Two forecasts came out last week with frustrating results. The monthly ABI was up 2 points but still weak and the analysts there continue to worry about the volatility in the marketplace. The other forecast I saw was the Producer Price Index and that was pretty depressing. The numbers of course were low, but the commentary was downright frightening. Check out this line:
"Public construction, once the bright spot of the industry, is petering out and we are hopeful that the stimulus money allotted by congress for infrastructure will be spent soon and help stem the tide. Virtually all of the sectors of commercial construction are down, and represent a cumulative 15% decrease. "
Ouch. That is simply not fun. The “stimulus” money is supposedly still out there and I know a lot of folks hanging their hats on that to help ride this out. In any case, and no matter the report you read, these are challenging times and the companies that handle these times the best, will be the horses when it turns... and I still believe the turn is coming....
Elsewhere…
-- Yesterday I came across these amazing inserts from Glass Magazine that were focused on the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s in the glass industry. Really cool stuff… hopefully there are plans to do a 2000’s to add to the collection. In any case if you have these inserts they are awesome.
-- Man I hate missing another GANA event. I am sure Brian Pitman and the gang will be tweeting from the Fall Conference and I will follow along that way.
-- BIM’s popularity is not just in my head… McGraw Hill just reported that BIM usage went up 40% from 2008 to 2009. There is no question that with everyone striving for efficiencies, that BIM usage will continue to grow.
-- Being out of work gives you time to notice things you usually don’t pay attention to. This week I noticed that while buying Dog Food, the bag was now 35 pounds instead of 40… but the price was the same! So I started to really take a look at things and saw in a bunch of cases that food and other items were priced the same but came in smaller packages or quantities. I guess that’s a sneaky way at getting a price increase…. Obviously in our industry that’s not something we can do, unless it’s scrimping on dessicant or sealant, but if you do that, you’ll pay in the end.
-- I also noticed that at the book store there were like 30 different magazines dedicated to Quilting. Never knew how popular Quilting could be! By the way there were only 10 magazines dedicated to Fantasy Football… so obviously the Quilting world is bigger than football.
-- Funny NFRC stuff last week when they accidently sent out a note about Benson Industries becoming an “independent” ACE organization (Approved Calculation Entity)….. by the time that most of conspiracy theorists got done reading and tried to understand how a manufacturer could be “independent” the NFRC corrected the error with a new e mail. Sometime I think they do that on purpose to see if I am still paying attention.
-- Last, congrats to friend of the blog Steve O’Hollaren of ICD for winning an IPAD from GANA. Use it well my friend and feel free to connect to the blog from it!
Links of the WEEK!
-- Classic here… only in China can you have a 62 mile long traffic jam that has lasted 9 days! Worth the click but like a friend noted to me, “how can this happen?” Crazy stuff and I though traffic in Chicago and Dallas were bad.
-- Interesting study in Europe for how long we wait in lines for stuff like the Post office and grocery store. I wonder if anyone ever did one of these here in North America. Maybe that can be my next gig?
-- An awesome Glass house… I am sure someone in our industry supplied tons of stuff here…
Video of the WEEK!
Great video putting some style and music to the whole Brett Favre “indecision” situation…. I love how folks have the time and patience to put some of this stuff together…
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