Website for machine makers?

Is there a web site that lists machine tool builders or manufacurers? I'm looking to see if Method is still in business. Seems every google search I do only turns up ebay listings and used machinery dealers. (no matter what brand I put in the search).

Method, as in a Method slant 50 lathe.

Was to an auction yesterday, would have bought a Milltronics if it went cheap enough, I was outbid.

Thank You, Randy

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"John R. Carroll" wrote in news:R7Aul.18637$ snipped-for-privacy@nlpi066.nbdc.sbc.com:

And the lathe would really be a Nakamura Tome.

I heard a rumor that Arthur went TU. Anybody know anything?

I hadn't heard that Dan but what I've seen and experienced in the last six months is really eye popping. The financial conditions of stable, prudent, well run businesses have been destroyed in the course of a single month or two. Unbelievable, or it would be had I not seen it happen with my own eyes.

JC

"John R. Carroll" wrote in news:W%Dul.13747$8 snipped-for-privacy@flpi147.ffdc.sbc.com:

Most of the shops I've been to are holding their own. But some machine tool distributors and I'm guessing some builders are in a world of hurt.

It's a great time to buy a machine or steal talent if you can afford it.

September 10, 2008 Telestream Adopts Ambric for Pipeline HD Dual Real-time Ingest-encode Device

These guys closed up shop five months later. There was a long televised interview with the founder. They were profitable and reputable. They also had substantial orders in the pipeline from tiffany clients and didn't have a late payable.. What they couldn't do was get their bank to renew their line of credit after it had been repaid. That was pretty unexpected and I could name a half dozen others that have suffered a similar fate.

JC

I don't know but I can tell you where my investment in their equity went.....

JC

------------ So just where did the 800 billion in TARP funds go?

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).

----------- Another sorry example of throwing out the [value added] banana while keeping the peel, possibly for stepping on.

If properly allocated, for example to the profitable local and regional banks, TARP could have done some good, but NOOOOOOOO....

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).

-------- Here's where some of it is going.

--------------- Bailed-out AIG plans bonuses worth millions: report Mar 14 06:50 PM US/Eastern Ailing insurer AIG -- which received 180 billion dollars in federal aid -- is to give out millions of dollars in bonuses this week, according to a report Saturday.

American International Group CEO Edward Liddy told Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner bonuses could not be cancelled due to a risk of lawsuits for breaching employment contracts, the Washington Post said.

In a letter to Geithner -- who has expressed dismay over the payments -- Liddy also indicated a refusal to pay bonuses worth tens of millions of dollars would prompt an exodus of senior employees.

==> "We cannot attract and retain the best and brightest talent to lead and staff the AIG businesses -- which are now being operated principally on behalf of the American taxpayers -- if employees believe that their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the US treasury," Liddy wrote, according to the Post.

Actually this has happened before. History repeats itself. After every pyramid scheme implodes i.e. real estate, dot.com, junk bonds, real estate again, deregulation, government intervention, real estate again...... follows a recession. The wheels of commerce comes to a grinding halt while everyone waits to see when to spend again. The businesses that survive these recessions are the ones with the lowest debt to cash flow ratio. Businesses that have low debt and flexibility to follow shifting opportunities within their skill set survive. While the media is spreading wide spread panic there are still plenty of opportunities out there. Recessions are to business what weather is to a farmer. Just keep praying for rain while selling cactus.

It has. Repeatedly but not under the same circumstances.

That hasn't happened Bill. An American with a dollar is going to spend it. Always has and always will, except when we have had rationing. You seem not to know or understand the difference between consumer spending and private equity. Ambric didn't fail because they were a weak company. They didn't really fail at all. They just ceased operations and sold off their intellectual property.

They simple couldn't deliver what they had created and gotten orders for because private equity is nearly 100 percent out of the game and bank lending had ground to a complete halt between banks. The TED spread at one point reached 5000 basis points and it's normally about 30.

Well, that isn't happening and you are talking about things like machine shops which as a rule, don't create a single job and never have. There are exceptions but those are few and far between. Companies that actually are the job engines and with NO debt are failing. You aren't as aware of it becuuse you don't do bussiness wih them as a rule. I do.

Nonsense, the media isn't spreading anything.

Always.

No they aren't and that's a pretty poor analogy. Farmers have no control over the weather Bill. You're confusing yourself with God or Mother Nature again. LOL

Americans have a lot of control over the financial services industry and it's only when those controls are removed or ignored, as they were in the current case, that this stuff happens.

Without private equity capital there wouldn't be an Apple Computer, Dell, or Microsoft at all and that doesn't even scratch the surface. Absent private equity there won't be money to fund the commercializetion of this:

a real game changer that saw it's budget nearly eliminated in the 2002. The God Botherer's and creationist's in Congress didn't like the "Big Bang" aspect of the project and it got "stem celled".

This should have been test fired in June of 2004 instead of last week and three or four years from now the science will be completed and ready for a commercial scale test. That's going to take at least ten billion dollars and another three years, maybe five and the money will come from private parties or it won't get done. Just like Ambric.

JC

AIG Discloses Recipients of $75B in Bailout Payments

By Brady Dennis Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, March 15, 2009; 8:13 PM

In the six months since the government's bailout of insurance giant American International Group, a rescue that has become increasingly costly and contentious, one question has loomed above all others: Where did the money go?

The answer became a little clearer today when AIG unexpectedly released the names of dozens of trading partners it has paid using billions in taxpayer dollars. The disclosure, which the company said was made after consulting the Federal Reserve, revealed that AIG paid more than $75 billion in the final months of 2008 to numerous domestic and foreign banks, as well as to various U.S. municipalities.

The funds were paid from the government's initial $85 billion emergency loan in September and included major firms such as Goldman Sachs, Societe Generale, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Barclays.

The payments were made between Sept. 16 -- the date that government assistance began -- and Dec. 31.

More than $34 billion of the money went to trading partners of AIG Financial Products, the small subsidiary whose exotic derivatives brought AIG to the edge of collapse. In recent years, the firm had written massive numbers of credit-default swaps, insurance-like contracts that other companies bought as protection against the default of mortgage-backed securities. When the housing boom began to go bust, banks that had purchased the swaps demanded collateral from AIG, burying the company under a tidal wave of debt. Federal officials, wanting to keep the company from failing because they feared it was too intertwined with the global economy, stepped in to help.

In the last months of 2008, AIG Financial Products paid $22 billion in taxpayer money to satisfy debts caused by its swap contracts. Another $12 billion went to pay off municipalities in dozens of states for whom the firm had created complex investment agreements.

Nearly $44 billion went to debts that AIG incurred under its "securities lending" program, according to the company. In those instances, various companies borrowed securities from AIG in exchange for cash. In turn, AIG invested much of the money in mortgage-backed assets that plummeted in value, leaving the insurer on the hook for billions.

Today's disclosure marked an about-face for both AIG and the Fed. In recent weeks, public outrage and pressure from lawmakers demanding to know who benefited from the AIG bailout has reached a crescendo. But until today, AIG executives and federal officials had repeatedly refused to release such details, arguing that trading partners had a right to privacy and that any disclosure could harm their business.

"These are extraordinary times," AIG spokeswoman Christina Pretto said today in explaining the company's decision. "And we and our partners at the Fed thought this was right thing to do."

Fed spokeswoman Michelle Smith agreed, saying, "We commend the company for finding a balance between its concerns with confidentiality and the concerns of the public interest."

AIG's disclosure came on the same day that President Obama's top economic adviser berated the company for its plans to dole out hundreds of millions of dollars in employee bonuses and retention pay, despite posting a record $62 billion loss in the fourth quarter of 2008.

"There are a lot of terrible things that have happened in the last 18 months, but what's happened at AIG is the most outrageous," Lawrence H. Summers, chairman of the White House National Economic Council, said today during an appearance on ABC's "This Week." "What that company did, the way it was not regulated, the way no one was watching, what's proved necessary, it is outrageous."

Summers was but one in a chorus of administration officials and lawmakers who took to the airwaves today to excoriate AIG, whose total rescue package from the federal government stands at an estimated $170 billion.

"This is an example of people at the commanding heights of the economy misbehaving, abusing the system," said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

Their anger stemmed in large part from the company's decision to move forward with retention bonuses for executives at the troubled Financial Products unit. In early 2008, before the government rescue, the firm's employees had been promised more than $400 million in retention pay this year and next. Lawyers for the government and AIG have agreed that most of those payments, however unsavory, are legally binding.

"We are a country of laws. There are contracts," Summers said today. "The government cannot just abrogate contracts. Every legal step possible to limit those bonuses is being taken by Secretary Geithner and by the Federal Reserve system."

In addition, AIG is in the process of paying out $121 million in previously scheduled corporate bonuses and hundreds of millions more in retention payments to more than 6,000 employees throughout the company's global insurance units.

The bonuses and other payments have infuriated the public and government officials. After a contentious call on Wednesday between Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and AIG chairman Edward M. Liddy, first reported by The Washington Post, Liddy agreed to alter the terms of some executive bonuses and make future payments contingent on the company's progress with restructuring and paying back taxpayers.

But in a letter that followed, Liddy said he had "grave concerns" about the impact on the firm's ability to retain talented staff "if employees believe that their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury."

Speaking on CBS's "60 Minutes" tonight, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke once again expressed frustration with the bad will that AIG has wrought.

"I understand why the American people are angry," he said. "It's absolutely unfair that taxpayer dollars are going to prop up a company that made these terrible bets, that was operating out of the sight of regulators, but which we have no choice but to stabilize, or else risk enormous impact, not just in the financial system, but on the whole U.S. economy."

Staff writer Neil Irwin contributed to this report.

"John R. Carroll" wrote in news:OCWul.15715$ snipped-for-privacy@nlpi069.nbdc.sbc.com:

That's happening all over. There is a well publicized case here with "Mr. Beef" which is something of a Chicago institution. They are going TU for the same reason. They can't get their line of credit renewed. Plenty of customers and purported to be profitable.

Loads of car dealers with the same problem.

Not to be contrary John, but I think it was a pretty damn good analogy. I should have said recessions are to small business what bad weather is to a farmer. A small business has zero control over the economy just like a farmer has zero control over the weather. Both have to be just as proactive as reactive to survive. I am way too humble to confuse myself with God or MN by the way. Just a rogue machinist ranting and raving in a place where ranting and raving seem to be accepted.

The car dealers and "Mr. Beef"'s of the world concern me because of the joblessness. Lives are disrupted, social unreast increases - you know - all those sorts of things that can be recovered from.

When the companies that bring new technology to the market through their intellectual property advancements can't get privay=te equity of debt enough to create new jobs, America looses more than that company. These are the true creators of jobs and wealth and a little bit of what merica has been built on dies with each one of them. The future becomes a little less bright, less prosperous and the fabric of our society erodes.

I had a couple of these masters of the univers that have proved so troublesome in my presence recently and one of them laughed and said " I know what you are thinking John".

My entire response in a cold, quiet tone of voice that I haven't spoken in since my work address was SE Asia was "Then why aren't you protecting yourself.......".

Keep your head down Red.

JC

Yep, that's them. I called to make sure. You could never guess this from their web site. The web site leads you to believe they are just a machinery dealer/ distrubutor.

Thank You, Randy

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"John R. Carroll" wrote in news:t5lvl.20616$ snipped-for-privacy@nlpi066.nbdc.sbc.com:

Well, people wanted change and now they have it. It's still the big steaming pile of shit that Chicago politics have always been, but for the rest of the country it is a change. Get used to it, 'cause you ain't seen nothing yet.

The thing to keep in mind is that this isn't just happening here. It's happening all over the world. The difference this time is that we usually have people willing to take risk and seek advantage in downturns. Not this time.

I'm not sure what you are saying here Dan but I shudder to think where John McCain and Dan Quale with a pony tail would be leading America. Can you imagine Phil Graham at Treasury today?

That's exactly right and I needn't remember it. I'm living that reality to some extent on a daily basis. My customer base, for the most part, consists of guys doing new science or getting from the lab into the real world. Those are the job creators and they always have been. They can't operate in an environment that doesn't include private equity.

JC

Yeah, I know what you mean but it's too late.

JC