Small Time Blog

Economic Issues

by Bradley Voight on 07/14/12

The economy is on nearly everyone's mind these days. Recycling and scrapping metal have a lot to do with the economy on several fronts. First off metals, particularly base metals, are the main raw materials of our economy. An easy way to get a barometer on the global economy is to look at base metal prices to get an idea of the demand for raw materials. Low prices mean low demand/high supply and high prices mean high demand/low supply. Secondly, more people scrap during high unemployment cycles. Finally, many recycling and scrapping businesses crop up in sluggish economic times.

We will continue to cover the economy leading up to the election this fall. It is my personal opinion that the world wide debt load is bigger than any one man or party can handle at this time. The sheer size of the debt owed by developed economies will take years to unwind. I believe that we could just be in the first stages of a prolonged downturn of ten years or more.

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U.S. Jobs Market Still In Sleep Mode

by Bradley Voight on 07/06/12

June followed up May's less than stellar jobs report with another dud, at least as far as the markets are concerned. U.S. stock markets and base metals shifted into reverse by over 1% and oil is down 3% at 11am EST. Analysts were hoping for something like 150,000 jobs and the private sector produced just 80,000 positions. If you are looking for a silver lining, June is the 28th straight month of job growth in the U.S.

If you ask me, I think that slow and steady job growth is good considering the downturn we endured in '08-'09. If companies just start hiring to be hiring, then there is a risk that many new hires would be laid off in a soft patch. I still contend that there are literally thousands of $40-$60,000 jobs in the trucking industry that are going unfilled, I see at least 35 driving jobs in the Sunday want ads each week. Each ad says multiple drivers are needed. I think there are a lot of lazy folks out there who would rather take a handout than earn an honest living, sad but true.

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Metals Prices Rebound

by Bradley Voight on 07/03/12

Base metals prices have begun the third quarter with a 7% jump. This has been accompanied by an unwelcome rise in crude prices as well which is bad news at the pump for me and you, but actually shows the global economy has stronger demand for petroleum products which is good.

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Electric Motors

by Bradley Voight on 07/03/12

Electric motors are in every thing from fans to carpet cleaners and everywhere in between. You can sell the motors whole to the scrap yard or you can break them apart with minimal effort and extract the copper. Some motors have other valuable metals and parts such as cast aluminum and sealed bearings. I like to keep all the screws, nuts, and bolts and keep them in a jar for possible later use. I keep the bearings too even though I am not sure what I can use them for but hey, once I get enough of them I'll put them on Craig's list and see what happens. As I stated in an earlier blog copper is king in the scrapping world and it is everywhere!

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Please Read Our Past Blog Posts

by Bradley Voight on 06/28/12

I try to keep the content fresh and relevant and I try to post several times a week so please go back and read all of our past entries.

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