What's wrong with the Residential side?

With the residential side of industry in a virtual free fall, it came as little surprise when I saw that Pulte Homes announced they are cutting 2000 jobs. There’s no question that residential world is being beat up badly. Tuesday night Donald Trump weighed in on it during an interview with Larry King (it was after the important news of Rosie O’Donnell quitting "The View"- wow love the priorities here.) Anyway, “The Donald” blamed new Fed Chief Ben Bernanke. He basically said that interest rates going up and out control are on Bernanke’s watch and that Alan Greenspan would not allow this to happen. When King defended the reasoning behind it saying its to control inflation, Trump blew it off. And amazingly I think Trump has a point, as a homeowner who got seriously burned by an adjustable rate “ARM” mortgage swinging the wrong way, there’s no doubt that is a huge factor in the slowdown. It’s not the only thing, but to me it’s a serious angle and you know what, the recovery may not begin until the rates get under control.

Elsewhere…

-- Last week’s post got me lots of e-mails asking why I was in such a “bad mood”- Honestly did not realize I was in a bad mood, but evidently my tone was surely taken that way by more than a few.

-- Most of the reaction came about the Chinese angle but before I get to that, I want to talk about my comments regarding AAMA. Yes I was probably too rough and the only reason I admit that was that I did not take into account the countless volunteers who give their time to create standards and develop programs that are helpful to our industry. My frustration with AAMA standing by as NFRC eats them for lunch should have nothing to do with the TRUE volunteer effort of people involved with AAMA. Really thanks need to go to Greg Carney, of GANA who slapped me upside the head and reminded me of the volunteer angle. So while I can pick on the AAMA ad’s and surmise why they are placed, I apologize to the folks who actually get the work done.

-- As for China, there was one post but several e-mails. I addressed the one post with a reply and you can review if you like. The e-mails basically called on me to keep educating and informing but to limit the “attack” nature of my posts. I’ll do the best I can folks, but I am what I am, and this issue is what it is, so I have to call it like I see it.

Moving on….

-- This story (click here) is very interesting… again shows that commercial building is still going strong, smack in the face of a horrible residential market. It’s pretty amazing that the two sectors could be so polar opposite. Thanks by the way to Joe K for the heads up on this one.

-- Another interesting story from the web was that glass pricing in India is dropping despite the fact that Steel and Cement are getting more costly and inflation is on the rise. In fact glass is the only product sector that’s price is DROPPING. I guess there’s so much glass competition over there (and with glass coaters being shipped from US Locations to India as well) that the market is correcting.

-- Saw in this week’s E-Weekly some more China news. (Yes sorry they’ll be no moratorium on China News.. just kinder and gentler… ) There was a story on China starting to have some standards and getting codes in place. Glad their priorities are in order, get the codes done, then worry about human rights. But anyway, the quote about the changes there came from Bipin Shah. Bipin used to work for the NFRC and was at the forefront of their attack on the commercial industry. Bipin now has his own company which last I heard was working for the NFRC. Anyway, Bipin talked about the codes and changes there, and the need for standards. So my thoughts, why doesn’t the NFRC open up an office in Beijing and concentrate on getting the Chinese straight before they try and make a mess of the North American industry. See wouldn’t it be great for them to be the guinea pig in this scenario?

OK, that’s it for this week… but the video comes courtesy of a heads up from sister…. Its Miss USA falling flat on her behind at this past weekend’s Miss Universe pageant. It happens a few seconds into this video and I gotta give her credit, she fell but popped back up and kept working it. I think in every pageant from here on out, the judges should do this unexpectedly to all contestants to test their composure!