So, as we all heard, we are in the midst of a historic crisis. Financing is hard to come by, customers are afraid to order, etc.
I like going to liquidation auctions and rerely miss any auctions where I could bid online. I do not bid in all of them, but at least I know about them.
What I do know is that nowadays, there is not more liquidations, as I would expect, but less. I am completely puzzled by this, but it is true, the amount of auctions is easily less than it was in the summer, for example. I have no explanation for this.
Not in new machine tool sales, at least. It was surprising how long it held up, in fact. Here's the data. See the graph roughly in the middle of the page:
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There are a lot of machine tools out there to liquidate, if in fact liquidation is coming.
Manufacturing is 'way off, of course, but aside from the car industry, it isn't exactly collapsing:
Ignoramus27337 wrote in news:XPmdnQdGXekhVgHUnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
Most shops are down but hardly out. We have some in the Chicagoland area actively buying new machines at the moment. But nothing like last year which was a record year for most dealers.
Hu-Freidy is having an auction soon. Only because they are farming out their machining once again. I doubt there would be much of interest to you, but you never know.
Most shops I deal with are holding their own. Some machine tool dealers are on the ropes though. You might see some well known names going under soon.
RoyJ wrote in news:Crqdne9sBqhdSAHUnZ2dnUVZ_j- snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:
That was 2002. People weren't paying attention in the 90's and a lot of places got their clocks cleaned after 9/11. The places that survived then will likely survive this recession.
A recession happens when supply out strips demand. That happened a while ago. Manufacturers were right on top of things this time around. Very few if any of them got caught with large inventories. Most places are "JIT" and "Lean" nowadays anyway. So they just scale back. There's not a lot sitting on the shelves and work in process in minimal. Manufacturers have cash in reserve, rather than tied up in finished goods and work in process that nobody wants.
Recovery happens when people regain confidence. The current idiot in the White House is the type of guy who never sees the upside to anything and as he continues to prattle on about the worst economy since the Great Depression (not yet true), he drives the economy further downward. It's Jimmy Carter Act II. Carter late in his term began to disparage the use of consumer credit. He made it seem unpatriotic even. Then there was the famous "Malaise" speech. It resulted in one of the biggest downturns in GDP ever. Obama acting like the cheerleader of doom is having the same effect on the economy.
Anyway, manufacturers appear to be ahead of the curve this time. Employment was cut more than output in the fourth quarter and like I said previously, inventories are low for a recession by historical standards. Manufacturing will probably have to ramp up in the fourth quarter when those inventories deplete toward zero, recovery or not.
Manufacturing is also benefitting from a weak dollar. While exports are down as the rest of the world is in worse shape than we are, there isn't much incentive to offshore production either.
I do know that we are having a good month. We are an auto parts distributor serving about 200 stores in Texas and Oklahoma. And several of our customers have reported that business is booming.
That is because buying a 16 - 45,000 dollar vehicle in this economy is a deferrable purchase in most cases. So repairs are being made to delay buying new cars or newer used cars.
If I was laid off and my engine blew, I'd rebuild it. Normally, the need to get to work each day would have me buying a new or newer used ride and I'd junk the old one.
I wonder how mechanics hand tools are doing?
I have a feeling while OEM sales of my employers product is declining, after market sales of the same product will tend to increase as fleet owners run their heavy trucks more miles than in the past. I'll have to ask if aftermarket (repair) is trending up. May take a few more months to know that it is a trend.
Hardly. We are still the worlds largest manufacturer.
Gunner
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