Mike Jackson, head of the publicly traded dealer group, AutoNation Inc., says the automotive economy has turned the corner. He sees a 13 million car year as early as 2011 or 2012. Ford is making money. GM may have an IPO as early as next year. Inventories of cars have been halved in the last few months. The green lights are illuminating the highways. Yet business in my world, the machining world, still stinks.
What do you do if you are making decisions now that could affect your business for the next three years?
From experience I know that the big money is made in the tiny window of a market turn. We have already seen that in the stock market’s 50 percent rebound since the March bottom. If we are at the pivot point in machining, particularly in automotive work, this may be the time to go into business if that’s what you’ve always wanted to do. If you are a business person still standing after 18 months of being pummeled, this is probably the time to gamble on the upside.
When a bear hibernates his bodily instincts tell him when to exit his cave. Rational humans tend to want to stay in the cave well after the thaw begins because a spring blizzard might hit and finish them off.
I must make the decision in the next few days about whether to increase the number of Today’s Machining World issues from the survival mode of every other month, to nine or even 12 issues for 2010. After I almost died a year ago I fear being reckless in case of an economic relapse. But because I survived near death in the hospital and on the economic playing field, I am much more inclined to say to myself and the world, “If not now, when?
Question: Are you ready to leave survival mode?
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Yes, buisiness stinks here to and there is nothing new out there, at least Here anyway. We are very diverse and old exsisting workis still rolling along OK but that isn’t enough for us to survive.
Customers have been playing one shop against another and none of us are making money. I just hope to survive long enough to see the other side of this mess we’re in.
When will out GVT. figure out manufacturing is what builds country’s economies. They really like money so why are they chasing buisness over the boarder and making it easy for them to do just that!?
OH well, it seems enery administration we get is worse than the last,
yea, i’ll leave hibernation in a body bag!!!! there will be survivors, at the expense of others. I understand that is competition….but this is ridiculous!