My business is about 50% tied to the housing markets, and at the end of January we laid off 4 people, which is about 50% of our production hands. I have never laid anyone off before, only fired them for cause. It really sucked. No bonus this year, but I had not been counting on it. The industrial markets are still plugging along.

Every proposal and bid I send out has competition and a lot of engineers are giving rock bottom estimates just to have some income. I have guys undercutting my bids over 50% and I thought that mine was a rock bottom price. Public sector work has slowed down as well, every RFP (request for proposal) has 50 interested firms on the list.

On the other side of things it does make it easier to get subs for my remodel project, and there is a lot of quality tradesmen out of work. I have a good union carpenter putting up siding and soffits on my house right now for $100 a day (no names please). If I could sell my current house, bank money is pretty cheap for first mortgages, so I am looking forward to that. I did have 3 showings of my house last week, so there was a blip in the upward direction for me there.

I just read in the newspaper yesterday regarding the Levy Equalization funds for our school district. The superintendent said they would be laying off custodians, counselors, and teachers. My wife is a counselor, and probably the last one on the seniority list, so she is pretty freaked out right now. Nothing like having two mortgages and only one wage earner.