Saturday August 23rd 2008 02.46

Coastguards from the Edge: Credit Crunch and other Confections

Richard Ashworth

Feng Shui Diaries

Solar fortnight beginning:

Saturday August 23^rd 2008 02.46

• Credit crunch cruncher tips at the foot of this diary entry.

Coastguards from the Edge: Credit Crunch and other Confections

Dear Richard: You should know that whatever “woo woo” you are doing here is really working overtime. A (freshly-negotiated) huge contract means a massive new client for us. A small manufacturers association is keen to appoint us. In addition, our newest client wants to set up a meeting with its UK counterpart with a view to us also handling the UK contract.

We may need you to come back and find us some staff!!!

I am so excited and just wanted you to know.

Thanks a million,

Brenda

August 2008.

Which is nice.

Whether we are suffering inflation, deflation, stagflation or consternation, the general agreement appears to be that the economy is in trouble. There is apparently a credit crunch. This is what the newspapers tell us. Newspapers of course trade in pessimism. They exploit that nasty part of all of us that needs to hear how bad life is. This does not make it true.

The beauty of feng shui, often defined as “doing the right thing in the right place at the right time,” is that it allows us to adapt to changing circumstances. If we know that in an earth Rat year, property values will collapse we can adapt to it. Masters such as Tan Khoon Yong in Singapore and Raymond Lo in Hong Kong predicted the 2008 water chaos as well as the Burma and Szechuan disasters in their own back yard. These too both also predicted to the day the property meltdown.*

So what does the future hold now? And what is to done about it?

* August 7^th 2007 when Sheep turned to Monkey and Northern Rock sent out distress flares.

Traditionally the image of the Earth Rat is of a lump of earth sinking into water. Next year, 2009 however is an earth Ox year: not so much water. Although it is yin and therefore not strong, the Ox is itself inherently solid and earthy. An informed reading of this is that property (and other) prices will strengthen early in January. Expect a rapid and ruthless buyers’ market early in 2009 of vendors who have been holding on to avoid fire-sale prices but now simply have to get on with it. If you are a seller this suggests you should get in early. If you’re a buyer, watch for bargains: they may be all gone by March. 2010 an aggressive yang year, presided over by the vengeful metal Tiger will I think, bring a further blip. I think they call this a double-dip.

This attempt at guidance from the world of woo-woo may sound like arrant mumbojumbobabble™ but please yourself.

Fait Accompli and other Cheese Dishes

In these alleged conditions, many companies are tempted to balance their books by cutting unnecessaryoutgoings. It’s what we mean by unnecessary that is a bit crucial. Typically such costs include training, incentives and entertaining. And feng shui. They are unnecessary because they are not a fixed part of the actual service or product. Nursery provision may make for a happier mother but its cost is not a necessary part of producing a widget or even Contract Widget Consultancy Solutions.

Having been a purveyor of woo-woo services to business since before the Miners’ Strike, I’ve seen this process once or twice before. Whether it was during the three-day week of the mid-70’s or the Ghost Town Era of a decade later or the property and stockmarket crash of 1987*, it is a fact that those companies that kept up such investment emerged from the crunch first.

The newspapers are invested in overlooking these sorts of fact.

The redtop papers especially are based on the premises that since they need to sell huge numbers every day, exciting stories sell papers and exciting things don’t happen that often, news generally has to be made up to keep the papers interesting.

Newspapers of course have their origins in the bulletins pinned on the walls of 18^th century coffee houses in the city of London. Their principal purpose was to inform interested parties which ships had sunk. Not which remained afloat. So it is understandable that newspapers and the media generally retail the negative. Bless.

But there is a level on which we don’t have to buy into this. We can choose to be crunched or not. Many have already entered this reality so deeply they are barely treading water. But the fact is we can choose. Our realities are not run by gravity or a court order. They are ours.

What tao I tao about it?

So as I said, the traditional corporate response at a time like this is to tighten the belt. What alternatives are there? Now I don’t care whether you believe in feng shui or not, belief being a very unimportant part of the process, but as that’s what I do, I’ll answer with some feng shui ideas:

1. Pay attention to hints, signs and nudges. The tao (or flow) is going where it’s going. You’d be best advised to follow it. Get with the beat, Baggy. As a rule, none of us has a better idea. You may be amazed where you are led when you let go of the delusion that you know exactly what’s going on. If you do know exactly what’s going on, you’re one-up on me, by the way. And if you do have a better idea, go with that
2. Concentrate your people and activity in the East and South East of your premises. Every building has individual sweet spots but these are the areas where the best energy sits this year. Especially in September.
3. Declutter: especially if staff have time on their hands, remove from the office everything that is not useful. The rule is: if you love it or use it, keep it, otherwise e-bay, recycle or a skip.

I often get offices to make three piles of paper: one to keep, one to look at and one to toss. Most of the journals, leaflets and memos that are lying around awaiting attention are likely to be out of date.

1. Don’t face North. That’s where the tai sui is or to cut a long story short, only frustration lies in that direction this year.
2. Rearrange your staff into compatible teams by Year Animal. You can work this out from any half-decent popular book on feng shui and I will give brief guidance by email if you approach me via the free query button on the website. www.imperialfengshui.info
3. Respect the best direction of each member of staff. Some people are hampered by facing North East and energised facing East. Again you can get this information from books like Lillian Too’s pocket Feng Shui Fundamentals books or you can ask me via the free query button.
4. Ask me in. Give me a bit of notice; I’ve never been busier.

I hope you find this useful. I will include any good stories that emerge from the use of these ideas in a future diary. I can if you like, add your name and contact details. These diaries go to thousands of people.

Above all: remember none of us can be crunched without our consent.

Names have been changed to protect..uh…me.

My (still) super-duper (still) revamped website is atwww.imperialfengshui.infoand my book The Feng Shui Diaries is available now from:

Amazon(www.amazon.co.uk/Feng-Shui-Diaries-Richard-Ashworth/dp/1846940176/sr=8-4/qid=1166798863/ref=sr_1_4/026-3383613-4930062?ie=UTF8&s=books

Waterstoneswww.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/displayProductDetails.do?sku=5567853)

or indeed Tescos. Do buy it from a bookshop if you can.

Feedback is welcomed including that you never want to hear from me again if that happens to be the case. Please also let us know if you are getting too many or too few diaries or that they are appearing in Cinemascope on your screen or whatever. Thanks. R