Like you, we are looking for revenue sources in construction work. It ain't easy, is it?

This is the New Busy it tells me at the bottom of one of my e-mail accounts.  Elsewhere I am informed that this is the New Normal.  Call me a reprobate and a curmudgeon but I liked the Old Busy and the Old Normal much better.  We told we are in a Jobless Recovery where the trillion dollars or so in stimulus money spent has created or saved three million jobs, or so our President hawked. How do you count saved jobs? Then our Vice President said eight million jobs were lost forever, so which is it? I have tried to use the New Math and the Old Math to solve the equation and neither works.  It is about not enough work ---- that I understand. Where is the recovery in the Recovery?

Do you feel stimulated from the money that gushed from the Treasury Presses like the oil well out in the Gulf of Mexico?  The shovel ready projects around our neck of the woods seemed to be mostly paving and sidewalks, good for the concrete and asphalt plants, not so good for the rest of us. Except that sign makers did benefit. Twenty million dollars of your money and mine went into signs touting "The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act" to remind passers-by that the program is "Putting America Back to Work."  Right.

In this time of the New Normal and New Busy, our roles have changed. Gamka has been a distributor of construction equipment and products since 1986. You, dear readers, have been contractors, builders, and the like.  That was then. Now we are bankers. You buy, putting it on an open account. We have "loaned" you the money to do that, till you pay and getting paid is tougher for you and us. We buy from a manufacturer and until we pay, they gave us a loan. You work for an owner, you finance them until you get paid. They pay you, you pay us, we pay them and everyone is still unhappy because it took too long! The problem is that the real bankers are not lending, they are hoarding, paying next to nothing in interest for deposits and not doing their job.  Everyone is reluctant to commit until the next shoe drops or lifts. Account receivables taste like toxic assets too often. Like I said a moment ago, I liked the Old Busy and Old Normal much better. You do too, I bet.

Do I see a bright spot in all this? Yup.  That I am here to write about it and that you are here to read it is encouraging. My grandmother's words bring me comfort. She said, "Nothing is forever."

On second thought, I wonder how I should look at that.

How do you see things?  I would like to hear, call me or e-mail me, bob@gamka.com.