How are your customers and vendors holding up in 2009?
I had two customers shutdown and close just last week. One was an 11
year account and the other was an 8 year account.
The 11 year account fired and dismissed 859 employees.
The 8 year account fired and dismissed 549 workers.
Both were in Tennessee.
There will be more, fortunately the work that the 11 year account was
doing is being divested and I have already been contacted by the fired
employees who are now with new companies about resuming the same work
for someone new.
I'm in Georgia, how is your area doing?
About the same as you. One customer folded up last year. Another
said the "B" word about ten days ago. Another good one isn't going
racing again any time soon, so their R&D is dormant. Then there's the
guys who don't say the "B" word, they just suddenly need us to play
bank and put them on a payment schedule. Where's all this bailout
money I keep hearing about?
Later,
Charlie
=====================
You asked ......
--------------
'RESCUED' CITI BUYING $50M JET
JENNIFER GOULD KEIL and CHUCK BENNETT
Last updated: 10:06 am
January 26, 2009
Posted: 1:02 am
January 26, 2009
Beleaguered Citigroup is upgrading its mile-high club with a
brand-new $50 million corporate jet - only this time, it's the
taxpayers who are getting screwed.
Even though the bank's stock is as cheap as a gallon of gas and
it's burning through a $45 billion taxpayer-funded rescue, the
airhead execs pushed through the purchase of a new Dassault
Falcon 7X, according to a source familiar with the deal.
The French-made luxury jet seats up to 12 in a plush interior
with leather seats, sofas and a customizable entertainment
center, according to Dassault's sales literature. It can cruise
5,950 miles before refueling and has a top speed of 559 mph.
There are just nine of these top-of-the-line models in the United
States, with Dassault's European factory churning out three to
four 7Xs a month
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Thain Said to Pay $1.2 Million to Redecorate Office (Update1)
By Peter S. Green
Jan. 22 (Bloomberg) -- John Thain, the former Merrill Lynch & Co.
chief executive officer ousted today, spent $1.2 million
redecorating his downtown Manhattan office last year as the
company was firing employees, a person familiar with the project
said.
Thain hired Los Angeles-based decorator Michael Smith, chosen by
President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle to redecorate the
White House, CNBC reported today. Thain paid Smith $837,000 and
his purchases included $87,000 for area rugs, $25,000 for a
pedestal table and $68,000 for a 19th century credenza, CNBC
said.
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If you think your stomach can stand it, there's lots more on the
web.
Unka' George [George McDuffee]
-------------------------------------------
He that will not apply new remedies,
must expect new evils:
for Time is the greatest innovator: and
if Time, of course, alter things to the worse,
and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better,
what shall be the end?
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman.
Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).
Nobody's gone under yet, but then I'm rather amazed a couple of them
made it this far... Vendors seem to be doing OK too, though happier that
usual for anything I send their way.
This is California, northeast of Sacramento.
Jon
===========
A follow-up to my follow-up
-----------------
* JANUARY 26, 2009
Lending Drops at Big U.S. Banks
Top Beneficiaries of Federal Cash Saw Outstanding Loans Decline
1.4% Last Quarter
By DAVID ENRICH
Lending at many of the nation's largest banks fell in recent
months, even after they received $148 billion in taxpayer capital
that was intended to help the economy by making loans more
readily available.
Ten of the 13 big beneficiaries of the Treasury Department's
Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, saw their outstanding
loan balances decline by a total of about $46 billion, or 1.4%,
between the third and fourth quarters of 2008, according to a
Wall Street Journal analysis of banks that recently announced
their quarterly results.
Those 13 banks have collected the lion's share of the roughly
$200 billion the government has doled out since TARP was launched
last October to stabilize financial institutions. Banks reporting
declines in outstanding loans range from giants Bank of America
Corp. and Citigroup Inc., each of which got $45 billion from the
government; to smaller, regional institutions. Just three of the
banks reported growth in their loan portfolios: U.S. Bancorp,
SunTrust Banks Inc. and BB&T Corp.
The loan figures analyzed by the Journal exclude some big TARP
recipients that haven't reported fourth-quarter results yet, such
as Wells Fargo & Co.
The overall decline in loans on the 13 banks' books -- from about
$3.36 trillion as of Sept. 30 to $3.31 trillion at year's end --
raises fresh questions about TARP's effectiveness at coaxing
banks to reopen their lending spigots.
"It has failed," said Campbell Harvey, a finance professor at
Duke University's business school. "Basically we have dropped a
huge amount of money ... and we have nothing to show for what we
actually wanted to happen."
----------------------
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Unka' George [George McDuffee]
-------------------------------------------
He that will not apply new remedies,
must expect new evils:
for Time is the greatest innovator: and
if Time, of course, alter things to the worse,
and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better,
what shall be the end?
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman.
Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).
Except they didn't George.
What dropped was the market for securities.
Bank lending is actually up.
What is down is the selling of loans and origination fees.
A 14% decline in bank lending is actually an increase.
Banks haven't been lenders for ten years.
JC
============
Sounds like "yes! we have no bananas...."
International countertrade [barter] that bypasses the banks seems
to be taking off.
Any idea how much the typical countertrade transaction, say
100M$US might save by cutting the banks out?
---------------
Nations turn to barter deals to secure food
By Javier Blas in London
Published: January 26 2009 23:32 | Last updated: January 26 2009
23:32
Countries struggling to secure credit have resorted to barter and
secretive government-to-government deals to buy food, with some
contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
In a striking example of how the global financial crisis and high
food prices have strained the finances of poor and middle-income
nations, countries including Russia, Malaysia, Vietnam and
Morocco say they have signed or are discussing inter-government
and barter deals to import commodities from rice to vegetable
oil.
The countries have not disclosed the value of any deals, and some
have refused even to confirm their existence. Officials estimated
that they ranged from $5m for smaller contracts to more than
$500m for the biggest.
Josette Sheeran, head of the United Nations? World Food
Programme, said senior government officials, including heads of
state, had told the WFP they were facing ?difficulties? obtaining
credit to purchase food. ?This could be a big problem,? she told
the Financial Times.
{and we think we have problems because we can't get a loan for a
new car...}
Last week, Malaysia?s commodities minister, Datuk Peter Chin Fah
Kui, said Kuala Lumpur had already signed a barter deal swapping
palm oil for fertilizer and machinery with North Korea, Cuba and
Russia. He said Malaysia was talking to Morocco, Jordan, Syria
and Iran about other barter deals.
Thailand, the world?s largest exporter of rice, is discussing
barter deals with Middle Eastern countries, including Iran. The
Philippines, the world?s largest importer of rice, has secured
rice needs for this year through a diplomatic agreement with
Hanoi.
The countries? struggle to obtain credit to import food is
boosting the price of domestic crops. Ms Sheeran said that prices
of crops in some African countries were rising sharply even as
international food commodities prices had fallen from last
summer.
The move to barter shows the global food crisis that started last
year is far from over.
----------------
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Any of our posters in the managerial end of the business doing or
thinking of doing any countertrade/barter deals?
Unka' George [George McDuffee]
-------------------------------------------
He that will not apply new remedies,
must expect new evils:
for Time is the greatest innovator: and
if Time, of course, alter things to the worse,
and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better,
what shall be the end?
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman.
Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).
Nothing.
It's actually rather messy and recriminations aren't uncommon.
The only reason for a government to do this is the desire to avoid civil
unrest - something that's manifesting with increasing frequency.
Latvia, Lithuania, Spain, Greece, China.....
The list is growing and so is the level of violence. I'll bet Blackwater's
client list has shifted remarkably.
They might be almost exclusively be providing security for people in the
financial sector at this point.
Branch managers will soon rate an armored caddy and a two man detail -
maybe.
Remember my year old admonition about a modern day Father Coughlin?
---------------
A historical snippet from a much longer article in the UK
Telegraph. Well worth reading if you have an interest in the
US/global economy. Much better/more in depth coverage of the US
situation from outside [the US] publications such as this, the
Financial Times and the Economist.
TARP is the bastard offspring of the RFC.
-----------
==>A third* of the rescue funds in Hoover's Reconstruction
Finance Corporation had been embezzled.
------------
Thanks -- looks a lot more reputable than "billybobsblog.com"
FWIW -- Hoover was president until March 4, 1933, so the RFC was
his program up to that time. FDR did however expand and redirect
the RFC.
The degree to which outright fraud, embezzlement and theft both
caused and exacerbated the '29 market break [and by extension the
2008 financial/credit implosion] appears to be greatly
underestimated/underappreciated. Stupidity as a rationale and
excuse will only stretch so far.
Unka' George [George McDuffee]
-------------------------------------------
He that will not apply new remedies,
must expect new evils:
for Time is the greatest innovator: and
if Time, of course, alter things to the worse,
and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better,
what shall be the end?
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman.
Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).
Place I work has dropped down to 32 hours.
I'm not worried, I have faith in them, the trade and my skills.
However...This is the first time in 23 years I've worked anywhere under 40.
The good news is...had this happened 10-15 years ago I would of went
bankrupt, but these days I live quite lean.
Seems like we at least had warning, and lots of people now can handle a
slowdown. Not everyone I know, but things are slowing down in a good way
because WE ALL are slowing down together.
My advice for the world is SLOW DOWN!!!
Universal double time for hours over 32. Now that would fix global warming
and every other problem that plagues humans.
Except obesity. lol
=================
For all of you folks that opened their windows, leaned out and
shouted "I'm mad as hell and won't take it anymore."
-------------------------------------------
Citigroup will not take possession of new aircraft
By STEPHEN BERNARD ? 54 minutes ago
NEW YORK (AP) ? Pressured by the Obama administration, Citigroup
Inc. reversed course and said it will not take delivery of a
corporate jet it previously planned to purchase.
The canceled deal comes amid a chorus of concerns from
politicians who are worried about how banks that have received
federal funds are spending the money. Citigroup has received $45
billion in capital from the government in recent months amid the
ongoing credit crisis.
"Citi has no intent to take delivery of any new aircraft," the
New York-based bank said in a statement Tuesday.
An official in President Barack Obama's administration reached
out to Citigroup on Monday to reiterate Obama's position that
such jets aren't "the best use of money at this point," and are
"an outrageous use of funds" for a company getting taxpayer
dollars, said a White House official who spoke on condition of
anonymity to more freely describe private conversations.
--------------
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Unka' George [George McDuffee]
-------------------------------------------
He that will not apply new remedies,
must expect new evils:
for Time is the greatest innovator: and
if Time, of course, alter things to the worse,
and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better,
what shall be the end?
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman.
Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).
I skipped the meeting, but the Memos showed that F. George McDuffee
wrote on Tue, 27 Jan 2009 13:36:37
-0600 in alt.machines.cnc :
Stupidity got us into this mess, why can't it get us out. I think
Will Rogers said that in the 30s.
There is a rule of thumb that says when everybody is talking about
the market, get out and buy real estate. When everybody is talking
about real estate, get into stocks. When your waitress is a getting a
realtor's license, it's time to get out. I can never remember who it
was who said in late 1928, early 1929, that he knew it was time to get
out of the market, when his bootblack started offering stock market
advice. As it was then, so it is now, and no doubt will be in the
future: "The market is only going to go up, better buy now, 'this time
it will be different'." Yeah, right, and I have some REITs for sale,
bundled by the Brooklyn Bridge Investment company.
Trust me.
pyotr
--
pyotr filipivich
We will drink no whiskey before its nine.
It's eight fifty eight. Close enough!
I skipped the meeting, but the Memos showed that "John R. Carroll"
wrote on Tue, 27 Jan 2009
11:42:45 -0800 in alt.machines.cnc :
The difference between stupidity and genius, is that Genus has its
limits.
--
pyotr filipivich
We will drink no whiskey before its nine.
It's eight fifty eight. Close enough!
Speaking of closures, what guarantees are in place to see that those
receiving funds from the "stimulus" packages are being spent on
domestic services and products? Thereby supporting and shoring up OUR
economy and not someone else's.
Same for banks and business. What guarantees are in place so we are
helping domestic banks, businesses, financial firms that are owned and
operated in the USA?
Same for the increased social programs.
Tom
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