Economy getting better or worse in your area?

Bettter or worse in your general area?

There is still an economy in your area? We are down to barter system.

Must be pretty good here. Folks ain't hungry yet, tobacco help is still hard to find. When I have to turn folks away cause I don't need the help I will say it is bad, till then the folks on the news talking about how bad it is are full of it.

Dave

jocco,

I might be singing a different tune tomorrow, but as of today, I don't see any difference in the economy from what it was two years ago.

My 401K is now a 201K, but since I'm not drawing on it at this time, it isn't effecting me right now.

I have friends who have lost their jobs, but they have found new jobs within a short time.

The GM assembly plant in Spring Hill, TN, is near here, but many of them have been relocated by GM to other plants without losing their jobs. Others are drawing 70 - 80% of their salaries and are getting along fine for now.

The "help-wanted" internet sites are full of job openings.

Like I say, tomorrow might be very different, but as of right now, I don't SEE what's all over the news.

Tom in TN

We have been losing jobs since 2000. About 950K, out of a state population of 10M. We didn't have a whole lot of goofy loans here, because our real estate never took off like Cali or Florida. But I think we are kinda used to it now. It wasn't only the auto industry that fell off here, it was also other manufacturing, Whirlpool, Steelcase, a lot of other furniture firms, supply firms of all types, construction, and tourism, which was the #2 industry. Kinda the perfect storm here. Good example was Electrolux, a company that had a plant that employed about 2K workers. They made compressors for refrigerators. Paid about $12 - 15 per hour. Electrolux moved the plant to Mexico. The state tried to save it, offered to give them a new plant. But wages of $3 per hour, all in, won out. The lure of easy money has a very strong appeal!! Basically the economy sucks, but we are getting used to it. One electrical engineer I know told me he put out 700 resumes, has had a few interviews, but nothing with benefits, he has a young family, needs the insurance. He hasn't worked in a year. My dentist is down to working with his wife and one assistant. He used to have 3 assistants and a full time receptionist. He told me he is looking for a smaller office, to cut his overhead. A lot of people don't have insurance now. I retired when my plant was closing. Basically, not gotten much better.

I think we are plateauing here in Michigan. We will never get back to where we were, in my lifetime. The real unemployment is probably 25% +++. Since our economy started tanking in 2000, we are getting comfortable at a lower level. They are predicting a population loss of 1 to 3%. I was thinking about buying some rental property, but then you need renters....

We have been bartering for 10 years. We don't feel the pinch but a lot of people here are feeling it bad. It is still getting worse, lay offs still coming. But most are too dumb to know it until it is too late. Still see a steady stream of cars going into Walmart. I have a good job and my office is 2 miles from home. We are saving for retirement in 5 years, I will be 58. It costs my wife and I $30.00 a month for power, cell phone plan is paid by my work (I am on call 24/7) we only pay for our personal long distance calls ($2-$3 a month) Have wood heat (couple cord from tree butchers and some lumber ends from my brother in laws construction buisness). $38.00 a month for house and auto insurance, $100.00 a month on basic staples. We live out of our garden, we can, freeze and dry, hunt and fish for meat supply. (deer, elk, turkey, trout and salmon) and barter for the rest. We raise rabbits and have 6 chickens. Our water is gravity fed from a spring. I drive a city vehicle for work and we have a 2008 HHR panel, that gets 32 miles to the gallon, we drive about 100 miles a month and go on 3- 1 week, 200-400 mile vacation trips. We own everything we have, We moved into our small comfortable well built 3 room cabin (20'x24') in the woods. My wife hasn't worked for 5 years and our 2 kids are on their own. We live in paradise, mild weather, plenty of fruit, berries, mushrooms and wild game. Life is GOOD when you have everything you NEED....James

Lost a barn to fire a week ago. No doubt gas caused it. That makes for a tough personal economy on our farm. Two barns remaining.

Ouch! I raise air cured but when I was in college I worked for some boys who had fire cured. I never knew anything about it till I moved down there. Always felt sorry for them guys, stay'n up all night wandering about there barns. They would get real nervous every time the wind would pick up.

Dave

In the home improvement field ,,we are all competing for the last hundred bucks in the county .. now since we are done from Hurricane IKE, that one gave us a lotta insurance work ,, Sure don't want another mess like that one ,,, there are a lot of folks that took the insurance $$ and paid bills and left their house a mess,, Some are now in foreclosure , How is that Hopey Changey thang working for you now??? , Dentists are not makin the grade , with all the jobs gone overseas and south ,,, This country had a good economy Before NAFTA shafta , and FREE TRADE with chin

I can't even tell if it's bad or if it is good. Still your regular class-A arseholes around here, so I guess it's about the same.

Every restaurant I drive by on a thursday, friday or saturday evening is jam packed. I guess the 10-15% out of work aren't there, though.

I'm in MI and it all depends. We have a true unemp. of probably 25%. I feel I have one of the last good paying hourly jobs left, and that could change tomorrow. the real problem is many who are still working are getting their wages slashed. Myself, I haven't had a pay raise in five years. Which is really a pay cut. Problem is all the collateral damage... BIL losing job and ins. from retail in 2 weeks, Nephew not able to find work since college last spring. All the stimulus jobs were "shovel ready", meaning no new planning or hiring was needed, only money, so no new jobs were created. Only sector I see booming is farming. They're throwing money around buying up all the land they can at 4k/acre, buying new pickups. Why is everybody worried? We'll all be working for the collective soon and osammy will provide everything.

Spook where you at?

Here in Iowa you would not know that there is a problem. Unless of course you listen to the news.

Business as usual.

Gary

Hi jocco,

Just today, I noticed all were driving like they could afford another 15gal of gas per week hot roding around town.

Dang at $2.65gal I'd sure be driving slower.

A guy even did a road rage on me. Beep beep... lol

T_Bone

Hard to say. Still employed, but on circumstantial layoff. 4 years ago worked for dad as carpenter building 3-5 custom homes a year. 3 years ago left to work for excavating company because things got slow and to be honest he didn't need to be worrying about keeping me busy. Stayed busy with excavating company, but initially there were 275 workers in the field. This winter there were 30 foreman and 30 workers. Overtime elimination and 10-15% paycut across the board. Never laid off, but hard to make money at. Last year dad finally ran out of jobs and got first job in 28 years working for a gc company that builds schools. In april he calls and says they are looking for a carpenter. Absolutely, excavating company has no jobs- not looking good. Working for the GC is good, they used to have 150 men working, now they have 8, all of which were the top foremen. Have 2-1/2 years of work lined up in school construction, but nothing for 3 more weeks. Interesting note: The job that was supposed to happen in sept got pushed back to november, hence the layoff. That job is at Aberdeen proving grounds. They are putting in a 20 million dollar building, but they are doing it as a remodel of existing structure, so its costing them 62 million. There was no budget for new construction, only remodeling- so they chose to strip the existing structure down to bare steel and dirt, and rebuild that way. Good to know my tax money is being wasted by a bunch of idiots.

Long story short, Still working, but I know plenty of good people that do not have it nearly as good as I do. I am thankful every day that I am where I am.

That s because most of them cant heat up a can of soup !

Well, I'm in northern Indiana. The local paper has been running stories and photos of folks selling off their personal belongings and stuff for money. Thats in Elkhart County and surrounding areas. If I had to go by that alone? But then again, they say that the jobless claims are down at the same time folks unemployment benefits have expired at the same time we hear nationally the the recession has ended but unemployment is still moving upward. All makes for an odd combination if you ask me. I've noticed at the grocery stores for instance, my bill has skyrocketed at the cashiers, but no one is saying inflation is on the rise. And this past week we laid off 15 more guys in my group, guys in Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and Texas that I know of, and I know that there were more from other states, but no one's told me where though. I was told that we didn't lose anyone in Michigan this time, and that's excellent for them if I heard correctly. They don't need anymore layoffs up there, but neither does anyone else. They've been hit hard enough in Michigan. I'm still working with rumors of another layoff around December, and its getting harder to find things for my crew to do, but I'm keeping them busy as I can. doing whatever I can to keep customers. I work for AT&T, the same company that used to have the CEO that is now the CEO of GM and doing all of those commercials. True, the economy's taken a large hit, but one thing is for sure, if that guy does for GM what he did for us at AT&T and when we were SBC, those folks over at GM had better be looking for new careers. I'm not joking that every time I see that I guy in a commercial, I honest to God wonder if he wasn't put there to polish them off. I drive paid off Cummins Dodges, so I've got no horse to ride in that race though. And not trying to start any stuff as a Dodge guy for the last 20 or so years, but GO FORD GO!!! I hear sales were up either 12% or 17% for them (I forget which), down for both GM and Chrysler. GO FORD GO, and I don't even own one and never have, but if the day comes that I have to buy a new one, it'll be Ford unless they get taken over too, and if that happens, I'll start piecing together scrappers from the junk yard as long as I can scrapper parts. Grin.

Seems to me that if we're going to turn this thing around, its the folks like you and me, the common folk that are going to have to turn it around, fighting against a whole lot of hurdles laid down at our feet. Good luck everyone, the leaves are turning red on my trees.

Mark

Just went over to read my local paper, they say the jobless rate has dipped if that's any indicator. It was the first thing on the title page.

Mark
New Jobless Rate Elkhart Area Of Indiana

It just depends on who you talk to,,,,

Agree with Zeke, depends on who you talk to. We have a couple of new comapines coming in by the end of the year, but the bigger comapines here now have been laying off.

Mihigan-Seeing alot of toys for sale- Harleys and Quads at the cheapest prices I've seen for years- distress sales....

Son's company went out of business last February. He took unemployment for two months while looking for work. He finally got some engineering work form a company in Ohio and did the work at his home in Michgan. He was making a third of what he was previously making and did not have benefits. He just found employment working for a renewable energy company in Michigan but dtill mkaes only half of what he made originally. He is not out of work but he is making much less money.

I wonder if the unemployment benefits have run out for many of the folks who are unemployed.

We just went out and bought a new Ford Edge because the lease ran out on the old one and the new lease prices are through the roof. The salesman said they sold 130 CFC's and have been paid for all but 7 of them. He also remarked that he was concerned that those who used CFC money may not have the resources to make the payments on the new vehicles that they purchased. Geuss we'll see what happens.

I can't speak for the local economy, since I've been "laid off" for over a year. My sister and her husband have worked for the last several years as plumbers for a contractor in Eagle, CO [and yes, sometimes that does conjure up mental pictures of the Monroe Bros. on "Green Acres"]. Over the past 10 years, they've never had any money worries, doing all new-construction work on multim illion dollar homes. This year, they're barely getting by.

They have a job that keeps getting pushed back, on a 10,000 sf home...first it was gonna start in May...then July....now they're saying October. Weather's gonna kill 'em if it gets put off much longer.

But that's about all I know. I don't trust what I see in the newspaper, or on the Internet, because it's all leftist propaganda...and I turned off my TV so the economy wouldn't get bad, just like the good folks on this forum told me just over a year ago.

As for myself, I keep scouring the job boards and sending our resumes, and I do get occasional work as a substitute teacher in the local high school...but it's not regular enough to count on, so I don't. But since I turned 50, it seems a lot of employers who might otherwise hire me don't want to end up with me on their health insurnace plan. It's de facto age discrimination, but because it has to do with insurance rates rather than just age, they apparently can get by with it.

Economy would be better NOW, with more jobs than we can handle.... IF they would send the ILLEGALs BACK to Mehiko...
20,000,000+..a "NO-Brainer"...
I say, ship them OUT, WITH their Illegal kids, too..

Ron..

Yeah, Jim...that nnalert Richard Nixon opened up trade with China. And the nnalert "free-traders" were the ones who said Ross Perot was crazy for criticizing NAFTA. Now that that "large sucking sound" has come to pass, it's all the nnalert' fault. And a year ago, when Hurricane Ike came through, that nnalert George W. Bush was in the White House...so the folks who "took the money and ran" were apparently in deep doo-doo long before Mr. Hope'n'Change took office. He just hasn't helped anything.

Gary, I am from Michigan. I went to a "fall festival" tractor pull & fles market in Fowlerville. Nice folks around here. Pretty rural Mid Michigan. I scored a set of fenders, color & guy selling says they are IH. $60, but some rust where the mounting bracket was. They have lights in them, and a hand grip that is part of the light fixture, looks like a die casting. Not sure if it is 2 lights or 1. I have a friend that has a collision shop, he does a lot of sheet metal work for me )) I am going to mount them on my H or the 300U. I have been collecting odd aftermarket stuff for the H for years, brake lock, dipstick, gas gage, 3 pt hitch, lightbar toolbox, pto lever that mounts near the side of the seat, and a belt pully lever that mounts in the front, on the deck. And a couple other things. I kinda think the flat top fenders will make it a "franken tractor", but I really like the flat tops.

I've been laid off over a year. My situation is a little different than some, no debt, bank balances are good. However, 10 miles away, Wichita Ks, aerospace has laid off over 10000, with probably more to go..Hawker will let more go, Cessna maybe. At least aircraft is trying to either cutback on hours or furlough people rather than sendem out the door indefinitly. Hutchenson (sp) will be adding over 300 to build nacelles and generators for the windfarms around...

the problem with americans is they want the best of everything we live beyond our means take the auto worker why do they need to make the money they make or the big bussiness man making all that money and most likly does"nt spend it on american made product

It's getting worse by the day in this Central Illinois area. There are hardly any decent paying jobs left. Many folks will begin running out of unemployment benefits soon.

Well I'll put it this way.

I never lusted for more than I needed. I accept what the good Lord will let me have.

I choose carefully what I want and what I really need.

Yes it would be nice to own a new truck, but I never needed something to look at. If I pay 1500 on an older truck even if I have to put 3000 in it in three years is still cheaper than a 300 a month payment.

My boss when I retired couldn't figure how I did it when I wasn't enrolled in their retirement system. I said it was easier to step off the bottom rung at my scale. than for him to fall off the top.

My standard of living good may be lower to some, but I don't need hi class stuff to make me happy.

I don't even buy high priced tools, Why should I ? For my grand kids to loose in the yard after I'm gone ??

All I need is food on the table, a warm house in the winter, and some junk to play with like garden tractors to keep me happy.

I live in a modest 80,000 ranch style home nestled in the middle of good prime farm land. What else could you ask for.

Hard to say. August was the best month so far this year for the machine shop I work for. We brought back 2 people from layoff. September is booked to be 20% better than August, 5 more people from layoff. We aren't saving the world with our 40 person shop, but we're doing our part.

Gettin real bad here because all we do is sat around and look at the posts on Yesterday's tractors.

Gettin real bad here because all we do is sat around and look at the posts on Yesterday's tractors.