An economic snapshot from Company X

Just came out of a big status meeting. We have about 30,000 employees in 9 states. We do business all over the world. Our business is for durable goods and it's NOT seasonal. We are owned by a single man who built this place from his garage up. His goal is to keep about 4% of our total sales for himself. The man is certainly not greedy. In 2007 he ended up with 2% of gross sales for himself. A 50% cut in income. He said he is "willing to take a little less to try to avoid laying his people off".

We are cutting jobs by about 5% through attrition - no one gets axed - we just don't replace those who move on. Our owner said this is actually not due to lower sales - our overall sales are going very well, but costs are skyrocketing. This was always a "waste not want not" type company, but we are looking really hard at how to squeeze the budget even more.

Sales are flat with last year in the US.

US customers are still paying at the same percentages as usual on the 30/60/90/120 aging, but what used to be 34 days is now 45 days. So customers who go between 30 and 60 days to pay are moving closer and closer to the 60 day mark. The same is holding true for other aging fields.

US customers cash payments are down by more than 50% and being shifted to credit cards.

In contrast

Foreign sales are up by more than 34%.
Foreign customers are paying by wire transfer in advance and not even bothering to request terms.

For what it's worth

health care expenses for employees, I'm guessing?

You have one hell of a good boss.

Health care sure, but also utilities and shipping costs. The cost to bring things in and out of our facilities is going through the roof.

Thanks for posting. A few scenarios like this put all those macroeconomic numbers into context.