Now in a lot of European countries laying off personnel is either a prohibitively expensive undertaking or can be done more cheaply if it can be proven that it is for reasons of "economic survival".

In some countries company management actually has to appear in court beforehand and in others they have to appear only as a result of legal action of employees or trade unions after being sacked or made redundant.

Either way, what I would like to explore is whether in the current crisis the accountants who have for years struggle with "window dressing" the year-end accounts will actually do a double whammy and clear out the accumulated "mayonnaise" of the accounts along with the deadwood personnel by publishing worse figures ? Call it an "accounting undressing" if you please!

For those unfamiliar with the window dressing concept this process can be readily explained in three steps: (1) How to we play with the figures in order to show our results in the best light; (2) What changes need to be done and are they legal; (3) Re-manipulation in order to provide a plausible path from last years "window dressed" figures to the current ones.

As this process builds year-after-year step (3) becomes increasingly challenging so a "crisis", merger or re-structuring is always taken as a welcome opportunity to level the playing field from time to time and sweep the slate clean. Usually under a headings such as "miscellaneous /extraordinary one-off operating costs" or similar.

I hereby declare open season for spotting corporate candidates of such a travesty....

Looking around at the massive scramble by investors, incubators, VC funds, home offices to sell off their leaking assets in the name of the crisis I began to wonder if "the crisis" wasn't just a good excuse to dump poor investments and not get fired for it ?

Logically this would break down into two reasons for termination:

(1) The initial investment decision was based upon poor judgement or (2) The investment was poorly managed

So what better way to get out of a sticky situation and save face than blaming it on "the crisis"?

With this thought in mind I decided to substantially increase the IQ applied to my initial question by talking to some of my illuminated friends like Ricard de Querol in order to shed some light.

The part of the conversation I actually understood went something like this: "ahhh, yes, yes, lets see. If the crisis was due to the default of sub-prime loans then 200-300 billion would suffice to plug the whole. The fact that the loans were re-packaged and further loans were extended in order to purchase these by now leveraged parcels effectively created a pyramid effect and so the several trillion required to fill the gap could be right.".

"But would that explain the crisis and the sell off of so many investment assets?", I asked.

"errrmmm, no it wouldn't but then who said the crisis was due to the sub-prime disaster in the first place? What about the effect of the heated Chinese economy, the rocketing oil and rice prices, ......, ....."

I decided to return to my pew to think about the by now several "businesses for sale" files sitting on my desk.................... then those I know struggling, desperately ............ and a few that are still doing well......

Some of them are clearly struggling because sales plummeted but mostly they will survive to see another day. As for the rest they would have died anyway because at least 1 or more of "Clem's golden conditions" did not exist: (1) Right product; (2) Right time; (3) Right place; (4) Right team.

So I conclude by asking you the same question:

Is the crisis just an accelerator and a very convenient excuse for not having to admit failure?

Now that the year has closed out and the bean counters are busy dressing up the figures business owners tremble. Not really, more like spending their last line of credit on a ski week-end! So, what's in a blog if you don't stick your neck out and be predictive ?

By March the financial closing should be over and the reality of the situation hits the fan. Expect lots of shop and business closures by May. The Spanish housing crisis (not sub-prime) continues to trickle down through the economy and local rumour has hotel booking down by 30% and car dealerships ready to close doors.

On the business front, corporates are selling off non-core business assests and typical home office and small venture funds are busy liquidating their assets in order to preserve or generate cash, all of which only adds to the general economic misery.

So is there any good news? Yes, providing you have cash or access to credit! Never have company and small business valuations been lower! Companies who now spent a few million of investor's money developing product or business are on offer at a 20 to 50 times discount !

Wow! Providing the money was well spent and the business model is sound this means that for 50,000 you can pick up a company whose intrinsic value is worth a couple of millions ! In two or three years we will be out of the crisis and providing the business survives you'll effectively have banked the millions of the previous investors who didn't stand by their guns and defend their investment decisions. Sounds too easy ? Maybe, but not too difficult or impossible either...

Hot topics for the next 6 months? Low profile astute acquisitions by those who were smart enough to pile the cash in good times and receivership administration, crisis management and asset disposals for the rest...