The economy, now

i live next door to dss where jeepin jen works and i have definitly noticed the MASSIVE increase of people in and out of there...i just wish they would learn my street is not a damn racetrack!
as for me, ive been doing lawn maintenance with my fathers company for as long as i can remember. got a pay cut from 100/day to 80/day and also got cut back from 5-6 days a week to a wonderful amount of 2....sure i have all sorts of time to work on everything but dont have the funds to use. Bret(marvilusone) and myself have put together a lawn maintenance/landscaping business of our own and are slowly getting business here and there as side work for him and one of these days fulltime for me. its just the wrong time of year to try to start this sort of thing.
 
Business is pretty steady, we are booked out for several months on big projects so that's good. Doing lift kits and bolt ons has slowed down quite but it seems to be that way every where. I really hope that picks up and we are cutting out parts price and labor to do so. Parts sales is still pretty steady but has definitely dropped within the last 2 months.
I was planning on moving to a much bigger shop with road frontage but I'm honestly pretty scared to do so. It looks like we'll be there for a little while longer and possibly picking up another 2k sq/ft soon. The comment made on cutting fat it this truth, we work on that every single day and thats key right now.
 
jeepin' jen said:
I'm a Medicaid caseworker for DSS so the economy has really affected my job. I've been working 9hrs./day + Saturdays to try to catch up due to the increase in public assistance applications. The county has increased insurance premiums, eliminated increases, & froze several of the vacant positions to help w/the budget.
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Has the gov. ramp up efforts at all to prevent wellfare/medicaid/unemployment fraud? Or is it still easy for people to get "free" money
 
1983Bronco said:
Has the gov. ramp up efforts at all to prevent wellfare/medicaid/unemployment fraud? Or is it still easy for people to get "free" money
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Not really - unfortunately we only have one fraud investigator at our location (I'm not sure about other counties) and she can't even think about keeping up with the number of claims we submit for review. Some of our clients know the system & the "loop holes" so its easy for them to get benefits their not eligible for. In the Food Stamp program, individuals who intentionally violate the program rules are disqualified for a certain time frame - but Medicaid basically just absorbs it & the individual can go on receiving benefits.
Redneckjeep87 - you'll be happy to hear we'll be moving to a new building around January so traffic should decrease :)
 
jeepin' jen said:
Not really - unfortunately we only have one fraud investigator at our location (I'm not sure about other counties) and she can't even think about keeping up with the number of claims we submit for review. Some of our clients know the system & the "loop holes" so its easy for them to get benefits their not eligible for. In the Food Stamp program, individuals who intentionally violate the program rules are disqualified for a certain time frame - but Medicaid basically just absorbs it & the individual can go on receiving benefits.
Redneckjeep87 - you'll be happy to hear we'll be moving to a new building around January so traffic should decrease :)
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You would think that the potential savings from all the fraud( most of us know at least one or two people f**king the system) would more than pay for another investigator and then some
 
Maybe they should outsource it to reputable PI firms or someone in the private sector, pay them on performance. Prosecute and revoke lifetime rights for gov. help for all convicted. That would make people think twice.
 
I just took a new job 2 weeks ago. I was lucky, my unemployment was about to run out... I went from an R&D Mechanical Engineer to an Engineering technician.

The rather large pay cut from my previous job kinda sucked, but the reduced responsibility is kinda nice.
 
The academic world is hurting badly too. The public universities and most private colleges have or had hiring freezes, no pay rasies or even COLA, and in many cases are scaling back bigtime. In teaching departments, the load for tenured folks is increasing, part timers getting cut... of the very rare hiring ging on, almost all is part-time, it's cheaper to hire 2 part timers than 1 full and have to be concerned w/ potential tenure and benefits etc. More grad students given teaching fellowships for classes b/c that's waaay cheaper than faculty. Public university budgets are taking massive hits, I understand the WFU endowment was down something like 40% last report.

On the research side, things are equally grim. No permanent (e.g. faculty) jobs to be found, anywhere, unless you already have your own funding in-hand to bring wit hyou and cover your own salary. More folks are having to do 2nd and 3rd postdoc fellowships, or extending existing ones, to bide time waiting for a job or digging for funding.
NIH/NSF funding levels (% of successful applications per cycle) are at the lowest in decades, 7-8%... e.g. fewer people are getting $$... which ironically makes people submit more apps, further driving down everybody's chances. At the big private research universities, these days if you lose your funding, there is no buffer from the dept to cover temporarily.... funding gone Friday, you pack up your office by Monday.

Furtunately for me, I now work for DOD in an "up and coming rising star" research program and just 3 weeks ago became a Fed employee, so we'll be the last in the pipeline to get the $$ cut, and even worst case I'll still have a job of some sort. Def a good time to be a Fed...
 
While we have orders for a lot of fiber well into the future, and are hiring some temp workers, and opening up some draw towers that were moth balled, we have had cuts as well. Mother company (France) recently walked in and said cut 3.4 million from the budget. AFAIK all personnel cuts have come from the office. Major cuts in management including a couple of the top spots at our facility. But on the floor we are balls to the wall and pressed to hit daily and shift production goals.
 
I graduate in May and both of my fallbacks are running out, college will be done, and I will not be able to go into the military as planned because they are at quota. I hope things turn around soon, and people begin to get jobs. The unfortunate thing is I have worked a full-time and a part-time job the whole six years i've been in college. Due to the fact the lines were so long and my class schedule I missed the period I could apply for it. I know a lot of people are pissed about undercutting on bids but on the other hand it's good to see some of these jackass contractors aren't able to rape people anymore at the same time.
 
blt2krawl said:
I know a lot of people are pissed about undercutting on bids but on the other hand it's good to see some of these jackass contractors aren't able to rape people anymore at the same time.
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Dont kid yourself.
When companies are taking overhead and profit off the quote figure, they have no room for error. So if anything isnt 100% to plan, here comes a change order.

Remember price and cost are not the same. The cheapest price often comes at a substantially higher cost.
 
Well I guess I was trying to refer to the other spectrum of the yahoo contractors who think just because they are licensed they can charge mega bucks when the economy is doing well. Any other time like now they go out of business because reputation means something.
 
I was in the process of opening up an offdroad shop in the spring until things got so bad...That is on hold. We have a large steel building sitting in several shipping containers waiting for better times. I'm back in Charlotte doing mobile detailing and landscapeing and small grading work. Times are definately tough and having a lower overhead helps keep cost down. I'm lucky I have everything paid for and only a few bills. I feel for the people that have families to support with this shitty economy.
 
Flooring sucks, car is broke, bank account is tapped. The only profit making business I know is the ABC store. Speaking of that, I think I'll take another drink.
 
5onrocks said:
I was in the process of opening up an offdroad shop in the spring until things got so bad...That is on hold. We have a large steel building sitting in several shipping containers waiting for better times. I'm back in Charlotte doing mobile detailing and landscapeing and small grading work. Times are definately tough and having a lower overhead helps keep cost down. I'm lucky I have everything paid for and only a few bills. I feel for the people that have families to support with this shitty economy.
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Come open that shop up here, we don't have squat for decent places anywhere close at all, you'll have no competition.
 
UNBREAKABLE said:
I feel like an ass for saying this but I'm staying pretty busy..electrician :)
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You feel like an ASS because you are one.....Join the club!:flipoff2:

Dave.....You would have to pay me to open a shop up north. I'm a southern boy born and raised. I like visiting the north but I try to keep my stays to a minimum.:beer:
 
I've seen rednecks in western Maryland before. We did a march from Harpers Ferry to Sharpsburg and the sight of 50 confederate soldiers marching along the road side brought them out in droves.Some beautiful country up there.
 
5onrocks said:
You would have to pay me to open a shop up north.
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see...the thing is...and i had to learn this from Dave too...

is that maryland is the south. the mason dixon line is marylands northern border.

like someone else said it's the sweet tea line you gotta stay below.
 
Technically yes......reality......kinda.....but not really! I will have to pass on living there. Visit there...Yes. Live there...Hell NO!
 
Kinda slow at the dealership. As Bigwoody said, folks are waiting until its a "have-to" repair and also are not doing routine maintainence.

My dealer is gonna survive fine, but our profit is down a lot from the last few years. I am having a very good year, but I am the only tech here that does EVERYTHING. Be it AC, electrical, driveability, diesel, drivetrain,whatever. That way I always have work.

We are a multi-line dealer. Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, Mazda, Mitsubushi, Mercedes-Benz all under one roof. That is definately working in our favor.
 
I feel pretty depressed about the economy. So far my college degree has been worthless and no one is hiring mechanical engineers. I can't even get a job driving trucks (got my CDL).

I am lucky to be doing some part time work. It keeps me afloat and I feel very fortunate to have something. However I don't foresee the economy getting better anytime soon.

I heard something like 50% of peoples out of high school/college are unemployed. I feel lucky since I don't have student loans. I know a couple kids with student loans that are pretty much screwed.
 
i read an article about job opertunities that talked about there are too many people who are qualified but not experienced.

employers are complaining that they have job openings but are reluctant to fill the positions because young people today have been hyper focused on college and spoon fed by their parents (im paraphrasing in my own words) and never worked while in school.

on paper they are qualified but are getting denied because they have never held a job before and the jobs are going to uneducated adults who have 10+ years experience to back them up.

my fiance has been on giving out her resume all summer and just this week shes had 4 call backs. (she falls into the overeducated/underexperienced catagory).

The jobs are out there. it may not be a dream job. and you may have to have more than one...but they are out there.

Also, there has been a big re-migration back to mexico. another article i read talked about buses that uses to leave here empty and come back from mexico full are doing the opposite now. dunno what that does or doesnt do the job market, just something to think about.
 
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