United States Heading towards a Depression?

I like this anecdotal of a small business: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/04/AR2010070403820.html?nav=hcmoduletmv

The Gutterman profile is terrific IMHO. Not incredibly small at $4-5 million/yr in revenues with over 40 employees but certainly not large. The article has very revealing data about a small business, and especially in this tough economy.

The guy has been running profits, but the profit margin is slight. He said 2-4% in the recession years and 6% more recently. Definitely slim. Any big cost increase on a line item, or a serious loss in income would devastate this business.

His mainstay are 600 regular customers requiring service. That is smart; better to rely on a lot of customers rather than a few. With a lot of customers no one customer dominates you. OTOH there have to be about 300-500,000 single family homes in reach of his offices. He has a teeny part of the market. He could grow a lot.

His revenues are about $100,000/employee give or take something. It appears he kept all or most of his staff during the worst part of the recession and did it by cutting salaries as opposed to firing.

I'll probably contact this guy. The article made me think about gutter cleaning, something I did for about 30 yrs starting w/ my parent's home, a few others and then mine. Always hated that job; the ladders, the stretching, the accumulated grime in the roof gutters, but my dad instilled in me to do this regularly during the year to protect the roof. It works. Wonder how gutter guards have hurt this business. They do a nice job of reducing accumulations of leaves, twigs and other things.

I also like small business men like this. They have a serious stake in their business and as a customer in today's world you have a great opportunity for two way respect via the threat of bad reviews on the web.

Kudo's to the gutterman. Hope he expands.

 

Obama himself has made the calamity in the Gulf a major issue against the Obama Administration!!!

And so has CNN, the BBC, FOX, NBC, CBS... even MSNBC is blaming Obama!

Obama's failure is, as you describe it, a "calamity" and "a major issue".

@BW, do you now admit that the calamity in the Gulf is a major issue against the Obama Administration, because Obama has failed to take action in the cleanup? Can you tell us why Obama made the calamity worse by refusing to accept help from 16 nations, including Canada? Canada actually runs drills on capping and cleaning up spills EXACTLY like this one, right?

 

And when Union run shops try it? Government? California's Governor?

Seems that when times are tuff a little short term suffering by all is better than a total loss by all.

Odd, this guy seems to epitomize everything you hate, and everything I and others here have tried to nail home.

 

Stay with it Corwin, you're making real progress.

Why haven't they used an expandable plug - is what I have suggested.

 

Go get a fire hose.
Attach it to a fire hydrant.
Turn it on.

Try and stick a plug in it. If you can catch the hose without killing yourself.

Do it above or below water. The choice is yours.

Report back here when you are successful.

 

The design and procedure is simple, for who has even an elementary education - I do wonder what the reasoning is for not attempting the procedure.

Hint: expandable plug insertion is not affected by the resistant pressure till time of expansion of which many designs are commonly known and exist for such deployments.

 

I don't think he genuinely hates what this guy stands for Mia. I suspect he either invests in, or operates several businesses like this. You did hit a key note with your union comments though. I wonder where all the great philosophy he provides us on this forum would go if his own workers tried to unionize and block the pay cuts that kept this guy's business alive. Going out of business has been preferable to pay cuts for unions for quite some time.

 

Yes, its so remedial in fact, no one's willing to try it.

So what you are saying is, Obama is OVER educated. And that is the reason he's not suggested this elegant, yet simple solution previously.

Got it.

Best quote I've seen in a long time!

 

I just picked up some bottled water and am heading for the hills. My wife, Chicken Little, is very scared. She has lived through many depressions. She recommends people panic first and then remain in a panicked mindset for the next 20-years. She reads Howard Ruff and buys silver. She knows both US parties represent the best interests of the population. We will be living in a cave in southern Oregon until the depression settles down.

 

As I understand it, a slim shim about 5 cm in diameter is inserted into the well. A robot uncoils the shim as it gets thicker and thicker, until the expandable plug is pushed in. IF THE PLUG CAN GET DEEP ENOUGH, the plug is expanded. Then it's a race to pour in the concrete before the plug fails from the pressure.

I think the problem is that BP doesn't have a procedure for that and have never rehearsed it. But Shell does - and they'll probably want to rightfully claim the oil in that well!

 

When BP releases the mud logs, then the really truth about the methane gas can be understood.

Proprietary knowledge about mud logs with what BP has done seems a little silly.

 

They pour in the drillers mud to relieve the pressure on the plug - the concrete displaces the mud.


The initial event ruptured the casing below the seabed - some oil is escaping from the seabed itself. The plug must be below the rupture and this may be the problem for not using it, but wouldn't the same be true with the relief wells? Or they are just unwilling to make the attempt.


There are many designs already available for expandable plugs and plenty of engineers to specialize one for this condition. I have drawn one myself and posted in the designers software forum to spark interest - mine uses Kevlar sheeting that is filled internally with drillers mud (expandable pillow) with drillers mud released from the same shaft above the plugs, mine would have 3 separate plugs on hollow shaft used for the internal discharge and above plugs external discharge of drillers mud.

 

US presidents do not accept foreign aide.

Bush had the opportunity to allow foreign water planes into California during the 2008 fires and that didn't happen either. America is too proud to accept these offers.

Besides, had Obama allowed them in the Republicans would have ran with it and said "Obama couldn't handle the oil spill himself, so he lowered the US into accepting embarrassing foreign aide. He needed the leaders of other nations to do his job."

 

Here is the first thing that popped into my head when this first happened....

What they need to do is weld a cap with a swinging door onto the pipe. When the welding is done, shut the door. Even if the PSI of the running oil is so great that the door won't easily shut, there must be a way to close it fairly easily using hydraulics.

 

Or better you could just run to Singapore, then bitch about everyone in Washington and give your fellow americans back home advise as to how they need to build a giant underground bunker and start hoarding food, water (god knows how!) and Ak-47's for the days to come. You could even play an astrologer cum financial adviser and tell them how investment in gold is going to be a waste of time. Finally you must laugh at them pointing out that they got the government they deserved while you apply for another citizenship.

ROFLOL!! Who wants to play an engineer? I wonder why doesn't the federal government do all its recruitment from DP since we so many experts in every field of work.

 

LOL. I see you are familiar with little willy.

There is only one factual mistake in your posting, chicken hawks don´t buy Ak-47 themselves, they marry an Arab (while talking about how uncivilized those people are) and let the wife carry the gun to protect them while they are hiding under the bed from Muslim bogeyman.

 

US does not accept foreign aide? Really? This article was a bit long to paste in full, so I've clipped about 20% of it for your enjoyment here. I purposefully omitted all the countries that just sent cash, and most of the countries that actually participated as a sovereign nation.

By the way, the California wildfires were a state issue, not a federal one. The Governator was the point man(decision maker) on that issue, even though he got federal money by having Bush declare the event a disaster. One of the few points in his term he did just fine.

So instead he let the thing gush oil for two months while he thought about what to do and then decided to accept foreign aide anyway? Wow. Now there is a political strategy that works. One thing I'll agree with in regard to this section of your post. There is nothing the man does which does not have a political motive behind it.

The laughable part of his refusal of foreign skimmer ships is that many of those ships were not official governmental representatives of the countries whose flags they fly, but instead owned by private enterprise within those countries. If we really wanted to block foreign owned companies from the cleanup effort, we'd have to block BP.

It could be worse. He could be a foreign national bitching about something he hasn't the first clue about.

I find this funny too but truth being stranger than fiction, BP and the Federal government are actually soliciting ideas from would be engineers. Not sure whether I should laugh or be angry about that.

More comments from the peanut gallery. As an ex-pat, I believe I fit your definition of Chicken Hawk, and let me assure you, my gun cabinet is very full. It is as true now as it was while living abroad, though I don't drive with a loaded weapon in the US as the authorities to frown on that.

 

Actually they do. In fact, the President has the right to appeal the Jones Act, which is what is holding this up. Bush did it during Katrina.

You're assertions and interpretation of history is slightly skewed.

 

I'm not playing an Engineer, I AM an Engineer!

I'll say it again - if BP had a fix, they would have fixed the gusher by the 3rd week. If you've been watching CNN, you'll see that BP is not an engineering firm, it's a highly political firm with lots of backstabbing. That's why their upper management appears so incompetent on television.

Most competent Engineers are highly ethical. We don't enjoy incompetent management (which is why so many companies lose their best Engineers after a management change). BP's history proves that they do not have competent Engineers. Hence, the Gusher in the Gulf, and BP's $20 Billion payoff to the Democrats.

Ah, so DDD's point is, Obama is NOT a leader. He is only another selfish politician that is more interested in his political future than doing what's right.

Right?

From what I understand, President Bush made the decision and got a waiver of the Jones Act three days after Katrina.

The sad truth is the Obama has a frightening history of being afraid to make a decision, any decision. So far, in his administration, everything has had to be done by Congress. The Gusher in the Gulf sits squarely on the shoulders of the President because all the relevant agencies - the EPA, the MMA, the Coast Guard, etc - all are directly under his command and control.

 

Not everyone relies on Day Dreaming for their accomplishments - the Engineer is the top of the pyramid but General Contractors are actually the innovators and as far from idle complacency as possible.