By Lloyd Graff Don called me yesterday to ask if I still remembered him. I said “sure, you are that fat Polack in Milwaukee with the Davenport shop.” I could say that because even though I haven’t seen Don in a decade, I always loved his good humor and sense of joy about doing business and making money. “Remember me, I was that skinny kid who walked into your old plant in south Chicago with my Dad and bought my first two Davenports,” he said. I remembered the story even if I could never remember Don as skinny. Don bought…
Author: Noah Graff
While job losses keep mounting in today’s brutal economy, a growing number of companies are avoiding layoffs using a program known as work sharing.Instead of laying off employees, companies are keeping them while reducing workers’ pay, often by 20 or 40 percent. The employees generally get to hold on to benefits as well. Then, state governments step in and make up part of the lost wages, usually about half. Seventeen states have adopted the program, and economists and executives are hailing the program as a way to keep workers employed and retain skilled labor. A similar work sharing program has…
By Lloyd Graff Over the last few years Chinese and Russian firms closely tied to their governments have bought up scarce mining and mineral resources. The Chinese have indicated that down the line they may make smaller purchases of U.S. Treasuries and spend more cultivating strategic materials. The Chinese are also developing their nuclear energy production almost as rapidly as they are building their dirty coal-fired electricity production.A recent Atlantic Monthly piece, discusses the Chinese attempt to control the market for neodymium, the critical material needed for the industrial magnets in wind turbine engines and motors for priuses. Molycorp, bought…
Brian Bittner of Beamer Laser Marking Systems demonstrated one of the company’s products to Noah Graff, engraving a pen in about one second with a Today’s Machining World logo. He designed the logo using a Windows based computer on the spot.
By Lloyd Graff Joey Votto is a great young hitter who plays first base for the Cincinnati Reds. Many students of baseball think he will eventually win a batting championship. He’s that good—left-handed, beautiful inside-out stroke to hit the ball to left center, and the snap to yank the ball out to right. But it may not be this year, because Votto is sidelined indefinitely with an anxiety disorder that makes his life so miserable he has to take a time out from Major League Baseball, even though he’s killing the ball. On the flip side, Zack Greinke of the…
By Lloyd Graff June 3rd, and the world looks a lot different than just 30 days ago. GM finally did the dirty deed and filed, and the stock market reacted with relief. It appears suppliers are going to get paid from the Feds lending as the reorganization goes forward. BorgWarner stock is up 80 percent from its low and Johnson Controls has also bumped. All of the commodities are zooming with copper near $2.30 and ArcelorMittal stock more than double from its yearly low. Obviously, the markets are signaling a bottoming of the economy. One of the most encouraging aspects…
By Lloyd Graff Over a dozen years ago I developed a wonderful business relationship with Ed LeClair, who used to be operations manager at Curtis Screw Company LLC., of Buffalo N.Y., one of the largest precision machining companies in the U.S. Among Ed’s many responsibilities at Curtis was buying used machinery, which put us on the opposite sides of the table, but we developed a great rapport even while we were negotiating like pit bulls on the price of Schüttes and Acmes. It came as a shock when Ed told me he was leaving Curtis in 2007 to…
What do Marv Albert, Michael Vick, Eliot Spitzer and A-Rod have in common? They are all disgraced public figures who are or have been recreated as guys we’d love to meet for a beer at Applebee’s. Marv is doing the NBA semis on TNT after the forgotten shame of cross-dressing and acting rather badly with his erstwhile girlfriend. He was banished for a year and basketball suffered. Marv is the master of calling a game. The heir to the great Marty Glickman, Marv has surpassed the glib Glickman and has no peer in sports broadcasting. Michael Vick is out of…
By Lloyd Graff Auction prices today are very hard to figure. I talked at length with Dennis Hoff of Hoff-Hilk Auctioneers about his May 26 sale at Bystrom Precision, a small CNC shop in Minneapolis. The magnet pieces in the 150 lot sale were three L-20 Citizens, Type VII new in 2000 with Iemca Genius barloaders.Hoff says he told the client the sale price for each of those machines would be in the $30,000 to $40,000 range. The day after a long Memorial Day holiday is a lousy day to do an auction because people are just getting their plants…
Paul Huber of Comex comments on the recent Bosch auction in which 75 Escomatics were sold by Asset Sales Corporation. Paul came to the U.S. as a Tornos service engineer and is now the wise man of the Swiss screw machine industry.