By Noah Graff

In order to make it professionally next year more people than ever in this world are going to have reeducate themselves, whether they’re learning CNC programming, switching professions after being laid off or starting their own businesses.

Lately I’ve been learning to administer a certain magazine’s Web site and taking salsa lessons. I’ve noticed that since I’ve gotten older (I’m almost 30) I’ve been listening to my teachers better. They say kids soak up knowledge much faster than adults. That may be true, but unlike when I was a kid, today I’m more aware of the learning process. I’m now able to observe myself doing it and I’m more excited about learning than I ever have been.

Maybe it’s because I’m learning these things from teachers that I’ve chosen and that I’m paying for their knowledge myself. School was always at least half about the game—passing the test, grinding through to get the piece of paper that would propel me to my next stage of growth. Maybe it’s just maturity—you never know. But I think I’ve become a better listener, at least to the people I respect.

So in my infinite wisdom as a 29-year-old (almost 30) journalist/auteur, I prescribe to all of you that learning should not only be important for getting from point A to B. I know it can be painful and expensive at times, but take a step back and try to watch yourself doing it sometime. It feels good, and you may then do it better than you would otherwise. I think it’s a key to feeling happy.

Take some inspiration from the martial arts training below.

Beatrix Kiddo (Uma Thurman) is trained by the great Pai Mei in Kill Bill Vol. 2

Bolivian Rose Salt

By Lloyd Graff

Salt is the ultimate commodity. Buy a canister of Morton’s off the very bottom shelf at the supermarket for a buck and a quarter and use it for six months, then buy another.

But for a seasoned cook, salt has a flavor that varies with the coarseness of the granule and where it comes from. Sea salt tastes different than mined salt, and rough kosher salt makes better brine than the fine stuff. When I think of salt I envision Tony Maglica, the man behind Mag Instrument, the greatest machining success story of the last 30 years. Tony grew up poor as dirt on a tiny island in the Adriatic. He and his mother survived on the pittance they gleaned by collecting sea salt during and after World War II. For Tony, salt afforded life—if just barely.

Nowadays, when I visit my daughter Sarah in Palo Alto, California, I always check out the Saturday morning farmers’ market. One of the newer sellers is a company called Spice Hound. They sell several different types of salt. I own a Bounds salt grinder and I was looking for the chance to buy something more interesting than Morton’s generic, but I didn’t know what I wanted.

The Spice Hound had 50 different containers of condiments. I certainly didn’t need to buy salt, but I saw a vial of tiny pink rocks labeled “Bolivian Salt.” The Bolivian thing, plus the quartzy pink cast of the crystals pulled me in. I asked the owner of the kiosk business to tell me her story and the story of the Bolivian salt.

As I tasted the salt, I imagined Paul Newman and Robert Redford in Bolivia in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I thought of Tony Maglica harvesting salt. I thought of this young Asian girl, Tammy starting a spice business in the pit of a recession. The salt was no longer just salt. It was a sensual, exotic, fresh must-have with an interesting story for only $7.00. I bought it and every time I grind salt for my tomatoes or omelets I think—wow this Bolivian salt is such a delicious luxury.

The task we all face as sellers of products that masquerade as generic commodities, is to give them a living story that sticks. Bolivan salt—pink as the Andes Mountains. Is it really different than Andy’s Machined Products from burned-out Detroit. Maybe the story is about a job for an ex-offender in St. Louis or a chance for a blind machinist in Seattle. We all have a story to tell—if we are worth our salt.

Question: Would you consider buying Bolivian Salt?

Fritz Henderson--Pitcher at University of Michigan 1980-84

The purge of former college jocks at GM continues. Former pitcher at the University of Michigan, Fritz Henderson (Senior year ERA of 5.91), is out, following the ouster of Rick Wagoner who played basketball at Duke. The culture at the top is changing with the nasty old phone guy Ed Whitacre shaking things up like a juiced up blender. Will ex-Oakland Raider and Chevy spokesman, Howie Long, be the next to hit the road?

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I recently talked to a long time friend and client, Wes Skinner of Manth Brownell, Kirkville, New York. This year Wes has taken his available cash and invested in Citizen CNC Swiss lathes, diversifying his machining portfolio out of his core Davenport and Wickman multi-spindles. He has bought seven Swiss—all used—including his more recent buy of an M-32 for $160,000. His rationale is that this year affords him a window to buy at historically low prices and he wants to bring his percentage of sliding headstock work up to one third of his current volume. Currently his multi-spindle business is good and getting better, but he does not envision buying any traditional multis in the foreseeable future. Wes thinks the really great buys in machine tools are ending now.

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The stock market is showing us some interesting things now, which makes the gloom and doom scenario for 2010 less believable. The Real Estate Investment Trusts are hot. Even though vacancies are high in commercial, office and industrial, the strong REITs are beloved by forward looking investors. This would indicate that the well-funded publicly traded real estate guys are in a great position to pick off the plums that the weak ones will be unloading. It also indicates that insurance companies and pension funds still like to lend on good properties with U.S. Treasuries paying a pittance and the strong likelihood that rates will be higher in a couple years or sooner.

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Unemployment is over 10 percent with shadow unemployment at 16 or 17 percent, but it is a fine time to be in the temporary help business. With so much uncertainty in Washington over health care and unemployment insurance costs headed up. Both big and small businesses are skittish about hiring full time people with benefits, but they still need people to get work done. The agencies that provide the temps are thriving. Demand for their services is rising and they have a lot of candidates to offer.

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My condolences to the family of Ivan Doverspike, who died recently. Ivan was a machinery dealer in Detroit specializing in screw machines. I didn’t know Ivan that well, but I remember traveling with him to look at a deal and discussing mutual acquaintances from the used machinery wars. His favorite saying during that conversation was “he knows his apples,” meaning a guy who’s astute. When I heard he had passed away my first thought was that he was a man who definitely “knew his apples.”

Question: Do you think jocks make good executives?

President Barack Obama--Played on Punahou High School Champion basketball team in Honolulu

Rick Wagoner--Duke freshman basketball team walk-on 1972

The Swiss just voted overwhelmingly to bar the building of new minarets in Switzerland. No big deal in and of itself (only four of the country’s 150 mosques have them), but quite significant as a symbol of the discomfort level in the county over the “Islamification” of Europe. Minarets are tower-like structures built on top of mosques that are traditionally used for the call to prayer. None are used for that Switzerland however, because of strict noise pollution rules.

Muslims now comprise roughly five percent of the population of Switzerland, traditionally a conservative and insulated country. They have a much bigger presence in England, France and Holland.
If you visit the Haute-Savoie region of France, which borders Geneva, the machining hub of the region since clock making from wood was developed in the Jura Mountains, you will see thousands of satellite dishes aimed at Aljazeera transmitting towers. Arabia has been transplanted in Rolex-land. With the European machining community flattened by the recession a backlash at Muslims is not surprising.

Maybe it is a stretch, but I am going to connect the dots between the sudden resignation from CNN by the outspoken critic of Latino immigration, Lou Dobbs, and the vote in Switzerland. The rumor is that Dobbs wants to run against Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the only Latino in the U.S. Senate.

Is there a parallel between Islamic immigration to Europe and Latino immigration to the United States? Will Lou Dobbs ride an anti-minaret like backlash into the mainstream of American politics?

Question: If you discovered your best employee was an illegal, what would you do?

Minaret of Zurich’s Mahmud Mosque, 23 May 2007/Christian Hartmann