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I would second that, I remember reading this article some time ago now about the drain television can have:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/06/giving-up-tv/
And coming from a bit of a newsy background the constant need to draw upon the fear and macabre instincts of people can lead to a diet of depressing events.
I spit at newspapers too with their deliberate headlines to make us all feel uncomfortable about ourselves. All the time there is this uncertainty, journalists will keep their jobs.
I still think that there is (or has been) too much complacency and denial and ultimately, any business who continued along the same path as it was previously following could possibly have found trouble.
It is too early to say when the economy will recover; consumer confidence is a lagging indicator and I am not too sure how many consumers know how close the world has come to system failure as far as the financial markets are concerned.
The economy needed to correct itself for sure. It had been fuelled by Irrational exuberance once again as those who didn't learn from history went on to repeat it.
Take a look at the ten year chart of the ftse100 (this is not intended as financial advice). It is clear to see the historical failing of the last bull run which culminated with many things meeting at the same time.
The millennium bug fiasco which erroneously convinced heads of IT to upgrade their systems because we were all told that computer clocks would all return to zero and cause chaos.
This caused a spike in IT purchases. Coupled with that we had the Dot Com bubble where investors were fed false hope that the new Internet era would bring a whole new world to us.
Stock prices were doubling in a day leading partly to the famous utterance 'irrational exuberance' by the then head of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan.
I have drawn a chart that shows the market leading up to 2000 and the next ten years. We can see the decline taked three years to play out before embarking on a five year bull run.
This bull run culminates in a realisation that everywhere, financial institutions have taken the selling of credit too far, including amongst themselves, and the only way, to correct the situation is down.
For whatever the reasons, the process is necessary to correct the situation and bring stock and house prices closer to fundamental value. Speculation, demand from China and India for steel, gas and oil and easy credit for homes, personal luxuries and business, had caused a bubble in nearly every market.
There are some interesting calls that are linking today's situation with the depression caused by the 1929 stock market crash but analysis suggest that there were no real reason for the crash but just a cyclical correction that followed normal economic behaviour. You might find this article on the 1929 crash interesting.
This time, the speed of communication, easy access to derivative trading and easy to come by credit means that volatility and extremes of cycles are exacerbated leading to huge losses in some parts, but by definition, huge gains in others. Some call it a transfer of wealth.
Looking at things in a purely technical way, the stock market is likely (not guaranteed) to retest the previous low (which incidently is not as low as the March 2003 low so there is always the chance that the markets will need to retest this low circa 3600 ftse100 before starting on another 3-5 year bull run).
The correction in the banking system is a good thing but it will mean restrictions on the way ordinary people acquire credit. Loans and mortgages will be harder to come by for a short time.
My view is that we need to see some liquidity and confidence retu
Media wants to sell good titles.so If there is something grey they will show it black.
I saw so much of it by watching few channels and comparing news about Israel.
The damage usually is huge in any issue.(stress,hate and more).
I dont avoid the news just reduce it to once a week.
I agree most important is to stay cool and improve things- It's financial evolution.
Traditionally, so that the city can qualify for their bonuses, their figures will need to be bolstered with some perceived success - a bull run up to Christmas normally happens.
As I said in the earlier post (and this is not investment advice) a drop to 3600 on the ftse cannot be ruled out but this level would represent major support.
In summary, my opinion is, we will either see a strong two month rally from here or a drop to circa 3600 and then a significant rally from there.
Any trader with sells on the market would not hold for much longer so a reversal (where everyone buys the market) should happen.