Maybe we should all Panic
My brother is a commercial roofing professional with 30 years experience in all aspects of the business. The past ten years he was an estimator for a local roofing contractor. Last fall business dwindled and the company laid off most of their staff but anticipated business to pick up once the weather improved. My brother had experienced winter slowdowns before so he wasn't particularly alarmed by the layoffs. Normally the company allowed him to keep the company truck and cell phone in case a customer wanted an estimate. However this time the company wanted both truck and phone kept at the office.
The weather broke in early March and my brother hasn't been called back to work. No customers have called the business for estimates. The company is uncertain of their future. My brother doesn't know if the company will survive.
He called around to his extensive contacts around the state to see if there were any openings. He was able to get a couple of interviews but in both cases he was told that business was very depressed and they would have to "wait and see what happens". My brother is in a panic now.
Maybe we should all panic. Every commercial building has a roof and all roofs deteriorate with time. Exposure to sunlight and weather cause the ever-exposed roofing materials to break down. Eventually the roof will leak and destroy the building.
A certain number of roofs will begin to fail every year. The demand never changes, except to grow as the number of buildings grows. The number of commercial roofing companies in existence has grown to meet the demand over the years. Suddenly there are far too many roofing companies to meet demand. What has happened?
My brother tells me that there hasn't been any technological break-throughs that increase roof life. Weather and sunlight conditions haven't changed. So something else has destroyed demand for roofing work.
It appears that the owners of commercial buildings just don't have the resources to maintain the roof of their buildings and have deferred maintenance. They are rolling the dice and betting that whatever damage occurs can be repaired in better economic times. Some buildings will be permanently damaged and their value will decline significantly, perhaps to nothing.
I see this disturbing tendency as a marker of serious decline of US asset structure. Building owners seem to be willing to let the value of these buildings go to zero. That indicates that they believe that there are too many commercial buildings, the buildings are worth less than nominal value and they are not worth investing more money in them. In other words, we won't need as many commercial buildings in the future. This suggests that the US economy is in near permanent decline.
Maybe we should join my brother in panic.
The weather broke in early March and my brother hasn't been called back to work. No customers have called the business for estimates. The company is uncertain of their future. My brother doesn't know if the company will survive.
He called around to his extensive contacts around the state to see if there were any openings. He was able to get a couple of interviews but in both cases he was told that business was very depressed and they would have to "wait and see what happens". My brother is in a panic now.
Maybe we should all panic. Every commercial building has a roof and all roofs deteriorate with time. Exposure to sunlight and weather cause the ever-exposed roofing materials to break down. Eventually the roof will leak and destroy the building.
A certain number of roofs will begin to fail every year. The demand never changes, except to grow as the number of buildings grows. The number of commercial roofing companies in existence has grown to meet the demand over the years. Suddenly there are far too many roofing companies to meet demand. What has happened?
My brother tells me that there hasn't been any technological break-throughs that increase roof life. Weather and sunlight conditions haven't changed. So something else has destroyed demand for roofing work.
It appears that the owners of commercial buildings just don't have the resources to maintain the roof of their buildings and have deferred maintenance. They are rolling the dice and betting that whatever damage occurs can be repaired in better economic times. Some buildings will be permanently damaged and their value will decline significantly, perhaps to nothing.
I see this disturbing tendency as a marker of serious decline of US asset structure. Building owners seem to be willing to let the value of these buildings go to zero. That indicates that they believe that there are too many commercial buildings, the buildings are worth less than nominal value and they are not worth investing more money in them. In other words, we won't need as many commercial buildings in the future. This suggests that the US economy is in near permanent decline.
Maybe we should join my brother in panic.
posted by lugh lampfhota at 10:21 AM
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