This piece is really two articles. The first is the one I ought to write—the politically correct, optimistic, let’s start the New Year off right and knock ‘em dead blog. The second blog is about what I’m really feeling at the moment as I get ready to embark on the year—my concerns about the known and unknown challenges that scare me more than I’d like to admit. The optimistic Lloyd sees a blank slate of opportunity in 2016. Last year is history. The export killing rise of the dollar is mostly behind us, oil has taken its hit and can’t…
Author: Lloyd Graff
Practical financial lessons are rare in school, and lately I’ve been noticing the lack of sophistication and street smarts that my fellow 30-something friends have about money. Many of my friends have given up hope that they can live any other way but in debt and paycheck to paycheck, and have accepted their situation as permanent. They don’t talk about it too much, but I see a heavy cloud hanging over them. These are my peers and my friends – some of America’s struggling and under-employed 33-year-olds, with $34,000 of student loan debt, an annual salary of $24,000, and a…
It looks like Paul Ryan, the new Speaker of the House of Representatives from Wisconsin, delivered the goods for manufacturers in the massive tax and spending bill released for public consumption on Tuesday. The vital Section 179 allowing the depreciation of capital equipment to offset profits in a given year, up to $500,000, is in the package. The provision, rather than being good for only 2015, now has no expiration date. This will enable owners and managers to plan with some certainty and not have to scramble at year’s end to buy a machine or vehicle, which improves the company’s…
Frank Sinatra was born 100 years ago this week and this anniversary has gotten a lot of play in the media. Sinatra has long fascinated me. Few entertainers of renown have been so obviously abrasive yet consistently popular. I still listen to Sinatra’s songs and I love his sense of phrasing, and his ability to sing a lyric so perfectly you think he’s singing straight to you. I have always loved to sing. Some of my happiest moments ever are of our family together around the piano at our home, my sister Susan playing flawlessly and us singing from the sheet music. We’d…
Being a longtime moderate Republican, I am dismayed by the shift of the party’s base to an extremely angry conservatism. Trump and Carson have tapped into this base, and most of the umpteen others have jumped in too. The base is angry. They are angry at terrorists, government, the banking system, immigration, the unequal economy, blue collar and white collar job loss, the rate of technological change, and at social issues like gay marriage, abortion and one-parent families. Finally, many are angry about any infringement of the Second Amendment. This anger is heightened by the 24/7 news media with mostly…
Are you happy about the price of gas falling below $2 per gallon? You probably should not be. You should feel angry and scared, unless you drive 150,000 miles a year or make mostly automotive gear. If you live in the rest of the machining world a sinking feeling should accompany the sinking price of petrol and natural gas. We are in a severe commodities recession now and may be headed toward a deflating commodities depression. The price drop has been caused by several factors and currently shows little sign of reversing. The biggest reason is China’s slowdown in manufacturing.…
On Thanksgiving our family goes around the table and each one of us tells what we’re happy about and thankful for in our lives. What’s fascinating about humans is how one person can feel miserable by a certain set of circumstances, while a different person feels happy and thankful about the same scenario. National Public Radio’s “This American Life” ran a story earlier this year chronicling a group of girl scouts held captive in a Chinese concentration camp during World War II. In 1941 a group of mostly British and American children, who were attending a boarding school in the…
Donald Trump’s brand is his outrageousness, but mixed in with his narcissism and insults are some occasionally thought provoking statements. After the Paris attacks he said that if people had been armed, the loss of life would have been minimized in Paris. I actually think he is right about that, though it may not be a winning argument for everybody on the street packing a firearm. Military, paramilitary or martial arts training is a plus for civilians who will not be passive victims. The three Americans who disarmed the terrorist recently on the Brussels to Paris train are a case…
Scott Livingston is an entrepreneurial, extremely energetic guy who has spent his life in the machining world. He also knows when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em. Nine years ago he opened a satellite facility in Guyamas, Mexico, five hours south of Tucson, to augment his successful aerospace components operation in Hartford, Connecticut. Scott wanted to take advantage of the comparatively low labor rates in Mexico. He studied the issues he knew he would face as a small business owner starting from scratch in a country with a different language and work style. The area had a technical…
I am one of thousands of small court judges whose work in the justice system is at the retail level. I move streams of low level offenses through a system that provides little insulation from the jagged shards of life. There are few silk stocking lawyers in my court, and the arguments I hear are hardly esoteric. The largely unsuccessful war on drugs and the ill advised release of the mentally ill have added greatly to my case load, but mostly my Court is about watching life’s bad decisions and bad luck play out for people who already live on…