Hang in there Tom, Sometimes life changing decisions are made for you. Not always for the best ,But you always learn from them. Just keep your chin up and your feet pointed in the right direction. And Never let the kids know your scared to death. I've had my store burnt down , vandilized , broke into more times than a cookie jar at a fat ladies house. You just keep going till you see the light. You've already overcome worse things in your life... And you still have your wife and kids.
The company i work for looks like we are going to bring alot of our products back in house because we can not find an outsoucing firm(china, india, mexico) that can do product that we do not have to rework. The "chinese" casket kind of hits cloce to home for me for i went to sparta tennesse last week to bury my grandmother. that area has also come under hard times too do to outsourcing products. that area was heavy in the clothing industry with also tobacco . i know right now tobacco is not politcally correct industry to be in, the Mid tennesee tobacco grading plant has closed and was turned into a junk yard. I will say extra prayers for all of you . I don't want to not see all of my racing family this fall.
Sorry to hear that Tom......... My business is down 10-15% from last year as well. We are being hit by the downturn of the auto industry as well. Even though the company I work for has NOTHING to do with the auto industry. My 45 person staff has been trimmed from 1200 hours a week to 890. I thought I heard that Wayne County (SE Michigan) had the NATION'S highest rate of bankruptcy filings last month. That is not encouraging. Isn't this the "fifth year" in her tenure as govenor that Granholm promimsed us we would be "blown away"?? Her prediction has come true. I think the state's economy has been blown away. Makes sense to me that with people earning less dollars, that she feels the need to raise taxes (again.......and again........and again). Nothing like giving the residents even less to spend to help spur the state's economy. She is selling off our future for short gains now. :spank: :rant:
you mean like her new mass transit rail line between Detroit and Ann Arbor (thought UM's affirmative action-based entrance program was voted out?)..Always wondered what ding-dong Debbie was doing with that $100M she got from the feds for mass transit studies between Ann Arbor and Detroit. Understand Ecorse and I-94 will be the new money pit. Wonder if this is related? ding, ding, ding.......... Guess where the new 9 cents per gallon state fuel tax will be going? ............. meanwhile she just approved a new alternate energy option that requires 10% of the energy to come from renewable sources. Nothing wrong about that in theory, just who pays for that one? Doubt there will be a waiting line of companies flocking to Michigan thanks to that. Somebody will make a lot of money, though. Always happens. Hang in there, Tom. You have your health, your youth, great family support, and a good attitude. Don't lose that.
Maybe that mass transit line can transport all the Ypsi/Ann Arbor folks who used to work for Pfizer to downtown Detroit so they can stand at all the freeway exit ramps washing car windows for spare change. Oh wait! That would be a "service" so they would now be subject to the new 2% Jenny G. Service Tax...........o No:
Michigan guys, I'd like to sympathize with you on this issue, having been born in Detroit. But I was raised in the "Steel Valley" areas of North Eastern Ohio. Anybody been through Youngstown Ohio recently, or Wierton W.Va? Or the steel towns north of Pittsburgh? Alliquipa, or Monnaca? Gary Indiana? Most of the foundries I worked in, which all were automotive suppliers, are closed. Some because they didn't adapt, some wouldn't, some couldn't. The end result was the same, the work force wound up at Wendy's. The Roger Smiths and Iacoca's of the US auto industry with their lack of foresight, the politicians, with added taxes and ridiculous rules, have managed to kill the goose. :af: Congratulations, go buy a Corrola, before China puts Japan out of business.
Tom, Like everyone else has stated, keep your head up. I tend to agree with Rusty, when one door closes another door opens. I can speak from experience because I went through hell several years ago. divorce, selling my house (which I wanted to do, just not have it take 17 months), losing my job, having to move back home because I couldn't find a job (I have a BS in computer science and the IT industry was reeling BIG TIME). But eventually I got a job at ADT outside of Chicago which started the ball moving (until I realized how f'd up ADT really is) bought my house, got the engine rebuilt in my W-31, left ADT to work at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (which I love) and will soon be starting a frame off on my 70. Persuverance (is that spelled right o No: ). I came REAL close to filing for bankruptcy back then. Even had to sell a couple of my cars in order to pay rent and buy food. I even lost storage and had to start storing car parts in my apartment. Believe it or not, my girlfriend at the time didn't mind. Anyway, enough rambling. Keep you chin up Tom
Just read an article that the auto companies are already looking beyond India and China to Vietnam and Malaysia. After that, I guess it'll be Africa. No end of that in sight unless this country wakes up on this globalization kick.
Tom sorry to hear it...And please give me a call. Joel I have gone on similar rants as recently as this weekend while sporting the flu I seemed more irritable than usual. And am apparently again irritated after reading these posts. The good news is Jenny from the block had her state of the state speech this week and gave me wonderful warm fuzzies. All of us in the formerly great state of MI can rejoice. She has the formula to save us. She has deamed it worthy to tax us into prosperity (more than she already has). It works every time its tried. I mean JFK, Reagan and Bush II have all tried it. Wait they cut taxes and each of those presidents set new records for tax income to the treasury within two years of the tax cuts. Even with bloated Federal gov. spending and oppression the last few years have been the highest ever for revenue to the Fed. according to the good old IRS. But Jen has seen fit to raise every tax/fee/surcharge and other items formerly known as taxes. Let's see surcharge for families earning over 250K, that will bring new excec's/business owners willing to move thier families and businesses here to add tax burden to go with the only state still using an SBT tax, whether you earned a profit or not. A surcharge on houses over 2 million dollars, sure there are only apparently 350 of those but don't feel happy that those 350 rich people are getting theirs as they likely employee many many people who will suffer when they decide they want the income to pay the taxes more than having an extra employee or 12. Also when 2 million no longer seems to be a good cut off point she will just have to lower the thresehold until it is low enough to catch all the other rich people with mortgages and families to feed that are "rich" enough to simply own a house no matter how modest the size or cost. Not to mention the fact that a tax like that will errode the value of property as no one will want a house over 2 million and hence none will be worth that anymore leaving not 350 people to tax but rather zero which will definitly drive the tax threshold down. Then she is adding an estate tax. So much for your childern keeping anything you earned over your life time. With the Fed. pulling 55% tax rate for your timely death and the state kicking in your family should be good and poor enough to need all the assistance she wants to offer. Bye bye family farm and family business. Auction block here it comes. I forget which person said there family was retiring up here. Bad idea they just walked into an additional estate tax. I will make sure I die with a "home steaded" address that does not have an MI in it. Even if that means my already exorbenant property taxes increase. A good friend of ours just built a new home two years ago, and yes it is large and expensive, but they pay north of 40K a year in taxes in good old Oakland Twp. I am not sure they own the house as much as rent it at unheard of prices from the Goverment. I bet he is glad he moved from Canada to get away for the excesive taxes just to have the Canadian Gov. of MI bring the taxes over for him. As for the rest of us we are also merely renting our homes from the Jen also. Dave your 51/49% ideal is already instituted. By the IRS' last tax info printed, which is two years in arears, LESS THAN 50% OF AMERICANS PAID NET INCOME TAXES. This means that with the refunds the majority of Americans get they received more in return than they actually paid. Less than 50% of us are paying the Income Tax freight. My brother inlaw who works hard at a blue collar job with his wife working as a clerk at the court house was dumbfounded to learn he was the rich when ranting about how the rich do not carry enough of the load. I emailed him the IRS stats and he discovered his house hold was in the top 10% of wage earners in the country making him the rich. At the time a couple years back that was only 85 grand per household!!! Off the soap box. Just hoping we all never feel good when someone else gets a tax bite taken out because you are never far behind from getting bit also. I would never be able to slumber in a Chinese box PERIOD. You might as while burn me in H---. It would feel the same. Sorry everyone about my irritable nature today. Still sick and was attacked by a dog last week making me sport hospital time and visit a surgeon. I guess I am not recovered yet. Mark
Can you make the molds required to cast aluminum heads for the Buick 350? I think a number of guys here would be interested! Seriously, good luck. I don't know what's going to become of this country. The Dems and Reps seem to be competing with each other to see who can hurt the country worse. The Dems will tax everything we make and the Reps will ship our jobs overseas. Either way, we'll be left with nothing.
"In November, the President signed a law implementing the landmark North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which will expand trade with our neighbors and create new jobs." http://clinton1.nara.gov/White_House/Family/html/Clintons_First_Year.html
Touch. You've got me there. Of course, the NAFTA bill was supported overwhelmingly by Republicans and mostly opposed by Democrats, although enough of them defected to pass it. And CAFTA was basically a Republican measure. When you come down to it, both sides will sell us out if the money's right. By the way, "Little Sureshot", I love your username.
With the recent federal legislation on campaign finance "reform", it has become more difficult for a third party candidate to build a war chest sizeable enough to compete. It was the polititian's way of ensuring a TWO PARTY system. I personally don't like either to varying degrees. The past two presidential elections I have voted a straight Libertarian ticket. I don't agree with all of their policies, but I am sick of the "big two" running the country into the ground. Those votes have done little good so far, but at least I feel better about my vote. My suggestion is that every one look at ALL candidates running for a given office, and don't fall into the two-party mold too quickly. Your vote is one of only two means by which government can be changed, so use it wisely before it is taken away by those who represent you, leaving revolution as your only choice.:blast: Tom, good luck and godspeed to you and yours.
Thanks for all the replies and well wishes gang. I don't want to be too pesimistic,and sound like we're going to be done at the end of the week. We have been slow before and on our last leg, and out of the blue, BAM, all hell breaks loose,and we end up so busy we can't see straight. But this time it's different, it seems like all the Mold shops we talk to are slow as well. Lot's of stuff quoted, but nothing is being released?? It's like all the customers are on a bridge waiting for someone else to jump first. We're a small 3 man tool shop today, it doesn't take alot to keep us busy, we just need to create some ties with a new customer that can feed us a steady stream of work. At this point we would take on repair work of existing molds just to get our foot in the door with a new customer. In the last 4 years we lost an original owner of the shop, had to let the young apprentice go, then back in October one of my co-workers was badly burned in a house fire, and he will probably never work again, and that has brought us down to the 3 of us left. We all took a pay cut in March last year,and went to a cheaper health insurance plan. This has lowered the monthly overhead each month by several thousand dollars. You would think that all this would be enough sacrifice, but we can't keep up with the outpouring of tooling going across the border and overseas, this country is losing jobs and companies by the day it seems. We're not looking to get rich, we just want to make a living,pay for our houses,enjoy our families,and it would be nice to see our neighbor do the same.
Tom, I am assuming that because you work in a three man shop, you do not have much overhead. Has your shop ever considered making molds and making repro parts for classic musclecars? With the price of musclecars hitting the roof due to Barrett-Jackson insanity, maybe your shop could do this during the slow times. It may not make your shop rich but it may carry you over until the next big order. Our family has a machine shop that faced the same dilemma 5 years ago. We adopted a survival strategy and started doing machinery repair and other types of work we normally did not do before to keep our doors open and cover our costs. Now business is booming. I strongly believe that you could be very successful with your expertise and your extensive knowledge of musclecars. Hope everything works out for the best. Ken
We've never considered it, mainly because I'm the only car guy,not to mention low man on the totem pole. But then again, the other two are the business owners, I'm the only real employee, even though we all do the same work. We also have ventured outside of mold building, machining parts,building fixture's,etc. Like you said, anything to keep the doors open and cover the overhead. But even that stuff has dried up lately too Thanks for the advice and ideas, Tom
Tom, Sounds like you need to get in contact with a company like G.E. I have a former employee who got hooked up with them doing repairs and fabrication and is done very well for himself, now having about 80 people working for him. He too started out as a 3 man shop after leaving us. It isn't good for the Goodyear employees who have been on strike. International Truck & Engine Corp. got notice that Goodyear is closing shop in the U.S. and moving the entire operation overseas:af: . They notified that Goodyear tires were not going to be available for a while until they get back going.. Lon
The evening you started this thread I was listening to C-SPAN radio and heard Republican Senator Judd Gregg of NH giving a speech about how wonderful the economy was doing under President Bush. We have 7 million new jobs, the Dow's hitting all-time highs, real wages are up, etc. It's all true, I suppose. It would be easy to disprove if it wasn't. But why, if on paper, everything seems great, doesn't it feel that way? Why does it seem so many are struggling? I thought about your situation and said out loud to the radio that I knew of someone who might like to have a word with the Senator about how wonderful things are. Good luck. I hope you and your employers can find a way out of this spot. I had a neighbor who was a precision machinist. The small company he worked for went out of business in the recession of the late `70's and early `80's. He was able to freelance doing prototype work out of his basement and ended up doing prototype work for NASA and other federal agencies, some of which had names he wouldn't tell. It wasn't too many years until he moved over to where the rich folks live!
