Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Hajo on September 11, 2009, 02:42:23 PM
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Having worked in the Steel Industry for 39 years I have never experienced such a downturn in the business as we suffered since last October.
Usually when business slows, which usually occured in the 4th quarter the steel Industry would either slow production
of Ironmaking by blowing out a Blast Furnace or just simply decreasing the productivity of their Blast Furnaces. Usually
it was business as usuall albeit slower. We continued to run realizing that business again would pick up usually at mid
first quarter. We then would ramp up the production of smelting iron ore to fill the incoming steel orders.
Since last October many many companies just blew the furnaces down. Ceased production altogether. Ceasing production
in entire plants. This of course laid off many who worked or depended on the steel industry for a living. And believe me there
are many orbital businesses that depend on the manufacture of steel.
The good news at least for our company is that our facility in Detroit is full go. Production is up at other facilities also in cities
like Cleveland etc. Acelor/Mittal is starting a second furnace at its' Cleveland works.
So heres' hoping many get back to work soon. Inventories are down. Orders are up!
This is a good sign. Let's hope it is long range.
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Not seeing it here in the construction industry.
:salute
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Wolfie....a lot of the blame for the slowness of the construction industry belongs directed at the Banks, consumer confidence,
and if you're building housing units, the crazy prices homes were selling for. Of course housing prices vary from region to region.
When someone in California pays 400,000 for a home and someone in Ohio purchases the same home for 200,000 that truly is a wide
disparity.
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My Grandfather has told me many stories about how prosperous Bethlehem, PA used to be. :(
It now has but a twinkle of it's former glory.
Musikfest used to be the only attraction there and that is only once a year.
The saddest thing is that The Sands (casino) has now taken up residence in the former plant facility.
Hopefully it will bring revenue to the area and not end up like the "Walking Tall" story.
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I'm in the steel industry too. I'll wait for the market to level before jumping conclusions. When the mills went to almost stop to full stop the inventories slowly dwindled. Some mills are full up to replenish the material used in the months of down time. Once they catch up we'll see if it can sustain or falters.
I'm aware of many steel suppliers still lowering their in house inventories on hand.
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Not seeing it here in the construction industry.
:salute
Architectural industry too, we're really getting down to the lowest notches on our belts now. But we lag a little behind everyone else. Probabley will still be in a rut until next year... and a boom whenever the housing demand returns (because, I don't know anyone who has been buildign new houses inthe past couple of years).
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Wolfie....a lot of the blame for the slowness of the construction industry belongs directed at the Banks, consumer confidence,
and if you're building housing units, the crazy prices homes were selling for. Of course housing prices vary from region to region.
When someone in California pays 400,000 for a home and someone in Ohio purchases the same home for 200,000 that truly is a wide
disparity.
That must be a house in the central valley. In southern CA or the bay area $400,000 might buy an apartment or small condo. :lol
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My Grandfather has told me many stories about how prosperous Bethlehem, PA used to be. :(
It now has but a twinkle of it's former glory.
Musikfest used to be the only attraction there and that is only once a year.
The saddest thing is that The Sands (casino) has now taken up residence in the former plant facility.
Hopefully it will bring revenue to the area and not end up like the "Walking Tall" story.
I live a stones throw from the Bethlehem Steel plants, they are just rusting hulks now, to think and entire city was built around this plant. Its such a shame.
The immense size of this plant is just mind boggeling, RR trellis' 100' in the air used to move locomotives from 1 set of tracks to another, furnaces 3 times the size of my house. The plant literally occupies square miles of Bethlehem. Now all just a ghost town, valdals have busted out all the windows of the storage buildings. Not a fitting end to an industry that helped keep us free.
IMHO the Sands moving in there is just a slap in the face to the community.
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I live a stones throw from the Bethlehem Steel plants, they are just rusting hulks now, to think and entire city was built around this plant. Its such a shame.
The immense size of this plant is just mind boggeling, RR trellis' 100' in the air used to move locomotives from 1 set of tracks to another, furnaces 3 times the size of my house. The plant literally occupies square miles of Bethlehem. Now all just a ghost town, valdals have busted out all the windows of the storage buildings. Not a fitting end to an industry that helped keep us free.
IMHO the Sands moving in there is just a slap in the face to the community.
Same with US Steel. Huge facility closed for years and now opened as Jindal.
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That must be a house in the central valley. In southern CA or the bay area $400,000 might buy an apartment or small condo. :lol
a friend of mine lives in marlton nj.
nice house. big. tiny tiny lot. hardly any yard at all. 650k. property taxes just over 11k a year.
a former boss had a place in north carolina. his house is a typical late 70's early 80's split level, with a 2 car garage. shenendoah mountains in his back yard. his yard/lot is about the size of the block i live on.
150k. property taxes about 1500 a year.
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I work in a unique industry making gaskets and plastic piping systems for the chlorine and other various chemical plants. While business did slow down for about the past year or so, it is picking up. Lets hope for every industry that the problems are just about over and done with. :salute
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Those of you talking of Bethlehem Steel. We now own (SeverstalNA) the Sparrows Point facility.
I was called there in Feb. to help start the Blast Furnace there. What a monster. Full bore it
produces 10,600 tpd of molten iron. I stayed in Towson at the Sheraton while there.
I fell in love with Blue Crab Soup.
Also those from Bethlehem I lived and worked in Youngswtown Ohio. I know your pain.
In the Youngstown area at one time we had 17 Blast Furnaces operating. In the late 70s that ended.
Bruce Sprinsteen recorded a Song about Youngstown at the end of Steelmaking in that area.
I now work on the lone Blast Furnace operating in that area. It is a demanding job. Hard work and at times and
dangerous. I wouldn't have it any other way. There probably are more Attorneys in the area then men who do what I do
in the whole of North America. When business is normal there aren't enough of us to go around. And when recruiting
it is a hit and miss situation. It takes someone who rides the Short Bus to do it I guess ;)
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I'm a sheetmetal man and water jet programmer / operator and here in California we are full on and balls to the wall . Its a small outfit job shop and we have never slowed down , its a family business open since 1926 and is well known . Most shops are starting to get back to work and get busy and its a good thing .
Nutte :salute
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can't tell by me.......this is the worst month i've had in a year and a half...............
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Wolfie....a lot of the blame for the slowness of the construction industry belongs directed at the Banks, consumer confidence,
and if you're building housing units, the crazy prices homes were selling for. Of course housing prices vary from region to region.
When someone in California pays 400,000 for a home and someone in Ohio purchases the same home for 200,000 that truly is a wide
disparity.
Don't even have to be out of state, my house in Utah, 20 min West of SLC $210,000, 20 min South of SLC $300,000. Same house, same builder, same lot.
$90K!!! :rolleyes:
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Didnt mean to bring down your post Hajo, glad to hear things are picking up in your line of work. It is definatly a good sign that things may be turning around. :aok
The "death" of Bethlehem Steel just gets me a little worked up.
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I am the purchasing agent for a company that makes lifts for A/V equipment.
I have had a hard time with the mills shutting down, and with them merging. We used some channel that is now no longer available as it was dropped from the catalog by the remaining mills. I now have to have heavy sheet custom cut and bent to keep us in production. This has happened several times in the past year, forcing us to do design changes on the equipment we produce, that are not for the better. It also increases our costs at a time when we can't afford to have a price increase.
So our already slim margin is reduced, and we had to reduce staff even though sales as a whole have not gone down so much. If we close our doors, the A/V industry will suffer, as ours is the only company that will do custom work, and builds lifts that handle loads over 50lbs in continual service. In turn, it will hurt architects and contractors who will then have very limited options in designing and building media space. So everyone will get small, boring cookie-cutter media rooms and convention centers with limited capabilities, not to mention auditoriums and churches, even Disney World uses our equipment.
The demand will not be high enough for someone to invest the time and capital to replace our company, as the limited market would make the investment risk too high. Our competitors (of which there are only 3, with one getting out of the lift business to pursue other products) would not expand their production capacity for the same reason. So it really becomes a "for lack of a nail" situation. The A/V industry is hard hit right now with a lot of the smaller dealers and contractors going under, which is in turn hurting our sales as it reduces the outlet for our products, so we are getting hit from the other end as well.
Apply the same scenario to other industries, and you end up with Soviet bread lines.
I don't think people really understand the ripple effect that things like mill closings have on the economy as a whole.
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Wait. Things are getting better? Shee_iite. I recall the right wing pundits in this forum
adamantly stating that the economy was booming and that all the talk of a recession
was just the liberal media trying to sell more newspapers.
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Wait. Things are getting better? Shee_iite. I recall the right wing pundits in this forum
adamantly stating that the economy was booming and that all the talk of a recession
was just the liberal media trying to sell more newspapers.
Boy did you miss the boat.
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Wait. Things are getting better? Shee_iite. I recall the right wing pundits in this forum
adamantly stating that the economy was booming and that all the talk of a recession
was just the liberal media trying to sell more newspapers.
:rofl