I took an informal survey on the economy at a recent event ACG Boston hosted for the private equity and investment banking crowd.  I was able to speak with almost half the room and the question, put simply, was:

“Is there a greater than 50% chance or less than 50% chance the economy will go into recession in the next twelve months?” 

The nation’s economists themselves are divided on this subject with a bent toward a slightly higher degree of pessimism as the economic news skews downward.  For this crowd, the vote was close all night.

Early on, the, at that point, less lubricated and more PE crowd, decidedly felt we are “strongly perhaps” in for a recession.  However, the investment bankers, a much cheerier group to a man (woman), took a “What, me worry?” view. (There was one investment banker who came over to the Dark Side…but not emphatically so.)

By the end of the evening the No Recession view carried the day with 57% saying not to worry – we are bumping along now, but will recover.  Noteworthy comments included, “I-bankers are always bullish;” “We aren’t seeing International companies swooping into the middle market yet…they believe prices will continue to come down;” “Consumer appliance sales in the US are down 3%…an early indicator, but in Europe they are up 3%, so who knows;” and “Give the private equity guys more to drink, will ya!”

On another note, “My TREO Hates Me” column from last week did elicit a helpful response. 

Saul’s version of ETP (“Errant TREO Problems”) is Treoitis, a disease that leads to numerous social networking opportunities with PALM and Verizon tech support folks, Verizon store technicians, and finally the senior engineers from PALM and Verizon. 

His advice: “Never waste time with Tier 1 customer support and insist you are smart enough that you need a Tier 2 or Senior Engineer.  Useful phone numbers: Verizon executive relations: 1-877-282-0788 or the president’s office: 1-908-559-2000…and tell them Saul sent you." 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007 at 9:29 am and is filed under From Gail Long, CEO of ACG Boston, Industry Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.