Posts tagged with: Italy

Back from Italy, and back to work

posted by   Ian Wyatt   |    November 2, 2008

Posted in   Travel   |   Comments

My new wife Carrie and I are now back from a great three week honeymoon that took us on a tour throughout northern Italy. Out travels took us to Venice, Bologna, Florence, Siena, Porto Ercole, and Rome. It was an amazing three weeks of visiting city sites, touring the Tuscany countryside, and relaxing at the beautiful coast on the Mediterranean Sea. With warm people and outstanding food, and wine, combined with an amazingly beautiful countryside and historically impressive cities and art makes Italy a top vacation spot in my book. I am however ready for a no-pasta diet after three weeks of consuming Italian food every day, at every meal.

I'm now back in the United States following our wedding and honeymoon, and am getting back into the swing of things at work. The past four weeks have seen significant losses in the stock market, and this has been having a negative effect on our business at Business Financial Publishing.

I have been monitoring the financial markets during my trip abroad, and was in regular contact with the Business Financial Publishing leadership team in Washington, DC discussing the impact of the financial crisis on our business. Last week brought some big gains to U.S. stocks, and the election on Tuesday will likely eliminate a certain amount of uncertainty that is weighing on the market as a whole. So long as there is a decision on Tuesday, I believe the markets will fair better, and the worst may be behind us. While the financial markets may have bottomed and could be on the road toward recovery, the underlying fundamentals that led to the current financial crisis (sub prime mortgages, over borrowing by consumers, high oil prices, declining home prices) remain in tact, and are unlikely to be solved in the coming weeks or months. I believe these are deep rooted issues that may take one or more years to filter through the economic system and see some sort of resolution, regardless of the actions taken by this and the future administration in Washington DC.

It is good to be back at work catching up on the rapidly evolving economy, stock market, and business environment.  It is likely to remain a challenging business environment for weeks and months to come, but I would rather be on this side of the Atlantic working with my great team to overcome these challenges.