I put my engineering resume out to 2,500 contract shops a month ago to test
the market... in 1999 that produced about 50 enquiries and several job
offers. .... I have not gotten a single phone call in 30 days. The govt
is talking the economy up... the fed is printing money so banks can float
ultra low interest loans...so housing in still booming. But the
understructure of this US economy is vaporizing.
My advice. Brace yourself. Count on nothing. Gain diverse skills, get
rid of liabilities. Thats viable advice regardless.
Phil Scott
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=40250
US MACHINE-TOOL SECTOR COLLAPSE SIGNS ECONOMIC DEBACLE
Posted By: Rosalinda
Date: Sunday, 23 November 2003, 1:16 p.m.
[source: Walmart Street Journal A1, Timothy Aeppel, Nov. 21]
"WALMART" STREET JOURNAL FRONT-PAGE ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS DECIMATION OF U.S.
MACHINE TOOL SECTOR, at the heart of the nation's once-mighty industrial
economy.
The National Tooling and Machining Association estimates
that 30% of U.S. tool-and-die shops have shut down in just the past three
years, and expects many more to close in the next few years.
Manufacturers' orders for machine tools have plummeted 63% during 1997-
2002; and in the first nine months of 2003, have fallen 16%
from the level in the same period last year.
Machine tool makers produce the metal-cutting and -forming machines
(such as dies and molds), used by manufacturers to make everything from
televisions to cups, from car doors to surgical devices.
The collapse of the machine tool sector, the Wall Street rag warns,
also endangers national security.
Unmanned drones and body armor for troops in Iraq,
consist of composite materials made using special molds
and advanced machine tools.
Ingersoll, which recently declared bankruptcy, was one of only two U.S.
companies that made tools needed to produce components of stealth
aircraft.
As an example of the destruction, the Journal cites the case of Ernst
Buchmayer, the head of Western Industrial Tooling in Redmond, Washington
state, who is depleting personal savings in order to keep his machine
shop operating.
He has already slashed more than 50% of his workforce, from 55 workers to
25. Sales have plunged 70% from their peak in the 1990s
to just over $3 million in 2002, when the company lost $500,000.
The plunge in machine tool orders reflects factory bankruptcies
and manufacturers' moving of production to countries such as China,
under the paradigm down-shift to a predatory consumer society
dependent on cheap labor overseas.
Manufacturers are demanding low-cost machine tools,
some under pressure from Wal-Mart.
As a result, some U.S. toolmakers, Buchmayer notes, are
forming joint ventures with companies in China. Buchmayer's
newest company client, has outsourced manufacturing to Singapore.
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