Thread: Crane Cams shuts down, workers laid off

Tweet

One of the unavoidable side affects of an economy in "free fall" is that companies producing non-essential goods must rely on retained earning and hard capital to sustain their existence during what will inevitably be a non-productive period of time. To survive, a company must take in more revenue than is reasonable consumed in expenses.

Those companies that continually produce too few "optional" consumer goods to cover their expenses will, in all likelihood, fail when they have exhausted their reserves. These reserves may include large lines of credit that will probably not be repaid which further exacerbates the problem by "stiffing the creditors" who will, in turn, charge higher fees to service those businesses that are remaining viable.

While we have no real insight to the management at Crane, it would appear that the company has been experiencing difficulty for some time. It's hard, but necessary, to make decisions that will save the company when the cost is the employees. My heart certainly goes out to those at Crane that have been let go - probably without a lot of compensation - and now must find suitable employment in this difficult economy.

If you're gainfully employed - remember to thank your employer and work each day with the enthusiasm of you first day on the job.

Wow. I'm glad I did the rebuild this last winter! I hope this isn't just the beginning, but my gut tells me it will get a lot worse!

I remember that maybe a year or so ago I did a post about how things were getting bad economically. I was poo poo'd a little and compared to Chicken Little. Some said that things in their areas were actually on the upswing. Now, I am not trying to live up to my user name or anything, but perhaps we Floridians were just a little ahead of the curve on seeing what was developing. I was seeing jobs go away (my own at the time), home foreclosures were rising, and business after business was closing it's doors.

I'm normally a pretty positive person but I also have two eyes and ears.........there was no mistaking what was going on. Now it seems the rest of the country has begun to experience what we here have been seeing for the past couple or several years. The reason Florida is hit so hard is that we really don't produce a d*** thing here. No manufacturing to speak of, and our economy is built on service industries. To my way of thinking the thing that built this country and made it strong was the fact we BUILT stuff that other people bought. Now we buy those things from others and base our economy on things like Disney World, and our beaches.

We also had kind of a pyramid scheme going because our economy depended on new people coming in to pour money into our housing and other markets. We had all these "impact fees" that we tacked on to newcomers when they bought a new home or licensed their car. We also built too many homes, so when the supply exceeded the demand the building and real estate markets collapsed.

Crane is just the latest of many that have and will continue to fold. Just today at work we called a local alternator/starter repair shop that has been a Ft. Myers institution for many years. The phone number is disconnected. Riding to the shop the other night we couldn't drive a block without seeing some sign saying "going out of business" or "business location for rent." And, these aren't businesses that one would expect to fall by the wayside under normal circumstances..........most are long established companies that employed a lot of people.

So if I sound a little pessimistic it is because I see what is going on around me, and I thank God every day that I and my loved ones have jobs. There are a whole bunch of fine people who are not that fortunate right now, and I suspect the rest of the country is seeing similar issues right now as well. I pray that things turn around before it gets much worse.

Don