Microwave Popcorn Poses Closer Threat than Sub-Prime Lending
Even if you weren’t one of the gazillions affected by last month’s sub-prime mortgage crisis, the repercussions might grab you where it hurts. Silicon Alley Insider’s Henry Blodget reacts to Oppenheimer analyst Sandeep Aggarwal’s "cautiously optimistic" conclusion on the impact it will have on the online advertising industry:
In our experience, once estimates start going down, they usually keep
going down. We believe the mortgage crisis will have a ripple effect
on other industries, such as broader financial services and retailing.
We believe the full effect will take at least a year or two to play out
and could be severe enough to cause Google, et al, to miss estimates in
Q4.
The question is, will other sectors, like automotive, consumer electronics
manufacturers, etc. and the major events of the coming year (Olympics and Presidential election) "pick up some of the slack" that the mortgage and financial sector – currently one-third of all interactive ad spend – is going to leave? That’s a question for someone with more economic foresight than yours truly. I can’t even predict rebajas week in Spain. Why not check out what "Jerry" has to say about lead gen and upped sales.
Too many financials? How about some depressing news about the social state of our country? At the 2007 Miss Teen USA Pageant, they asked Miss South Carolina why one-fifth of Americans could not locate the United States on a world map. View her answer here.
In related news, America’s obsession with microwave popcorn and fake butter is now linked to a nasty lung disease. “When
he broke open the bags, after the steam came out, he would often inhale
the fragrance because he liked it so much,” a victim’s doctor revealed yesterday.
Even if we do experience a downturn in ad revenue as a result of the mortgage crisis, hey, at least we don’t have bronchiolitis obliterans – or a case of teen pageantry. And it’s still a free country. Whew.
People died and continue to die because they work making popcorn flavoring powder, while the industry refuses to admit there’s a problem, refuses to change the work process to protect workers, and while the government refuses to write or enforce regulations that would make them.
April 17th, 2009 at 7:58 pm