Jim Willie is responsible for 'alternative' investment website GoldenJackass.com. In this case, the 'alternative' refers to the fact that he has little time or respect for bankers and economists. Recently he noted: 'If you had purchased $1000 of Delta Airlines stock one year ago, you would have $49 today. For $1000 invested in AIG, you would have $33 today. $1000 of Lehman Brothers stock would be worth $0 today.
'However, if you had purchased $1000-worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the aluminium cans for recycling, you would get $214 today at redemptions.'
You can't argue the numbers (and we all appreciate the beer post-rationalisation). It is plain to anyone with half an eye open that things in the economy are pretty bad. Even digital, the golden boy of media for the past few years, is starting to feel the pain.
Yahoo! was the recent target of a hostile takeover bid by Microsoft. The latter was prepared to stump up $30 a share, but Yahoo! held out for $37. A few months later its stocks are trading at $11.58 - a 61% drop.
Meanwhile, Google, the darling of the internet investor since its IPO in 2004, has lost 55% against its highest point this year.
So is it all over for the web? Can we go back to a world of shouting TV buyers and press jollies?
I'm afraid not. News Corp is 60% down against its 52-week high, ITV is down 67%, WPP is down 45%, and Aegis has dropped 53%. Media as a whole is suffering as the stock market anticipates the economic slowdown feeding through to manifest itself in lower ad budgets.
In the last global ad recession (during which, incidentally, the economy as a whole continued to grow) internet ad budgets fell 7% from 2001 to 2002, and all the while more and more people were getting connected to the web.
While the stock market nosedived, consumers voted with their mice. E-commerce continued to grow, web traffic expanded, and sites such as eBay were in their heyday.
Plenty of poor business models found they could no longer secure funding, and some good businesses couldn't access the funds to bridge cashflow. However, the sector emerged from this stronger and leaner than it had been before the dotcom crash.
In many ways, it mirrored the development of the railways in the 1840s. The establishment of the first successful railway, between Manchester and Liverpool in 1830, was followed by a stock market boom, and then a bust in 1846 as estimations of its profit potential proved over-optimistic.
By 1855, however, track miles had expanded by 370%, and passenger numbers grew 700% in the next 10 years.
Audiences are expanding online, with social networks and online video driving the surge in digital's share of the media pie. Digital media has also become the most influential factor in brand selection, with peer recommendation integral to consumer choices.
Its strength lies in the fact that it is not just an ad platform. It is a means by which consumers conduct conversations among themselves - often about our products, and usually right in the purchase zone.
Was I influenced by the review on shavers.co.uk that said the razor I had my eye on was 'an expensive disappointment'? Absolutely. Have I booked a hotel in the past eight years without checking TripAdvisor first? No way.
Consumers are seeking out brands online, and are ready to buy and talk. While we might see online advertising slow, digital can only grow in scale and influence. As a long-term prospect, it is almost certainly better than beer.
Andrew Walmsley is co-founder of i-level
30 seconds on the innovative Liverpool and Manchester railway
- The 35-mile Liverpool and Manchester railway, the first timetabled, steam-powered inter-city passenger railway, opened in September 1830.
- The line transported goods and materials between port and manufacturer more quickly and cheaply than the canals, which were believed to be making excessive profits from local trade.
- Key figures in promoting the scheme were Joseph Sandars, a Liverpool corn merchant, and John Kennedy, a textile manufacturer. Henry Booth founded the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company in 1823.
- 308 shareholders took 4233 shares in the railway. 1979 of the shares were sold to 172 people in Liverpool, 844 were bought by 96 Londoners, and 124 were taken by 15 people in Manchester. The Marquess of Salford bought 1000.
- The line is also the site of key innovations. It had the first cast-iron beam girder bridge, and the first coloured signals to use red for stop, green for caution and white for clear.
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