Anybody Getting Stimulated?

I had a good friend in my dental chair today. He is a contractor who has been in business for over 35 years. He does concrete work, roads, lays pipe, etc. I asked him how his Spring is looking for work. He says he is all but dead. There is nothing going on out there. I asked about the Stimulus from the federal government with all the shovel ready jobs out there. He works with a lot of shovels, some of them big and are run by big diesel engines. He said that the Stimulus money that has gone out has gone to big jobs for big companies. A small business like his has not had any influence from that. Corporate America has received some benefit.

Two years ago he had 100 people employed. Now he has 10 and he can hardly keep them busy 30-35 hours a week. I asked him how this compared in the late 70's and early 80's. His reply was he has never ever seen it this bad.

If this guy doesn't have a lot of work, nobody is going to have much going on. He is a highly regarded, successful contractor who gets the job done right, on time and with very few complaints. This does not bode well for a bunch of people in the trades. If roads in subdivisions are not being built then the trades people are not working.

We had a local bank shut down not long ago that this man banked with and did business with for years. He borrowed seven figure amounts many times and paid them back in a timely manner. The bank appeared to be leveraged out on construction loans that were defaulted on. They had a plan and thought they could dig there way out, but the Feds swooped in and appeared to be determined to shut it down. He said this type of local bank was great to do business with because you could talk to them, present your plan, talk with the Board of Directors and get financing. You don't do that with Bank of America or Wells Fargo. So, I see some gloomy days ahead. I guess we need to play things close to the vest.