Is it just me

The "economy" is once again catching up with the "reality" of this "normal" world.
The illusion creators will once again fix up the facades more to peoples agreement.

I was thinking about how the price of a pack of cigarettes was less then a dollar back in 1972, and the talk of people quitting if they went over a dollar.

Then there are the many stock market "crashes" that come and then magically go away.

I have a very good understanding of what's going on in the BIGGER picture.

But I also understand WHY most others don't.

About 7% of the earths population own and control about 97% of everything. Those odds don't change much over the years.

That 3% has many trying to get a little of what's behind the facades and illusions.

Life is what you make it,
Most just try and fake it...

It's chaotic here with all of our summer visitors. Population doubles or even triples this time of year. It's run,run,run everyday. Things are so busy that ten hours pass in the wink of an eye and it's quittin' time again.

Real estate is selling like hotcakes. The place next door to me sold for over a mil. and it was never even listed.

Lots of cleanouts as the properties sell over the last couple of months.

Not surprisingly ... very little in the way of e-waste. That's been slowly dropping off for the last three or four years. There's a certain amount of copper and a fair amount of brass coming in lately. Shred steel is plentiful but it would have to be moved in 30 ton loads to do it cost effectively here.

I'll be glad when Labor Day rolls around and things start to slow down again. A fulla can keep up the pace for a couple of months but getting up at 4:00am every morning starts to get old after awhile.

Lately the scrappers (not the good ones) have been out in droves. The number of times I see people on the security climbing into my truck bed to steal something has increased significantly. You can tell the good scrappers that come through the warehouse complex as they check dumpsters, but leave everything else alone. I guess the best thing now is to bring EVERYTHING inside. I literally had someone steal a pile of screws out the other day. At this point, anything is valuable to a crackhead.

Based on what I'm seeing, the number of "scrappers" started to increase when gas hit $4.50/gallon here, don't even get me started on diesel. I die a little every time I have to fill my box truck up. I'm only 24 so I was too young to do much in scrapping the last time prices increased like this. I do remember a dramatic increase in metal thefts towards the end of the increases last time though. Based on what happened last time, I think we've entered the stage of scrapping where everyone is "scrapping" to make ends meet. While this may be the case in some situations, there are also people who just want money for drugs. Hopefully this recent drop in prices will cool things down a bit. Some competition is fun, but seeing drops in volume is not.

Originally Posted by mikeinreco

Also i have tons of lower grade ewaste to break down....printers monitors etc but temps are around 95 degrees and even though I have covered sheds and building there is no A/C....I want to get rid of all of it gonna have to start earlier and work later to run thru all that crap....have not had a "real" job in 13 years and at this point I'm contemplating a "real" job or just slowly go broke over the next several years

I completely understand where you're coming from on thinking about finding a "real" job. A lot of people got really tired of working their butts of just to break even at the end of the month. After all, nobody wants to feel like they're making no forward progress. I know several people who recently moved their business to a side thing instead of full time. While it's not the end of the world to do this, it does mean you have to be extremely good at time management.

It is very frustrating having a ton of stuff to go through without having enough time to process everything. As Matador can attest, this happens to me on a weekly basis. I clear out a space and within a few days it's back to what it was before I started sorting materials. It would be nice to have more time to do the recycling, but a regular job is a guaranteed paycheck. It may suck for a while, but if everything scrapping goes to being worthless, at least I'll still have that guaranteed paycheck.

If history repeats itself ... real estate and precious metals should be fairly sound investments over the next few years. Treasury bills and Treasury bonds might be paying double digit interest if you're living off the interest of your investments.

I really think i would try to distance myself from the cash economy.

The government has been doing things that are bound to weaken the dollar over the last few years. It's only a matter of time before we feel the full effect of it. As you can see ... it's already started. It's taking more dollars to buy that loaf of bread and gallon of gasoline. Most likely .... prices will go up even more until things even out again.

Originally Posted by mikeinreco

I just have to do the math....slowly go broke over next several years or get out now....will be interesting....if I thought I had enuff to retire I would but I'm sure what $$$ I have will burn fast

Everytime gas goes up or scrap drops i try to figure out a new game plan to do this a make some profit or break even but once i get a idea the price for gas goes up or scrap drops again. im thinking of cleaning shop and selling everything cause if it gets worse (witch it most likely will), i dont want to lose my contacts and have room to store stuff. Ive worked too hard to lose the jim the car guy, the plumbers, and the hvac shop. But it seem the techs are keeping more of the copper and brass scrap and giving me the steel. But i figure they will stop once they see how bad prices are getting. But i can store the water heaters and hvac tin for a bit or just sell it at pretty much nothing and take a hit for a year or so and keep the good stuff. I really dont want to sell copper if its under $2/lb or brass under 1.00/lb. i dont know, its getting harder to stay motivated. Mabey ill do this more for fun and not be so professional about it.

I also thought of getting a real job too, but i was thinking of being a laborer for the plumbers or hvac company i get stuff from since i know both the owners. IDK

Different kinds of jobs are right for different kinds of people. There's a shortage of tradesman and truck drivers right now. Those jobs pay pretty well. If you've been self employed for many years ... you probably have business management skills.

I'm getting on in years. I've had my commercial driver license for decades, ran my own business for almost 20 years, and am a master of the carpentry trade. It's not a terrible thing for a fulla that has made his mark to spend the last years of his adult working life in service to the community. It's a way of giving back to society. There's a certain satisfaction in that. Also ... it's the kind of thing where you are using your head and not your back after the body has worn out from many years of manual labor.

For a young guy in his 20's or early 30's: I would say learn a trade and develop a valuable skill set.

For an older guy past 40: You're getting a bit set in your ways. You can't teach an old dog new tricks so do what you know best.