So Ghostrider made 55.5 million over the weekend. Go Figure. Of course, everyone in the world who wanted to see it, went to see it.


So if I believe what I said yesterday, about the housing bubble bursting and the disastrous effect it will have on the Bend economy, what do I do about it? How do I put my money where my mouth is?

For one, there isn't a direct one on one correlation between the downturn and my business, like there was with beanie babies, or pogs, or cards, etc. I mean, when sports cards dropped in half, my business dropped in half. If the economy goes south, there's a reasonable expectation that I'll keep most of my customers, who will mostly buy what they've been buying. If the worst happens, it would be more comparable to what happened to Bend in the early 80's.

Secondly, I could be wrong. I mean, drawing a parallel between beanie babies and the housing market might be stretching it a bit. Might be more than a few levels of complexity I'm missing there. Things I'm simply not seeing.

Still, I think the basic reasoning is valid, and I believe the laws of supply and demand are like gravity; eventually anything in the air without anything holding it up, will fall.

The timing, is the biggest problem. It seems like I can often figure out where there is weakness, and it seems like I'm often right.....but it takes much, much longer than I think it will. Things just keep frothing over, taking on a life of their own, providing their own momentum. If the world worked by reason alone, we could figure it out.

And there is often an unexpected resurgence, too. An outside factor that comes along and boosts sales yet again.

But if it happens, and I'm convinced that a slowdown at the very least is inevitable, what do I do?

The irony is that the same steps I need to take to reduce risk, are exactly the same steps I need to take to make money. In other words, if I keep the overhead low, buy carefully at the highest profit margins, and most importantly, keep to a strict budget, I can make money if sales keep going along, or not lose money if sales drop.

What I can't do is keep plowing all the money back into the store for improvements, expansions, etc.

So I just need to follow through on what my plans have been all along. I need to stick to a budget.