The question most commonly asked at IMTS is, “How is the traffic?” That’s probably the wrong question today. The better question would be, “Are people buying?” Answer—not a lot at IMTS, despite what the big builders say for public consumption. But the mood at the show is quite good, with many attendees saying they plan to buy equipment in the future. Despite the alleged tightness of credit, there seems to be no shortage of cash for machines companies need to expand and improve. Lack of financing may be the problem for the people who didn’t make it to the show.…
Author: Lloyd Graff
A couple of weeks ago I asked in a blog whether or not you would like President Obama to come to IMTS. As expected, I got a solid response of Obama bashers, but my suspicion now is that Barack actually read the blog (we used to shoot hoops in his backyard together—just kidding), because he ended up deciding to come to the show in a big way. His Cleveland speech, in which he proposed 100 percent write-offs of capital investments made from September 8th through 2011, is potentially an enormous present to our industry. He one-upped the Republicans, who are…
1) Will the Japanese and European builders be raising prices in dollars for their products? With the yen at 85, the pressure on margins must be heavy. But world-wide competition is brutal. A domestic producer like Haas has an advantage in North America, particularly with a bread and butter product like a vertical machining center. 2) Will buyers show up for the show? Ignore the supposed attendance numbers offered by show management—are there real people in the aisles and real customers talking to the exhibitors? Is IMTS now a super-regional exhibition, or is it still the really big national show…
I believe 2010 will go down as the year the wage discrepancy between public and private employees began to narrow. According to a recent article in USA Today, the average yearly pay including benefits for a federal government worker is $81,000 compared to $51,000 for a private business employee. Cadillac health plans and defined benefit pension programs have bloated federal payrolls. State and municipal payouts have kept up with or sometimes surpassed those of the federal. The tide is changing. The dike of unchallenged government pay and benefits is showing leaks. California is broke and politically stalemated, but furloughs are…
By Lloyd and Noah Graff LG: I’m curious about growing up in Detroit in a union family and what memories you have about dinner table conversations. JH: I had a wonderful childhood. I had a wonderful father, a wonderful mother, great sister. My sister is a circuit judge in St. Louis. My early memories are talking union over the table, but also I remember in the ‘50s the whole family getting in the car, going to eat dinner somewhere and then going for a Sunday drive. UAW used to have a radio program, and we’d listen to it in the…
By Lloyd Graff I just read a provocative book called The Walk by Richard Paul Evans. It’s hokey and a bit contrived, but I still recommend it, if just for the epilogue, which I will now recount. A master and his apprentice are traveling the countryside. The master sees a ramshackle hovel and commands his apprentice to knock on the door to ask for food, which he dutifully does. The poor peasant with five children answers the door and says, “I have meager food but I will spare what I can. Our little cow provides us with some milk. Here…
By Lloyd Graff The Honey Crisp apple season will begin with the Labor Day weekend. Honey Crisp is the apple that has overwhelmed the Golden Delicious, Macintosh, Pippin and Gala varieties in the hearts and palate of the applistas who frequent farmers’ markets in search of the perfect pomme. Count me as an apple knocker with credentials. I have traveled to the orchards of Wenatchee, Washington; Logan, Utah; Laporte, Indiana; and Honeoye Falls, New York, searching for apple succulence, but in the mountains of North Carolina I found my best Apple anecdote if not the tastiest fruit. I stopped at…
By Lloyd Graff August 29, is the second anniversary of the day I almost died. I hesitate to revisit it in this blog because I’ve already written about it extensively in the magazine. But I am of the philosophy that you should never let a good crisis (or the memory of one) go to waste, so I’m going to bring it up once more. IMTS 2008 was coming up, but I was feeling so crappy I didn’t care. I had spent two weeks pretending to vacation with my family in Michigan. I drove home with my daughter Sarah and remember…
By Lloyd Graff The lead story in the Sunday New York Times discussed the “striking” drop in the investment in common stocks. The article went on to talk about the widespread disillusionment with equities since the dot-com crash and the subprime demolition. The Dow Jones average is actually down over 1000 points since 2001. Personally, I think the widespread disgust with the stock market performance by individual investors derives from the “gaming” of the market by professional computer jockeys for whom long-term investing is holding a stock or an index for a week. The Quants, for whom the stock market…
By Lloyd Graff When you enter a machining firm which cuts millions of pounds of brass bar each year, you expect to find a line of New Britain screw machines or Davenports – bunches of almost identical automatics methodically turning out fittings. But at Marshall-Excelsior Corporation in Marshall, Michigan, the machinery assortment reflects the eclectic taste of its owner, Jeff Begg. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Warner-Swaseys, New Britains, Davenports, Wickmans, National Acmes; 5-spindle; 6-spindle; 8-spindle; a menagerie of screw machines bite at the brass rod, turning out Jeff’s variegated mixture of niche market non-ferrous…