Met a business owner in manufacturing yesterday

[sniper7]

Flying home yesterday, I met the son of the owner of a private company based just north of Detroit. They make machinery that feeds rolls of steel to stamping machines and other various machines used to make things out of metal. 100 employees

biggest buyers are john deere, cat, all the auto manufactures, yes even the "foreign" ones that have plants right here in the US.

We got to talking about the debate, politics etc, so I asked him his opinion on what is going on, how they plan to survive, and what it will take.

His biggest thing was the cost of materials is going up. importation of metal, and over regulation on the mining of materials is driving up the cost. When that happens, they get charged more, so they have to either charge more for their products, shrink by laying off workers (which detroit is already decimated), or his dad gets to take the cost in the shorts. He said his dad would rather sell off the business and shut it down and retire with a good life instead of continuing the fight against over regulation and expecting to give more in taxes so the lazy people can continue living off his hard work when they do nothing.

His biggest thing was inflation at extreme levels causing a second collapse of the markets, a further recession/depression.

Just thought it was interesting to hear an actual good sized business owner basically confirming my thoughts/opinions that if they are going to get over taxed and over regulated, you are going to see even more businesses shut down, the owners cut their losses and let the rest fend for themselves.

[loveski]

Very interesting indeed. Confirms what we've been suspecting all along. I can't believe how people/voters don't see this.

[SuperiorDG]

Sounds a lot like Atlas Shrugged.

[HoneyBadger]

Sounds a lot like Atlas Shrugged.

yup.

[JohnTRourke]

Sounds a lot like Atlas Shrugged.

Obama did read Atlas Shrugged

He's using it as a how-to manual.

[MrPrena]

Obama did read Atlas Shrugged

He's using it as a how-to manual.

Sounds a lot like Atlas Shrugged.

HUGE +1
That was what I was thinking.

I watched tons of micro/macro related movies, but it took me about 10hours to find out what Atlas Shrugged I was about.

[roberth]

Flying home yesterday, I met the son of the owner of a private company based just north of Detroit. They make machinery that feeds rolls of steel to stamping machines and other various machines used to make things out of metal. 100 employees

biggest buyers are john deere, cat, all the auto manufactures, yes even the "foreign" ones that have plants right here in the US.

We got to talking about the debate, politics etc, so I asked him his opinion on what is going on, how they plan to survive, and what it will take.

His biggest thing was the cost of materials is going up. importation of metal, and over regulation on the mining of materials is driving up the cost. When that happens, they get charged more, so they have to either charge more for their products, shrink by laying off workers (which detroit is already decimated), or his dad gets to take the cost in the shorts. He said his dad would rather sell off the business and shut it down and retire with a good life instead of continuing the fight against over regulation and expecting to give more in taxes so the lazy people can continue living off his hard work when they do nothing.

His biggest thing was inflation at extreme levels causing a second collapse of the markets, a further recession/depression.

Just thought it was interesting to hear an actual good sized business owner basically confirming my thoughts/opinions that if they are going to get over taxed and over regulated, you are going to see even more businesses shut down, the owners cut their losses and let the rest fend for themselves.

Confirmation is nice.

You didn't happen to find out if it was a union shop did you?

[sniper7]

Confirmation is nice.

You didn't happen to find out if it was a union shop did you?

Non union

[roberth]

Non union

That is probably one of the reasons they are still in business, the merit system rather than threats, harassment, and mediocrity.

[Rucker61]

I have no idea what qualifies as "over-regulated", but steel prices seem to be declining
http://www.steelonthenet.com/price_info.html