[Jroettger]

I hear from most jewelers that sales for Christmas were typically down 33% instead of the 2% for all retail sales in general. My 4th qtr. sales were down 33%. I am experiencing deflationary pressures like never before. Too many of the bids I'm doing are being rejected like never before. I get the feeling if I bid 1/2 of my normal price the job would fly. But I know with 1/2 as much I would only be setting myself up for eventual failure. I am working out of a retail store and need to charge $50 and hour minimum to other jewelers for wholesale. I figure if I worked out of my basement I could do well at $30 an hour without the retail overhead. My plan is to expand my service into gun engraving this year. However I've always found engraving to be a tough sell even in the best of times. People have always been much more willing to pay me well for goldsmithing services compared to engraving. With engraving they're not getting any gold with the job so they can't figure out why it should cost over $100 to have a baby cup engraved. Engraving is totally a labor of love, It's much more difficult than most goldsmithing and many jobs can take from a few to many hours to complete. Skating around on gold pendant is usually more difficult than crafting the same pendant in terms of mastery. Even though I usually make 66% of my income from goldsmithing, the thing that's keeping me busy since October '08 and making most of my money is hand engraving. There just is no replacing it yet. Machines can't do many of the jobs I end up with so the service still has it's niche.

I think we'll probably end up like France in the future with stagnant growth because of poor management of entitlement funds and obligations. (Instead of saving they spent our social security money creating the best military on the planet. Now we only have enemies to show for it.). These problems are going to hobble us for at least 5 to 10 decades to come. Just as France saw it's glory days 100 years ago so too will our glory days economically be gone for a very long time. Repaying the debt will result in high taxes and the lethargy and disincentive they bring will be the new economy.