I believe that within a year or two we will look back at the period we are experiencing today as one of huge growth and opportunity. And for many, a time of miserable pain. The incredible bounce-back of the NASDAQ stock index into positive territory for the year is indicative of optimism in American business by the people who control the levers of big money. This is not an opinion that many of my 75 year old age group who have managed to survive the pandemic so far, seem to share. With 70 to 80% of the deaths among my…
Author: Lloyd Graff
“If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” This phrase is attributed to Abraham Maslow in his book, The Psychology of Science, in 1966. It relates to a cognitive bias that involves over-reliance on a familiar tool. The screw machine guy thinks he can run 150 pieces successfully on a multi-spindle, and the person who has Citizens and Stars wants to put a 20,000 piece run on several of his Swiss machines. We all tend to fall back on the tools we own or are most familiar with. I saw the downside of this phenomenon over…
Sometimes the bad guys lose. Lately, it seems like the bad guys are on a losing streak. Look at Iran. Not only did the fiendish master terrorist in a general’s uniform, Qasem Soleimani, get his just due at the hands of an American drone, but people who hate the despotic regime have been emboldened to engage in mass protests against the government. A month ago the police and army put down demonstrations by mowing down hundreds, if not thousands, in Tehran but also in other cities. They imprisoned many more, but they haven’t silenced the people. The economy is gasping…
When I take my daily shower, I devote my energy to groaning and swearing at the walls. My pent up pain, not really directed at any one thing, is drowned by the noise of the water striking the floor. It is one way to dissolve the negativity that feels so powerful inside me early in the morning. I towel off quickly and flop back into bed exhausted from the hot water and the verbal expiation, continuing my groans. After ten or fifteen minutes flat on my back in bed, I do my fifteen minute prayer and meditation ritual, eat breakfast,…
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) makes it almost impossible for a small company to develop an effective drug and bring it to the marketplace. It’s one of the main reasons drugs are so expensive in the United States and introduction of new drugs is so slow. Yet once in a blue moon a relatively small pharma company, living on borrowed money and borrowed time, defies all the odds and slithers a potential blockbuster drug through the laborious regulation, testing, and lawsuits of fat pharma that wants to squash potential competition, and dashes to the finish line. This happened a…
I’m in the mood for sports today. In baseball, Washington won the World Series for the first time after losing Bryce Harper to the Phillies. And they won it in seven games, winning all four played at Houston’s ballpark. Never happened before. And the Nationals’ best pitcher, Matt Scherzer, got hurt in the Series. Unpredictable game. In football, the traditional drop-back quarterback, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, is being gradually surpassed by the mobile, elusive running quarterback. The three most likely MVP quarterbacks this year are Russell Wilson, Lamar Jackson, and Patrick Mahomes. All were misjudged coming out of…
Homeless people spook me. I hate it when somebody wearing a sign proclaiming their homelessness, holding a cup and looking forlorn, shoves the cup toward me begging for coins. Yet their plight, if they really are homeless, is a terrible thing. It struck me hard recently when Noah and I were driving to a business conference in the city concerning hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of unsold screw machines. We drove by a tiny makeshift shelter covered by a couple of blue tarps next to an apartment building which appeared empty and possibly being prepared for demolition in an…
Lisa Goldman is living with a Stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis. She writes a blog called Every Breath I Take, aimed at people like herself. In her latest piece she talks about surpassing five years on her medication, which she says has a “median effective time of 18 months.” She says she knows of less then six people in the world with her diagnosis who have been on her medication that long or longer. She writes, “It is oddly isolating, way, way, out here on this ever-narrowing branch with this ever-dwindling number of fellow-travelers. My doctors keep telling me the…
I find California the most interesting state in America. It is not known as a machining mecca, but it is home to America’s most progressive and largest machine tool builder, Haas Automation of Oxnard, north of Los Angeles. It appears we may not be saying that much longer as Haas prepares to build a gigantic manufacturing complex in Henderson, Nevada, just outside Las Vegas. Gene Haas, the owner of the company bearing his name, has bought a home in Henderson so he will be able to have his eyes and ears to the ground in the 2 million plus square…
The last few days have been fascinating for me as an avid observer of business, politics and sports. Last week two big auctions in the precision machining space took place, Triumph Manufacturing in Tempe, Arizona, and HN Precision in Rochester, New York. My focus was on Triumph, which Noah attended, but I also listened to HN Precision online. A few observations and generalizations: Late-model CNC equipment, even if it is slightly flawed, brings strong prices, but a middle-aged CNC loses value abruptly. At Triumph, the marquee piece, a Nakamura WT250II new in 2016 with no Y-axis, brought $225,000 plus the…