Wednesday, September 24, 2008

A wild wild week

Wow, a wild week… Wall Street continues to drive everyone crazy, the residential meltdown continues, another primary glass manufacturer changes course, and my two “favorite” subjects in the world actually hook up. First up the bankruptcy of the parent company of Hurd Windows. The residential side is getting battered and for some folks, it’s not a sad thing. See the residential manufacturers held a major hold on the primary glass guys for years. The primaries gave in to the temptation and made sick deal, sometimes long term, even to the detriment of the rest of the industry. So now that the tide has turned, I think more than a few people are sitting back and enjoying the loss of power, even if it has a negative effect on their business.

Elsewhere….

-- The more you follow the whole Wall Street bailout stuff the more frustrated/upset/blown away you get. I am of the school that if the Govt bails these guys out, they better not be taking home 35 million dollar bonuses. And quite frankly some of those sick bonus checks should be looked at. What a mess. Still the whole thing is scary as heck… and they are talking “Depression” and that is wild… everytime that word comes up I think of the movie "Cinderella Man" and it just shakes me. Let’s just hope we get through this.

-- The offshoot of the credit crisis continues to be the postponement of projects. Backlogs are taking a hit all over thanks to this mess and until comfort returns it could be a very squeamish time.

-- You may have seen the PPG announcement and if taken the wrong way, you would assume they are taking significant capacity out of an already tight market. In reality they are closing auto glass tanks and will soon re-fire a couple of massive floats. So as long as we don’t have any more floods or hurricanes, we should not see a decrease in availability. That said, we are still in a shortage, especially on some products (Clear for sure), and that will continue to hang over us for a while.

-- What are my two “favorite” (sarcastic) things? Well most who know me would guess NFRC and China. Well how about this… the NFRC thanks to a grant from the US State Department will be doing work with China. Unreal. What work will they do? Well as their release cryptically explained the NFRC will work with three Chinese building energy organizations along with some American entities to develop a building certification program. TREMENDOUS! Let’s see you have failed miserably including and working with the industries in the States but you are ready to take on China. Plus I love that our tax dollars go to this… between the bailouts above and the wasted money that DOE and the State Department give out, it makes you nuts. Amazing… I wonder how many meetings a year the Chinese have? I wonder if anyone falls asleep during those meetings like they do here… I just think its comical and China and the NFRC are made for each other as neither listen to their constituents… As always I could go on and on but I won’t…

-- Oh except for one thing, the sign off of the NFRC release stated: “We make it easy to choose Green!” Um isn’t this greenwashing? Can I call the FTC? How exactly do they make it easier to choose “green?” Anyway you slice it, it’s obvious that this is their overpaid useless PR agency at work… “Hey guys, let’s promote that we are “green” that works for everybody!”

-- Just curious do you get bizarre chain e mails telling you if you do something that Microsoft or AOL or Applebees will give you money? I still do and it just makes me question my friends that actually may think this stuff is true. And when you see the chain of people, these e-mails are everywhere… oh by the way, copy and paste this blog and e-mail it to all your friends and you’ll get $20 from JC Penney.*

Off to the links…..

-- Vegas starting to feel the economic pain. A lot of people expected this to happen eventually, well it looks like it’s here.

-- What if the Presidential election ends in an Electoral College tie? This is a fantastic piece explaining how it could happen and what the nightmare scenarios are if it does… worth the read.


-- Do you hate the surcharge? Well guess what, even drug dealers are adding it on to their deals. Seriously.


Video of the week

Cool Movie alert… October 3rd, “Flash of Genius” comes out and looks to be very interesting… True Story too… the trailer is our video of the week…



* not true

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"See the residential manufacturers held a major hold on the primary glass guys for years. The primaries gave in to the temptation and made sick deal, sometimes long term, even to the detriment of the rest of the industry. So now that the tide has turned, I think more than a few people are sitting back and enjoying the loss of power, even if it has a negative effect on their business."

Man, what a slam on your float suppliers! Masochists.