[pianotech] Tuning for $$$$

[Richard Brekne]

I don't have so much to do with the private sector so I wouldn't notice 
this over here in the first place.  I have noticed that the worlds stock 
markets seem to be in a second round of plunge and it looks like a 
rather steep fall at that. Newspapers over here are...well... worried 
more then they were a few months back. Lots of key stone industry giants 
are on the brink and if they go down the fall out will catch up a few 
months later and be pretty severe me thinks.  I don't know how many of 
you have read much about how the 1929 crash developed over the first 3-4 
years into the early 30's, but seems to me like there are a lot of 
parallels.  Perhaps Obama will end up having an entirely different 
primary task to accomplish in his term(s) then he'd imagined.

I still think that by and large, accomplished professional piano 
technicians will fare well through this... however bad it gets. We've 
learned how to stand on our own two feet and make our way as it were.

Cheers
RicB


    List

    Has anyone else noticed that people are paying in cash a lot more
    than usual?  I don't take credit cards, so it's either cash or
    check, but on the average I normally get maybe one customer per
    month that pays me in cash.  Maybe, two.  

    Since January, I've been flush in cash.  Every week, one or two
    customers pay me in cash.  I haven't used an ATM since '08.

    So, I'm wondering: anyone else experience this lately?  And if so,
    could this somehow be a bi-product of the recession?  (I could
    understand people using a credit card in tough times to forestall
    payment, but I don't see how paying in cash would be an advantage.)

    Tom Sivak
    Chicago