I’ve spoken with 25 people so far this week to buy or sell equipment, and nobody mentioned the midterms coming up next week. Right now, going into the weekend, my mind is on next week’s doctor’s appointments, the impending winter, and what the Cubs’ roster will look like in 2027. Month by month, Washington politics becomes more irrelevant to my everyday life. The politicians become more laughable and neutralize each other with their loud stupidity. The “real” people in this country who work hard to make a living, who start businesses, who treat sick people in hospitals, who pave the…
Author: Lloyd Graff
In a lifetime, how many opportunities have you missed to listen to a potential friend, or at least a possible interesting acquaintance, because you stopped at “how you doing today?” This thought became real to me recently while listening to a marvelous book, Theo of Golden, by Allen Levi. It is Levi’s first novel. He described it as an “experiment,” but friends who read pieces of it implored him to try to get it published. The story is about Theo. We don’t know his last name until the end. He flies alone on a private jet to a university town…
What did visitors tell us at IMTS? One shop owner said, “I’ve got a ton of orders, but I can’t find the people to make the product.” Another said, “I wish I could find a magic machine that makes product and runs itself.” I don’t have the answers, but I will try to define the problems so the answers may become more apparent. * * * There are millions of people in this country looking for a job that pays an adequate living. One survey found that college students expect to make about $58,000 a year one year after graduating.…
I was driving down Governors Highway, a four-lane street I often take to my office, when I heard a loud thump on my right front tire. We’ve had tornadoes lately, and a lot of heavy branches were littering the road. The noise subsided as I reached the next light. As I stopped, I heard honking on the right side of the car. A young Black man was gesturing for me to open my window. He told me I had a big tree branch under my tire. I thanked him. Then he got out of his car, pulled the branch out…
Eighteen years ago today, the Cubs were playing Houston, and Ryan Dempster was pitching. I remember hearing the game on the radio as they were wheeling me into the operating room for a quadruple heart bypass to save my life. At least I think I heard it, or imagined hearing it. Since I was five years old, the Cubs have been knitted into my cerebral cortex, so even if I was unconscious, I may have somehow imagined Dempster on the mound against Houston. Why do I care so much about the Chicago Cubs? Why do I study the batting order…
I love baseball. We’re a week from the trade deadline. Teams are texting back and forth, hunting either for the crucial piece that vaults them into the World Series or the unpolished kid who blossoms into a star a few years down the road. My team is the Chicago Cubs. I’ve rooted for them since I was 6. I tried out for the team at Wrigley Field when I was 21. The Cubs won the World Series in 2016 after 108 years of trying. By the summer of 2021 that core had peaked, and management started trading off the players…
The Mullahs and the Thugs of Iran believe that with threats and drones they hold the winning hand in the pricing of oil and gas. But relying on a Strait ultimately will be their downfall. Not long ago, 20% of the world’s oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz on its way to Europe and the Far East. Iran’s calculation was that by threatening the tankers passing through the Strait they would intimidate the insurance writers in London and terrify the owners and crews on the boats. The tactics have worked for the moment, but long term they have weakened…
The NBA is a league of 7-foot stars and 10-foot egos. This year the championship was won by a team with neither. The New York Knicks won the title for the first time in 53 years, and there is a lesson in the victory for every business person in the way they did it and who led the way. Deep in my gut I hate today’s New York of Mamdani and the inherent belief so many Big Appler have, that they are from the only city that really counts. But this Knicks team is different. They have Jalen Brunson as…
Back in the days when Roger Maris crashed 61 homers, college girls did not show off tattoos, and American boys were getting killed in Vietnam, I was the sports editor of the Michigan Daily at my alma mater, University of Michigan. I loved doing it. It paid for a round-trip flight and expenses to the 1965 NCAA Basketball Tournament, where Michigan lost to UCLA in the championship game and Bill Bradley scored 58 points for Princeton in the runner-up game. I was declared the best college sportswriter in America in a contest of 200 writers and given an award of $200, which…
Graff-Pinkert’s used machine tool business has been challenging for the last couple of years. It has always been a cyclical business that takes grit, creativity, and a willingness to pivot when times are grim. We have moved into consulting and matchmaking for machining companies and brokering expensive, sophisticated machines like 5-axis vertical machining centers, as the value of older multispindle screw machines has dwindled. But I am always looking for clues about the cyclicality of the machining industry in North America, particularly in light of our relationship with China as an economic competitor and committed enemy of the United States.…