1) I find the trend of women and men choosing to produce and raise children without a partner to be disturbing. It’s tough on everybody. It impoverishes families and makes parents less upwardly mobile in the workforce because they are deflected by the enormous burdens of child rearing. I know that many men abdicate parenting and I find that appalling, but the apparent planning by many women to be the primary parent is an upsetting trend in America. 2) Doubling down on the single parent trend, I find the huge percentage of American children being raised by grandmothers to be…
Author: Lloyd Graff
Every month I get an emailed catalog from DelMonico Hatter, promoting their stylish hats — Borsalino, Stetson, Kangol — the best brands. Ernest DelMonico, who runs the firm, is a third generation hatter from New Haven, Connecticut, and his merchandise is first rate. I once bought a black Kangol cap from them to go with my navy and tan ones. Frankly, I rarely wear a hat. Only when I dress up and put on the navy cashmere topcoat I bought twenty years ago do I wear a Kangol. I’m a hood or baseball cap guy. But I do love DelMonico’s…
This is an unpaid, unprompted shout-out to the Precision Machined Products Association’s (PMPA) Listserve. Every day, members jump on the association’s email forum with technical problems they encounter. It’s esoteric inside baseball stuff generally, far above my pay grade, yet invariably several folks quickly offer their unique experience in solving the tough machining challenges and other shop issues that come up for people living in cubicles of doubt. A single company could never aggregate a fraction of the knowledge located in the heads of members of this small trade association. One thing that makes the Listserve work so well is…
I’ve closely studied two recent auctions of screw machines and ancillary equipment – Anderson Fittings in Chicago and MTTM in the Twin Cities last week – for indications of market strength and customer preferences. This is not just “inside baseball” for people in the trade. These auctions, which from all appearances were actually honest sales with no observable price pumping (I tend to be cynical about this stuff), tell a clear story about the turned parts market, at least for the multi-spindle niche. The buyers generally do not need more capacity. They have more than enough spindles turning. At the Anderson auction,…
Tim Haendle was pleased with himself when I talked to him Wednesday. He had bought 100 carbide inserts – used of course – for a hundred bucks at a Hoff Online Auctions Internet sale of a screw machine shop in St. Paul, Minnesota. He’ll regrind them for use on one of the 22 National Acmes he runs in his shop, buried in a forest in Mendocino County, 125 miles north of San Francisco. Tim is a customer of Graff-Pinkert, of sorts. He is a rugged individualist determined to live life and do business his own way. I never make any…
I love the used machinery business because it is a competitive treasure hunt every day. It asks us for impossible calculations about realizable values for illiquid, flawed, sometimes rickety, filthy objects that often have little tangible worth when we are asked to buy them. Here’s an example of the type of situation we consider at my company Graff-Pinkert every day. A firm has a 25-year-old screw machine or rotary transfer machine that it does not need at the moment. It has long been written off the financial statements, yet the potential seller feels it still has value but doesn’t know…
So many nights I go home discouraged and numb, with the sickening feeling that I accomplished nothing and wasted my workday reading emails and contemplating my navel. Recently, I read an article on productivity in business today. The piece decried the decline of work quality because of email, texting, Facebook and time-wasting games like Words with Friends. Technology has become an office curse and I see a trend in crackdowns to curb the time wasters. I am working on my own habits to combat my personal drift. What I have found to be most useful is preparing an agenda for…
Sometimes the line written for a laugh rings true as a bell. The most recent Dos Equis beer ad ends with, “he gave his father ‘the talk.’” I heard the line and chuckled. A few hours later, my children gave me “the talk.” We were on our annual family vacation in San Diego last week – the whole mishpacha (family) in adjoining condos, eating, playing, needling, sharing the vibe. My grandchildren had puzzles and projects everywhere. The beautiful disarray of a family that loves being together – at least in small doses – filled the space with joyful chaos. Earlier…
Martin is so skilled at waterskiing he seldom uses the skis anymore. He prefers the challenge of barefoot skiing on Lake Hopatcong that hugs his summer residence in New Jersey. Martin is my wife Risa’s first cousin, so I’ve known him for over 40 years. At every family event we played basketball against each other. We’d bang each other around on the court (he played for the North, I always played for the South) and then adjourn for the banter. If there was an injury Martin would take over using his medical training to aid and comfort the hobbled participant.…
A few observations from the 2013 Precision Machining Technology Show (PMTS) in Columbus. 1) Attendance at shows is dwindling, which does not mean PMTS was a weak event for those who attended. The third day was a bust for counting attendees, but a great time for exhibitors to walk the floor and touch their peers. I think this has become an important aspect of smaller shows – the chance for the community of vendors to share stories and swap ideas. The machining world is a shockingly close community of buyers, sellers, and producers. The willingness of machining folk to share…