New York city recession blues

You can't believe everything you read in the newspapers (even in the newspaper of record) and it's always nice to do some research of your own, which is why I was on a fact-finding mission to the US last week. (Note to business editor: fact-finding mission - not holidays!) I'll admit that checking out the situation regarding US retail sales and how they affected me in particular was an intrinsic part of my visit, but I also wanted to meet some people in New York and talk to them about whether they thought that the economy was heading into recession or whether it's all much ado about nothing.

In fact, the "R" word was on the lips of almost everyone in the US, especially the commentators on the myriad of business channels that broadcast everything you could possibly want to know and then some about the state of the economy. (Apparently, the most watched daily piece of TV is the ringing of the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). I find that hard to believe but I'm assured it's true.) Because everyone's talking so much about recession, there's a backlash from people who think that this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy and who are encouraging US citizens to get out there and spend their dollars.

The maitre d' at the Tir na Nog bar near Madison Square Garden was emphatic.

There's no recession, he told me. The jobs that have been lost over the past few months were never real jobs in the first place. Internet companies were doomed to failure so nobody should ever have depended on them for work in the first place. Besides which, he said, this bar was full. Did it look like people were worried? Well, that night, no. The following night, when the bar was empty, I might have got a different story.

I did from the worker I met in a different bar. (OK, so my fact-finding was mainly carried out in bars. The best research is carried out in bars, honestly.) He was in his 50s and felt relatively secure, but some of his friends had been laid off in recent weeks. And the problem for them was that they, too, were in their 50s and they weren't too hopeful about their prospects for future employment. And it was all very well having previously changed jobs to companies that paid better than the ones they were in before, or offered them better stock options, but now those companies were working on a last-in-first-out basis and the stock options were worthless.

Every day new job losses were announced by newscasters who looked grimmer and grimmer as the week progressed. Pitney Bowes, Daimler Chrysler, Deutsche Bank and CNN all let people go (apparently some of the CNN crowd were drowning their sorrows in the Tir na Nog while we were there), while General Electric denied that 75,000 jobs would go over a two-year period but acknowledged that staffing cuts at the company were likely. Meanwhile, a steady stream of technology companies continue to downsize or simply go out of business. Amazon.com announced that it was closing two operation centres and making 13 per cent of its workforce redundant.

Without the free-spending, pretend-job people to grease the wheels of continued economic growth, there is no doubt that consumers are less willing to spend money. February is actually one of the biggest sale times in New York stores, but retailers rarely sell clothes at full market price in the city, and places like Macy's and Bloomingdale's were already cutting prices still further. Tellingly, perhaps, the well-known discount stores were the ones that were really crowded - places like Century Twenty-One were crammed with New Yorkers looking for bargains, whereas Saks and Barneys weren't exactly stopping them at the doors.

One crowded place was outside the NYSE, where traders smoked cigarettes, drank coffee, ate bagels and complained about business while, inside, their colleagues tried to look upbeat despite the fact that the market was going to end lower again that day. Activity on the floor of the exchange was fairly muted while we were there - most attention was actually focused on the female reporter who was redoing her makeup before going on the air.

Meanwhile, the other news was mainly Clintonesque. While I was accosting people and asking them about the economy, real reporters were asking them about the burning issue of the day - whether the ex-president should have to pay for his office space in the Carnegie building (rental is between $675,000 (€727,370) and $800,000 per annum, depending on who was asking the question). Obviously Mr Clinton would have to pay. Even the restaurant owner with the "New York Welcomes President Clinton" banner in the window wasn't willing to keep him in that kind of office space.

Mr Clinton looks like being big news in the US for some time to come, especially since his non-pardon of ex-junk bond king Mr Michael Milken and his actual pardon of commodities trader Mr Marc Rich. There's been a lot of coverage of Mr Rich's activities in the papers over the past few weeks - suffice it to say, he wouldn't have a problem paying the office rental in Carnegie.

Mr Rich's ex-wife is a longtime friend of the Clintons, who has given them significant political donations, and most people think this is why Mr Rich was pardoned. Which means that the Richs must have had one of the most amicable divorces in history - there's many a woman I know who'd quite happily think that her ex was languishing outside the country unable to come back for fear of prosecution.

We nearly didn't make it back into the country ourselves - a sudden snow storm on the East Coast meant that the airport closed just before we were due to leave. We sat on the plane for six hours before actually taking off, by which time we'd already seen the movie and eaten the pretzels.

The life of a roving reporter is not an easy one.