The 2010 election reflected the anger of the American voters towards the Obama Administration, Congress, the Fed, Washington lobbyists, Wall Street, and Fannie and Freddie—just about everybody except Jack Bauer. The People have spoken and they are pissed—and they want Washington to know it. Now Washington does know it. But is anything important going to happen to make businesses hire and banks lend? Probably—but it will have only a little to do with the election. Business is getting better now. Retail had a good “back to school” season, and it’s predicted that Christmas will be fine. Cars are selling decently…
Author: Lloyd Graff
By Lloyd Graff Today’s Machining World Archives October 2010 Volume 06 Issue 08 It’s fall of 2010 and IMTS is behind us. Baseball, football, basketball and hockey are all going on at the same time. Elections loom and the economy cha-chas along—three steps forward and three steps back, following its own rhythm. The earthquake of 2008 is behind us, but we’re still jumpy because the shock was so violent. The landscape is still damaged, with big unemployment, bankers living in bunkers, and homes, offices and factories waiting for occupants or lookers. But the unemployment statistics don’t tell you that four…
This week I am enjoying the wonderful experience of connecting with my three granddaughters and feeling the enormous sense of possibility in Palo Alto, California. This is the town the recession tornado bounced over. Homes sell in weeks, restaurants are crowded, and nannies are at a premium. The huge boulevard, El Camino Real, runs through the city, home of Stanford, Hewlett Packard, Tesla Motors and Facebook. El Camino Real actually runs from San Diego to Sonoma. It dates back to the founders of the Spanish missions in California in the 1700s. It tied together 21 missions and presidios up the…
For used machinery dealers who are prepared to “detrashify” the ugly refugee machines emerging from the automotive flotsam being pushed into the market, 2011 stands to be a good year. For example, Hilco and Maynards auctioneering firms are now selling off multiple GM, Ford, and Chrysler plants with thousands of motley machines. Machines like Twin Grip Cincinnati centerless grinders and 8-spindle National Acme screw machines are being sold for near scrap prices. These are rugged machines which have been abused by indifferent operators and mindless management, but they are so durable that they can be brought back to life by…
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I was talking to Greg Knight of AMT Machine Systems (ServoCam), whose company adapts old school cam Brown & Sharpes into 21st century CNC hybrids. He was lamenting the difficulty he has selling his product to job shop owners who have no visibility of work from one month to the next. The days of consistent long-running contracts seem to have vanished like untaxed cigarettes. In the used machinery business, and I’m guessing also in the new machinery business, we live with future blindness. Projections are difficult, which drives accountants and bankers mad, but they probably deserve it. Business people crave…
Several years ago Graff Pinkert had a deal with a fellow who made a good living buying surplus machinery from government stockpiles and reselling it around the world. We talked about his bidding strategy and he told us his approach. He would assess his risk in bidding on a bulldozer or crane and put down a price he was comfortable with. Then he would put down successively higher figures. When he reached the number that made his stomach twinge, he circled it and let it settle in his body for a while. He told us he had learned from hard…
I am beginning to reassess the importance of owning things like real estate, cars, books and perhaps capital equipment America. We are now in the crest of the third wave of home foreclosures as the idiotic subprime mortgage blister oozes on. If there was ever a strong argument for renting housing, the massive drop in home values makes it. I live in a home we bought 30 years ago for $130,000 in Olympia Fields, Illinois. I paid off the mortgage several years ago. My wife and I have put at least $200,000 more in renovations into the property over the…
The “Jobs Bill” that President Obama signed Monday may have sounded like another “stimulus” boondoggle, but it really has a lot of important goodies for the machining world. The section of the bill that has immediate impact for the machine tool business is the expensing provision. The current rule was scheduled to expire by the end of 2010, which would have reduced the write off from $250,000 to $25,000. The new law pushes up the expensing provision to $500,000. For smaller companies making profits, this provision, which extends through 2011, will mean better cash flow and less money for Uncle.…
Last week Roseland Metal Products of Dolton, Illinois, was auctioned off by Loeb Winternitz Industrial Auctioneers. I think an event like the Roseland sale tells us quite a bit about what is going on in the small contract shops—the core of precision machining. Roseland was a casualty of the recession but also of a management that made scant investment over the last 10 years. The most significant capital investment was the retrofit of six out of 15 Brown and Sharpe screw machines with an early incarnation of AMT’s ServoCam upgrade technology. Roseland bought a SNM clone of the New Britain…