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
formatting link
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
------------
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:
formatting link
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
formatting link
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
Remove 333 from email address to reply.
"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
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