US Economy seems DEAD right now...

[NHsorter]

Our small family business is over 100 years old. My grandfather swears that our monthly sales figures are a leading economic indicator. I believe him. In the 12 years that I have been here it is like clockwork. Uncanny, I tell ya. I really should start betting on Quarterly GDP figures.

The last 2 months here have been awful. The last 3 weeks even worse. At one point I grabbed my cell phone and checked to make sure that our phone lines were still working. We've got the reserves to make it through bad spells, but this is making us start to think about scaling back and we have never laid off anyone, ever.

15 employee company - making industrial solvent blends - primary customers are packaging companies and commercial print shops. It's a dying industry, I know, but we have been diversifying and growing sales yearly - at least until this year. Scary stuff guys... hope I'm wrong.

[68Camaro]

wow. Sorry to hear this for you personally. I hope you're wrong. But I fear you're right.

[Mossy]

Oh, man. You are right on the bull's eye for all the greenie scare stuff. I'm amazed you have not been legislated out of business already. Good luck.

[schockergd]

That's pretty scary.

I don't know that it's 'all over' , but we've been in a period of classic stagflation for about 2 years now.

[NHsorter]

Maybe I did not do a good job of expressing myself in the earlier post. I don't think that it's "all over", I just think that we are certainly in for more recession rather than recovery at this point. I don't think that we have reached the bottom of the market. The jobs numbers today are NO surprise to me. And honestly the atmosphere right now feels worse than in the 2008 collapse. So hold on. Our company will survive I have no doubt, but the next couple of years are not gonna be much fun. When reps call us from Monster.com to ask if we have any hiring plans I just laugh out loud at them and tell them to call back in Nov 2012 for an update. We are not even thinking about it until then. I should probably be sharpening pencils right now instead of posting on RC!

[Oakair]

0 new jobs added...Wow

[Mossy]

We are still far better off than Mexico, and Mexico is still far better off than most 3rd world countries, so we have a lot of depth under us before we hit rock bottom.

No doubt saying that around some of our politicians would simply encourage them to steal more.

[Know Common Cents]

I just don't think it's possible for our elected officials to make SO many wrong economic decisions SO frequently. The law of averages states that there will be right decisions occurring over time even if those making them are uneducated. It seems that as the spike is driven deeper into the economy that all this is intentional and not random. Really is unfortunate.

[Mossy]

KCC, what's good for them and their backers is bad for the rest of us. The purpose of the recent activity is to loot the country, IMO.

[shinnosuke]

KCC, what's good for them and their backers is bad for the rest of us. The purpose of the recent activity is to loot the country, IMO.

Check out my new avatar. "Them and their backers" are on the bottom of the chess board. "Us" is on top.