[AT] Farm show observations-now auction

[Indiana Robinson]

"You ain't seen nuthin yet"... The dominoes have barely started to
fall... I would venture to say that by this fall anyone with a little
money in hand will be able to buy a lot of very expensive stuff for
pennies on the dollar. It won't include everything (hopefully) but
many areas will be a dumping ground. Right now I would just as soon
have money in old tractors as anything except land. Real estate may be
down a bit but there is a reason they call it "real" estate.
I have been watching small businesses (one man operations and mom &
pops, not SBA's definition) dropping like flies here. I think that new
small businesses started in the last 12 months are running a 99%
failure rate right now. "Fashion" based businesses might as well have
the plague. There is a big outlet mall near here that is going to have
an awful lot of empty space very soon as almost everything there is
stuff that nobody really needs. I have a grandson that has been
working there in a shop called "Lids" that only sells hats. His hours
are suddenly down to almost nothing. The whole mall is really slowed
way down since that stuff is a easy place for folks to cut back on
their spending. If you look out across the parking lots you keep
waiting for tumbleweed to start blowing past.   :-)
If I were operating a retail business for a living right now I would
be looking very hard for some kind of service business to be shifting
toward. We opened as a retail store in 1974 and by 1980 we were 75%
service related and still struggling but surviving. By 1985 almost
none of my fellow downtown retailers from 1974 were still in business.
One very large hardware store that failed during those shakeout years
had been in business for 108 years. They had cut services and tried to
jack up the retail. It didn't work...
An old farm equipment dealer I'm acquainted with told me years ago
that he didn't really make all that much money selling new equipment.
He said that he made the most from selling used equipment and that the
service garage paid the all of regular bills.
I heard it said recently that restaurants are hurting but I have not
observed that. All of the places we frequent seem to be getting
busier. Maybe they just seem more crowded because we are all gaining
weight and take up more room.   :-)
To borrow a sentence from an article I working on "I'm glad I'm
retired... all of a sudden "fixed income" doesn't sound so bad
anymore".
:-)

--
"farmer"

"Good clean muck never hurt nobody!!!"
Morris Moulterd


Hay and Straw Exchange (Buy it, sell it and trade it.)
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/HayandStrawExchange


Francis Robinson
Central Indiana USA
robinson46176 at gmail.com