General Motors announced 30,000 layoffs – and off course the local media – television news, radio talk shows and tomorrow’s newspapers are drooling in happiness. The perfect bad news at a major holiday.
First this is not exactly NEW news. GM has been saying it for months that they are looking into laying off 25,000 people. They added 5000 more to the number. Off course why the hell they cannot wait for 1 month to announce it so at least families all across the Midwest can at least have a peaceful holidays is beyond me.
If anything it demonstrates a callus disregard on the part of Big Corporate America and Wall Street for the ordinary families living in the heartland of America.
Also lost in this media explosion is the little fact that only 2400 of these layoffs are happening in Michigan. The plants being closed are mostly out of Michigan. It is mostly smaller facilities that are being closed in Michigan.
On top of it these layoffs are in the form of mostly retirement buyouts and attrition. In most cases I am confident that UAW will negotiate a fair and lucrative buyouts for these employees going out.
Next, if anybody thought that after Delphi bankruptcy in Michigan, GM is not going to come out and do something about their own sorry ass situation - than these people are the ones who need to lift their heads out of the sand and see what is happening around them.
Also, this whole 30,000 number which the media is bouncing around is not something that is happening tomorrow – it is planned over the next 24 months which in car months is an eternity.
What it means to you and me? Plenty and a lot of it have nothing to do with our shared passion of investing in Michigan real estate.
Look, you, who are reading this page, right now are not exactly a “normal” person in any respect. Normal people are watching Dancing with the Starts on television and hoping things are going to work out. I knock on your door, week after week, and you answer. If you were not interested in making your life and financial life particularly better, you would not be reading these lines right now.
So what are the three big lessons in today’s “bad news” for us?
1. Nobody cares about you and your family’s financial well-being – especially your company. If anybody shares any delusion about this still than they need to subscribe and read Fortune, Forbes and Wall Street Journal on a regular basis.
I would also suggest reading The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman. This is not the world that your and mine parents grew up in – the economy of one life, one job, secured pension is OVER! And irrespective of what happens to gas prices or not – it is not coming back.
2. Once again that does not applies to everybody but to you and me – we have to become good at controlling our own paychecks. What you do in your day job is important because it pays your bills.
But what you do after five every evening – looking at deals, making offers, educating yourself is even more important right now because unless you become good, really good at this real estate thing very quickly – you are not in control of your financial life, your boss is.
3. If you are thinking, pondering, wondering and exploring to start your own real estate investment business in Michigan – than I would suggest that “waiting” is not the operative word here. You don’t have to be good to start something – you can start and become good at it.
I am perpetually astonished at the calm manner of most of my friends in the automotive industry when they are casually discussing the dismal state of their companies and their imminent layoffs at some future dates! Huh!
It is like they are not discussing their own and their families’ lifestyle but some distant cousin in Australia. If you know that your particular industry is not doing well and your job might not be around in the next five years (HINT: find somebody who used to work in the travel agent industry and ask them what happened there after the Internet and 9/11) then the only question you need to ask yourself is this “knowing what I know – what am I doing today to teach myself something new that will feed me and keep in me style for years to come”.
Six pack abs don’t come from just wishing! Six figure bank balances don’t come from just hoping either.
If you want change what you have today – you have to change what you know today.
We all have 4 days holiday coming this week – set some time aside for you, grab a hot drink, turn off the cell phone and TV. For an hour and sit down and think about what you want your life and your Michigan real estate investment business to look like in 2006.
Very few people ever really think about where they are in life and where they want to be in the next 1, 3, 5, 10 years. This attitude is forgivable when you are 20 and think that you will live forever. But after a certain age, that is just plain delusion.
I have several friends in the mortgage industry. Couple of weeks ago, I had a chance to hang out with several of them. As usual some of them were complaining about how hard it is to get business, the competition from Rock Financial and other big boys who advertise 24/7 is killing them, clients are cheap, clients are unhappy no matter what and then the double whammy – rates were gone up in the recent months and there is nobody who wants to refinance.
A pretty bleak conversation to hear – but I remembered the same fellows, four years ago, when interest rates where at their 30 years low – a 15 year fixed mortgage was around 4.5%, 30 years around 5.5% - saying the same exact things.
Funny how some people will always figure out how “not” to make money no matter how good or bad the world is around them.
And off course there were couple of other friends sitting there also, quietly smiling at the rain of bleakness and complaining in a hushed tone to me that they have a different problem – so much business coming in the door that they have to hire assistants and marketing manager just to handle the influx of deals.
Both of these parties work out of Oakland County. Which one is telling the truth and which is lying? Both of them are actually telling the truth.
Somebody told me long time ago that we manifest our own reality. If we get up in the morning and genuinely believe that the entire day will go by and we will not find a deal, sell a house, have a great day then by God it will happen.
If we believe otherwise, that the day will turn out o.k. we will find deals, business would be great and this is a biggie – we will actually “do” something to make that wish come true then it will happen.
General Motors announced 30,000 layoffs – and off course the local media – television news, radio talk shows and tomorrow’s newspapers are drooling in happiness. The perfect bad news at a major holiday.
First this is not exactly NEW news. GM has been saying it for months that they are looking into laying off 25,000 people. They added 5000 more to the number. Off course why the hell they cannot wait for 1 month to announce it so at least families all across the Midwest can at least have a peaceful holidays is beyond me.
If anything it demonstrates a callus disregard on the part of Big Corporate America and Wall Street for the ordinary families living in the heartland of America.
Also lost in this media explosion is the little fact that only 2400 of these layoffs are happening in Michigan. The plants being closed are mostly out of Michigan. It is mostly smaller facilities that are being closed in Michigan.
On top of it these layoffs are in the form of mostly retirement buyouts and attrition. In most cases I am confident that UAW will negotiate a fair and lucrative buyouts for these employees going out.
Next, if anybody thought that after Delphi bankruptcy in Michigan, GM is not going to come out and do something about their own sorry ass situation - than these people are the ones who need to lift their heads out of the sand and see what is happening around them.
Also, this whole 30,000 number which the media is bouncing around is not something that is happening tomorrow – it is planned over the next 24 months which in car months is an eternity.
What it means to you and me? Plenty and a lot of it have nothing to do with our shared passion of investing in Michigan real estate.
Look, you, who are reading this page, right now are not exactly a “normal” person in any respect. Normal people are watching Dancing with the Starts on television and hoping things are going to work out. I knock on your door, week after week, and you answer. If you were not interested in making your life and financial life particularly better, you would not be reading these lines right now.
So what are the three big lessons in today’s “bad news” for us?
1. Nobody cares about you and your family’s financial well-being – especially your company. If anybody shares any delusion about this still than they need to subscribe and read Fortune, Forbes and Wall Street Journal on a regular basis.
I would also suggest reading The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman. This is not the world that your and mine parents grew up in – the economy of one life, one job, secured pension is OVER! And irrespective of what happens to gas prices or not – it is not coming back.
2. Once again that does not applies to everybody but to you and me – we have to become good at controlling our own paychecks. What you do in your day job is important because it pays your bills.
But what you do after five every evening – looking at deals, making offers, educating yourself is even more important right now because unless you become good, really good at this real estate thing very quickly – you are not in control of your financial life, your boss is.
3. If you are thinking, pondering, wondering and exploring to start your own real estate investment business in Michigan – than I would suggest that “waiting” is not the operative word here. You don’t have to be good to start something – you can start and become good at it.
I am perpetually astonished at the calm manner of most of my friends in the automotive industry when they are casually discussing the dismal state of their companies and their imminent layoffs at some future dates! Huh!
It is like they are not discussing their own and their families’ lifestyle but some distant cousin in Australia. If you know that your particular industry is not doing well and your job might not be around in the next five years (HINT: find somebody who used to work in the travel agent industry and ask them what happened there after the Internet and 9/11) then the only question you need to ask yourself is this “knowing what I know – what am I doing today to teach myself something new that will feed me and keep in me style for years to come”.
Six pack abs don’t come from just wishing! Six figure bank balances don’t come from just hoping either.
If you want change what you have today – you have to change what you know today.
We all have 4 days holiday coming this week – set some time aside for you, grab a hot drink, turn off the cell phone and TV. For an hour and sit down and think about what you want your life and your Michigan real estate investment business to look like in 2006.
Very few people ever really think about where they are in life and where they want to be in the next 1, 3, 5, 10 years. This attitude is forgivable when you are 20 and think that you will live forever. But after a certain age, that is just plain delusion.
I have several friends in the mortgage industry. Couple of weeks ago, I had a chance to hang out with several of them. As usual some of them were complaining about how hard it is to get business, the competition from Rock Financial and other big boys who advertise 24/7 is killing them, clients are cheap, clients are unhappy no matter what and then the double whammy – rates were gone up in the recent months and there is nobody who wants to refinance.
A pretty bleak conversation to hear – but I remembered the same fellows, four years ago, when interest rates where at their 30 years low – a 15 year fixed mortgage was around 4.5%, 30 years around 5.5% - saying the same exact things.
Funny how some people will always figure out how “not” to make money no matter how good or bad the world is around them.
And off course there were couple of other friends sitting there also, quietly smiling at the rain of bleakness and complaining in a hushed tone to me that they have a different problem – so much business coming in the door that they have to hire assistants and marketing manager just to handle the influx of deals.
Both of these parties work out of Oakland County. Which one is telling the truth and which is lying? Both of them are actually telling the truth.
Somebody told me long time ago that we manifest our own reality. If we get up in the morning and genuinely believe that the entire day will go by and we will not find a deal, sell a house, have a great day then by God it will happen.
If we believe otherwise, that the day will turn out o.k. we will find deals, business would be great and this is a biggie – we will actually “do” something to make that wish come true then it will happen.
