Recession Indicators

Many have heard about the “McDonald’s or Big Mac Index, as a method of determining salaries and disposable income and thus how well off a nation is. It is based upon how many minutes or hours a worker in a major world city earning an average salary needs to work in order to purchase a Big Mac. Tokyo used to be the winner with something like seven minutes. New York and London were not far behind. Some cities in developing countries could take as long as 20 hours. Sounds simple but it was a very effective indicator, really.

But times have changed. That was a 90’s Index. Now we are entering the second decade of a new century and need a new index. So I am proposing the Pole Dancer index. Certain “industries” are considered recession proof. Most have to do with sin or vice depending upon whether you are religious or a police official. For average folk, we call these necessities. These would include gambling, drinking, smoking, fraternizing with women who demand cash upfront, etc. The “Gentlemen’s Club” one would think, would fall into this category. But wait. A few years ago, these clubs were thriving. Believe it or not, there are publicly-traded strip club corporations that were seeing 300-400% gains in their stock price by an aggressive expansion strategy. Use the word expansion anyway you see fit. But recession anxiety, like performance anxiety, manifests itself in mysterious ways. With the onset of the recession, sales began receeding at these clubs faster than their clientele’s hairlines.

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