a member and still use it. However, pretty much every central bank in the world still keeps significant reserves of gold to "protect" their currency, which is what I meant by "linked to gold". Though there are some countries where gold coins are still accepted (malaysia apparently, tho if this isn't true please lemmie know). - alphaxion

However, there is one that is still using gold standard - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D... - alphaxion

@Chris White: Thx and I think you also right with your conclusion. - Marcel Janus