It’s been 150 years since the end of the Civil War and 50 years since the signing of the Civil Rights Act. However we still have a divided society – whites on one side and blacks on the other. Richard Rothstein in his book The Color of Law argues that the racial divide stems from a deliberate segregation of housing fostered largely by federal, state and local governments in cahoots with bankers, real estate developers, labor unions and the general public. He discusses many issues resulting from housing discrimination, including unemployment, household income, wealth accumulation, education and crime. Rothstein begins…
Author: Lloyd Graff
Jeff Immelt, head of General Electric Corporation, is getting the boot as head of the company. Travis Kalanick is being asked to step aside as head of Uber. The news came out the same day. Two kingpins of business being pushed aside almost simultaneously. The parallels are so delicious, I had to write about it. Immelt is the Robert Redford of business executives. Perfect hair, Savile Row suit, London-made wingtips. If he wasn’t the head of GE for 16 years, he could at least play the role. He took over from Jack Welsh, the master earnings manipulator (Mr. 11% profit…
I have spent my entire business life identifying price anomalies and taking advantage of them to make money. “Buy low, sell high” is my secular religion. I am now confronted by a situation that screams BUY for me as a “comp” watcher, but everybody I know tells me I’m nuts. This is the situation. I live in the South Suburbs of Chicago in a lovely suburb of well-cared-for 2000- to 5000-square-foot homes on 20,000-square-foot lots. My home is 28 miles from downtown Chicago by car, 40 minutes by commuter train. It is peaceful, has nice parks and is surrounded by…
It’s the American Horatio Alger story. Invent the next Xerox machine and get rich. Or get screwed. Dan Brown was a smart Irish kid from the south side of Chicago. His Dad wanted him to learn a trade and become a plumber, so he took all of the shop courses in high school. His Mom thought he was a really intelligent kid who should go to college, and had him on a college prep track. He ultimately went to St. Xavier College (now university) majoring in biology and chemistry, falling short of his goal to go to medical school. Dan…
Today is my 47th wedding anniversary. “So what?” you may say. But if you have some curiosity about the marriage of a blogging trader in old machinery I will tell you some stories. I met my wife Risa (Levine) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She was a 17-year-old freshman at the University of Michigan and I was a grad student, majoring in staying out of Vietnam and Journalism. We met at a “mixer” at The Michigan Union on a Saturday night. I had gone there to play Ping-Pong, a sport I truly loved. What else would a 24-year-old guy just back…
I talk to clients in the machining business almost every day. I often ask the perfunctory question, “How’s business?” and I usually get the perfunctory answer back – “It’s steady.” Then I chuckle to myself. I’ve never known business to be “steady.” It’s always bouncing one way or the other. The national economic statistics may show little change from month to month because the ups and downs of various segments will negate one another, but trends are always shifting. Nothing is constant. One of the things that keeps me continually fascinated with business and keeps me up at night is…
I’ve probably been complicit in tax fraud. Certainly not illegally; I’ve always paid Uncle Sam every dollar he says he’s owed. Where I suspect I went astray was during a recent trip to Greece, a country of remarkable beauty and history, warm people, and a government few trust and not enough pay for. My crime was facilitating tax avoidance by paying in cash instead of a credit card to get a discount exceeding the modest fee VISA or American Express charges the merchant. Major hotels, the worldwide car rental companies, and high end retailers are not involved, at least that…
Just got back from Spain and Scandinavia last week, traveling on business with a little bit of pleasure thrown in. During my travels it was easy to observe the steady influx of Arab refugees and other immigrants into Western Europe, which continues rapidly amidst backlash from many Europeans. I had the opportunity to meet several immigrants as well as “native” Europeans who shared with me their perspectives of a diversifying Europe. In Madrid I saw a banner hanging on the Palacio de Cibeles saying “Refugees Welcome.” (see photo) Later that day I saw a procession of Somalis carrying similar signs.…
Emanuel Macron is the new President of France. He is a political newcomer who saw an opening in a divided dispirited country of 80 million people. He played the election like Bill Bellichek, figuring that the burnt-out leftist and rightist parties would neutralize each other in the qualifying election and he could sneak down the middle of the field. Then he would finish in the top two with the populist with neo-fascist roots, Marine Le Pen. If he could sneak in to face her in the Finals, he figured the losing parties would rally behind him as the anti-Le Pen,…
I found last week’s Precision Machining Technology Show (PMTS) in Columbus an exhilarating and exhausting experience. It was exhilarating because for the first time in 10 years the participants were confident again. I do not remember one person coming to our humble exhibit and complaining about business. Maybe they grumped about their back or metatarsals, but about business, they were positive. This is an extraordinary shift from even two years ago, and I think it reflects more than just monthly sales figures (which are darn good, by the way). The climate for machining folk has changed. “China” is now considered…