Nude_IHB
New member
Motorcycles, watercraft, lawn & garden, private aircraft, etc. Basically anyone who repairs the 'toys'.no_vaseline said:What the heck is a non automotive mechanic?
Motorcycles, watercraft, lawn & garden, private aircraft, etc. Basically anyone who repairs the 'toys'.no_vaseline said:What the heck is a non automotive mechanic?
no_vaseline said:I respectfully disagree.
I also disagree with IPO's contention that we can't get to '02 pricing in a year. We had a perfect storm to create this mess, and now we have the perfect storm to clear it out. But we're probally in agreement that we're headed to 2002 prices, only when is up for debate.
Are you a Snap-on dealer?no_vaseline said:I respectfully disagree.
Technicians are 100% of my customer base. With all due respect, I think you underestimate the ammount of work they did when times were good. It's not much.
When times are good, people buy new toys that rapidly depreciate 50-80% because the new one is better than the old one and it's new and not worn (these toys are rarely cared for properly and have a really short life expectancy). When times are bad, they don't buy anything. Either way, there isn't a huge market working on them.
I can tell you that regular automotive technicians are very slow right now. $4 a gallon gas has folks not driving as much, and driving smaller (and more reliable) cars. Everything from body shops to dealership warranty work is at a crawl right now.
I also disagree with IPO's contention that we can't get to '02 pricing in a year. We had a perfect storm to create this mess, and now we have the perfect storm to clear it out. But we're probally in agreement that we're headed to 2002 prices, only when is up for debate.
Nude said:Are you a Snap-on dealer?
I was a Yamaha mechanic and a certified Stihl/Honda/Toro mechanic during the early 90's. I have to disagree with your assessment.
Yes, new things are purchased when times are good, but things are maintained when times are fair/good/great. When times go bad, people leave their bikes/boats/etc. in the back of the garage, or sell them for cheap. Landscape maintenance companies replace their own sparkplugs, sharpen their own blades, and buy parts to replace themselves rather than pay the shop flat rate. New bikes/boats/lawnmowers aren't being purchased, so they don't need to be uncrated and assembled for sale. Eventually machanics start getting laid off or quitting because there isn't enough work to support them. I ended up moving to Las Vegas because there was work there (compared to OC in '93, Vegas was a boomtown) and I wasn't the only one.
I'm not sure we are disagreeing. My original point was that people stop spending money on non-automotive mechanical repairs when they need to tighten their belts, which is a leading indicator of economic recession. You're point is that ALL mechanics are experiencing the same thing. Ok, but I didn't claim that they weren't. I'm not exactly sure why you want to argue that I did. Since it's clear that we have been in a recession for months, and OC has probably been in one for longer, it stands to reason that automotive mechanics are also seeing less repair work. So, are you just trying to be more right because you feel you have special insight and a unique perspective or am I missing something?no_vaseline said:And so I can further beat a dead horse with Nude, from today's OC Regester.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/orange-county-percent-2019810-sales-auto
I concur with the article. Hell, I even know the guy in the picture for the article!
graphrix said:Ipop,
Seriously... no... seriously, your job stats are off, way off, somewhere on planet Kool-Aid. I suggest you check out the archive of the blog, and read the REal jobs situation. I have been watching the jobs, and posting about them for almost three years now.
Go check those spread sheets again, and look at the shrinking civilian labor force. This includes self-employed people, and it has been shrinking so badly, only the 90s have seen numbers that awful. We are losing jobs, and civilian labor force, at a faster and larger rate than we did during the tech bust. It shrank by 19,100 jobs YOY, and if you factor that into the unemployment number, the real unemployment number is closer to over 6% when you factor in normal growth.
Professional, technical, and scientific services have seen 0, zero, zip, nada, absolutely no growth what so ever. This was the ever growing sector, that was supposed to save the OC job market because it was immune from RE, even if the architectural sector has seen growth. The tech part of this sector is shrinking, and still after almost 7 years later, this sector has yet to get to the same level it once was. That is horrible, awful, and shows that OC has a long way to go to recover from this.
How many tech people, attorneys, CPAs, couriers, accountants, retail, interior designers, restaurants, etc. are affected by the mortgage, construction, homebuilder, RE bust?
There has been 0, zero, nada, zip, zilch, absolutely no job growth in OC outside of healthcare and education. Education shrank in the tech bust, but not in the 90s, and healthcare has grown every single year since 1990. So, anyone with quark of common sense would never, ever cite this as being positive.
No growth is not good for the economy here, and we have not seen growth in any sector other than RE the last three years, which only makes it worse. Factor in how many jobs were doing well because of RE, then it just gets worse.
For a spreadsheet junkie like yourself... I am really, really disappointed.![]()
Nude said:My original point was that people stop spending money on non-automotive mechanical repairs when they need to tighten their belts, which is a leading indicator of economic recession. You're point is that ALL mechanics are experiencing the same thing. Ok, but I didn't claim that they weren't. I'm not exactly sure why you want to argue that I did.
ipoplaya said:graphrix said:Ipop,
Seriously... no... seriously, your job stats are off, way off, somewhere on planet Kool-Aid. I suggest you check out the archive of the blog, and read the REal jobs situation. I have been watching the jobs, and posting about them for almost three years now.
Go check those spread sheets again, and look at the shrinking civilian labor force. This includes self-employed people, and it has been shrinking so badly, only the 90s have seen numbers that awful. We are losing jobs, and civilian labor force, at a faster and larger rate than we did during the tech bust. It shrank by 19,100 jobs YOY, and if you factor that into the unemployment number, the real unemployment number is closer to over 6% when you factor in normal growth.
Professional, technical, and scientific services have seen 0, zero, zip, nada, absolutely no growth what so ever. This was the ever growing sector, that was supposed to save the OC job market because it was immune from RE, even if the architectural sector has seen growth. The tech part of this sector is shrinking, and still after almost 7 years later, this sector has yet to get to the same level it once was. That is horrible, awful, and shows that OC has a long way to go to recover from this.
How many tech people, attorneys, CPAs, couriers, accountants, retail, interior designers, restaurants, etc. are affected by the mortgage, construction, homebuilder, RE bust?
There has been 0, zero, nada, zip, zilch, absolutely no job growth in OC outside of healthcare and education. Education shrank in the tech bust, but not in the 90s, and healthcare has grown every single year since 1990. So, anyone with quark of common sense would never, ever cite this as being positive.
No growth is not good for the economy here, and we have not seen growth in any sector other than RE the last three years, which only makes it worse. Factor in how many jobs were doing well because of RE, then it just gets worse.
For a spreadsheet junkie like yourself... I am really, really disappointed.![]()
We are arguing two different things graph. You are talking about job growth and how RE (with your inclusion of construction and some professional services) has dominated the growth in OC workforce over recent years. Totally agree with you. I think construction has probably dominated job growth in recent years as both the residential and commercial side have been booming.
My posts on this thread were in response to the contention that loss of jobs by real estate agents, mortgage people, title agents, etc. have created a significant drag on the OC economy. Looking at your data in your analysis, I'd say that supports my conclusion. The true RE portion of the workforce is relatively small, i.e. those that are categorized as "real estate", accounting for less than 2% of average non-farm workforce. Am I interpreting your spreadsheet correctly?
The much larger piece of your RE workforce pie comes from construction, making up 5% of historical average. Over the last two years ended in February, the construction sector in OC had lost 5,700 jobs. Yes, it has not grown, yes that is bad, but we are talking about a loss of one-third of one percent of the nonfarm workforce lost over a 24-month period. Those figures will probably trend down further as commercial construction tails off, but we're not there yet. If by the summer that figure in construction stays south of 100K jobs, I'll agree with your much bleaker outlook.
Those figures will probably trend down further as commercial construction tails off, but we're not there yet. If by the summer that figure in construction stays south of 100K jobs, I'll agree with your much bleaker outlook.
I don't see the employment picture as bleak as you because I haven't seen data to support it. People keep talking about massive job losses, BKs, etc. and there hasn't been much economic news to support it. The March Challenger report showed only a slight uptick in planned layoffs (5K jobs) year-over-year... Our unemployment rate in SoCal for Feb 2008 was exactly the same as July 2005 and and home prices weren't exactly in a freefall then. So far, this recession has not been characterized by big job loss. That could of course change, but I won't believe it until I see it.
In IT, you are seeing the best sector in a weak job market. Real Estate and associated fields are not doing well at all. I know several unemployed mortgage brokers, and their jobs are not coming back.
Hey optimus,optimusprime said:I really think we bottom out when change in sale price hits -30%+