Andrew Reynolds: I got an email here from a bloke, a gentleman saying “Regarding selling DVDs, particularly at the time of the credit crunch it will be struggle to attract customers to buy DVDs.” Telegraph don’t agree, Telegraph’s headline is that DVD sales are bucking the economic gloom because people are sat indoors, they are turning off the frightening stuff and putting on the DVDs.
I love this quote. This is from the CEO of Iceland, he’s saying “Recession, what recession? We are not taking part.” This weekend, shall we not take part in this recession?
Iceland’s profits rocketed 84% to 113 million. Did anybody see that on the telly? Their sales are up 16% and Iceland have been going round the country picking up on the cheap all the Woolworths stores that went out of business. Fantastic business model.
Pizza. Dominoes Pizza, their profits are up by 25% because we all sit indoors watching our DVDs eating pizza.
Garden centres, the missus says “Garden’s looking a bit tatty darling, let’s go down the garden centre.” Garden sales are up.
Andrew Reynolds: Video sales. All the kids are in the bedroom with their TVs playing video games. Video game sales are up.
And it’s not just down at the bottom end in the pound shops, posh lady’s shoes, profits are up. The iphone, they are telling us on the TV that the mobile telephone market has taken a big plunge, that’s what they are feeding us. But iphone can’t make enough of these things.
When they launched the iphone and the upgrades, they had people queuing outside their shops and they can’t keep up with demand. They’ve got a premium product, they are giving the customer what they want, they branded it well and people are queuing up for it.
Andrew Reynolds: Cosmetics, bless them because the ladies are trapped indoors with nothing else to do, they are now looking at the whole cosmetics thing. Biggest seller on the market at the moment, anti ageing cream, I have no idea how you get that through the Advertising Standards Agency. Anti ageing cream, the warehouses can’t keep up with the women buying this glob, profits are up.
The house building sector, I used to work in house building as a number of people in the room will know. House building has taken a big dive unless you are building little houses. Lego, profits rose by two thirds last year. It’s not on the news.
Caravan sales are up 15%.
Beach hut sales, I saw this, beach hut sales. I’ve got a mate of mine bought a beach hut, it’s like a bloody shed that you can buy for £200 at B&Q. It says here, I’m reading it off this monitor because I can’t see the big screen behind me “Beach huts are bucking the economic trend with buyers splashing out £40,000” for a little wooden shed down by the beach, amazing.
Andrew Reynolds: I was in New York last year; I was in a place last year called American Girl Place. I went into American Girl Place and in American Girl Place they sell dolls, they have four floors of dolls. But the thing that got me, is that when little Trixie wants to get her hair done for the doll, she doesn’t, I mean when I went to school the girls used to bring the dolls to school and they used to comb the hair. That’s what they used to do at playtime right? Now you book in, mamma takes you down to American Girl Place; you book your doll in to have its hair done by professional hairdressers.
If you want to have your doll’s hair plaited it costs you twenty bucks.
So don’t tell me there is no money about, don’t tell me about recession. In fact let’s bring some TVs up, let’s just take a look at these TVs.
Andrew Reynolds then took the audience through a presentation of News footage on the huge Entrepreneurs Bootcamp screens
Inflation, stop it or else. Back to Whitehall from a recent holiday hurried the Chancellor to discuss the menace of inflation with leading employers and trade unionists. Transport house is no less concerned for of what use are higher wages if prices promptly leap over them. Unless we find the answer and find it quickly Britain may go bankrupt.
London, the newspapers posed questions but facts were facts the pound had been devalued. On Monday after the announcement the stock exchange was empty, there was no trading but outside in Throgmorton Street, brokers and jobbers crowded together, not to carry on business but to try and sort out what the drop in the pound’s value would mean to them when they started work next morning. There was no point in going to the bank, they were all closed for the day while their staff made necessary adjustments. It seemed to be a black, moneyless Monday.
The decline in the country’s living standards has been accompanied by failure in that direction. Mr. Healey sounded a warming against big pay rises at a time when growth in world trade was shrinking. “The whole world has been shuddering from an economic earthquake and if the world doesn’t come to terms fairly soon with the consequences of the oil crisis we could all be set for a great slump on the size of the 30’s.”
Good afternoon to you, earlier on today apparently a woman rang the BBC and said she heard that there was a hurricane on the way, well if you are watching, don’t worry, there isn’t…
From the opening bell Wall Street was on a record downslide, pushed along by the bad news from London. At times it looked like a financial disaster as frenzied selling threatened to overwhelm the system. At one stage there was even talk of suspending transactions altogether until the computers could catch up and the traders catch their breath. At one point this morning the Dow Jones Index was down 305 points on the day. Outside the exchange people queued up to witness the spectacle from the visitors’ gallery. Near closing it was 500 points down with the computers still unable to churn out a final figure.
The Government knows that unless it does something to stem the tide of repossessions then it is an issue that could damage it badly in the coming general election campaign, but negotiations are still going on between the Treasury, Department of Social Security and the Building Societies.
The Government is looking urgently with mortgage lenders at what further measures might be taken to protect those faced with repossession.
No return to Tory Boom and Bust, Boom and Bust, Boom and Bust….
Andrew Reynolds: Every decade that I’ve been around there’s been a financial crisis in this country. On the BBC website it says “Do you remember the last recession?” Absolutely I remember the last recession because I lost my job. Back in the 90’s I got fired and I swore to myself then, I made myself a promise that I would never, ever, ever put myself in a situation again where somebody could say to me “You are fired” and put my family’s finances in jeopardy.
(applause) Thank you.
Andrew Reynolds: That single declaration, it’s a declaration you need to make this weekend, that single declaration put me on a course which would change my life totally and pull in £50 million.
