July 2007 - Posts

• Some kind of trend

  If it's true that Fiat S.p.A. is offering to buy the remaining assets of TK Aluminum, then some recent assumptions are going to have to be reconsidered. ( Read the spare details are here .) TK Aluminium, you may recall, is the holding company for the Read More... Posted Tuesday, July 31, 2007 7:50 AM by REB | 0 Comments

• Keep talking

  Negotiating has begun between the Big Three automakers and the United Autoworkers union, toward a new labor agreement. There's a lot of summary reporting available, here for example , outlining what is at stake in these talks. It seems clear to me that Read More... Posted Tuesday, July 24, 2007 9:50 PM by REB | 0 Comments

• One more thing to worry about

  Metalcasters worry a lot about global competition, meaning the availability of lower-cost cast products from manufacturing centers where labor, or fuel, or other cost considerations (like profits) are not as significant as they are in North America. I Read More... Posted Friday, July 20, 2007 11:43 AM by REB | 0 Comments

• Thanks for the memories

  I'm reasonably certain that the first castings I ever valued were my Matchbox cars and trucks. Most of them were not too fancy, just lots of passenger cars and trucks, and some racecars, shared by my brothers and me (though, I recall we had the James Read More... Posted Sunday, July 15, 2007 10:10 PM by REB | 0 Comments

• Expansion rate

  I was not surprised to learn that the planners of GIFA, METEC, and THERMPROCESS recorded solid attendance at the simultaneous trade shows last month, in Dusseldorf, Germany, nor that each will be staged again in 2011. I was surprised to learn that the Read More... Posted Monday, July 02, 2007 10:05 AM by REB | 0 Comments