Announcements

I have been extremely busy as it appears the business cycle  may be returning to some form of normal. Meanwhile a lot has gone on in the past month so I wanted to throw out some random thoughts and see what you folks might have to say. Please join in, we appreciate all comments. 

Random Thought#1:

Is anyone surprised that the Health and Human Services reported recently that the recently passed Heath Bill will not be Budget Neutral and will add to the deficit? Suuuuuuure…I certainly believed that we could add 32 million people to our Health system and the costs would go down..Well actually NOT.

Random Thought#2:

Does anyone else think it odd that Chris Dodd has been working on a financial reform bill for almost a year, yet we are just starting to hear from Congress as to how and why the financial collapse occurred? Shouldn’t we understand what created the biggest financial problem of our generation before we redesign and change the whole system?

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It is not much, but we are starting to see improvement in the number of new orders and the size of the orders. We will continue to monitor closely as we need to make sure that we can meet the needs of our customers.

The downturn on the economy has been brutal. We reorganized almost 15 months ago and are still feeling the affects of massive layoffs and salary reductions. Morale at the Company hit an all time low last March, when the drag of the economy and the lack of business created a model of fear and anguish. I do not blame the employees as they were all wondering “Am I next to go?” Obviously not conducive to a positive business environment. Needless to say we needed to use all our of energy and skills to move forward. I am Proud of every single employee at Quickscrews. Each of them takes personal pride in being part of an organization that strives to be the best in the industry.

If in fact we have reached bottom, then so be it, and it is not a minute too soon. After 15 consecutive months of flat or no growth, it would be nice to see if we can get some traction on continued improvement.

We hope all of you are starting to see the same.

Greg Wiener

Founder, Quickscrews International Corp.

      After 18 months of detailed planning and software development, Quickscrews is proud to Announce the Opening of our Online Retail Store. This online store was designed under the basis that many users both inside and outside the industry now exclusively buy on the internet. We were interested in reaching out to these users while at the same time ensuring that we would not disrupt our current customer base.

       We determined that the best way to effectively do that would be to offer only our packaged line of products to the Retail users.  We are excited that this project has been finished and now will wait to see if you enjoy the store. Please visit our online retail store and let us know your thoughts. Here are a few ways you can help us by answering the following questions:

1) Is it user friendly?

2) Were you able to find what you were looking for?

3) What could we do to improve the site?

 I remember well when Mayor Gavin Newsome of San Francisco stood up and said “Gay Marriage is coming to California whether you like it or not”.  Although he was wrong and Californians voted to affirm Marriage is only between a man and a woman; it is evident that our Democratic controlled congress has decided to test this theory to the limit. According to all polls; Americans by a clear majority do not want the Government to run the entire Health Care System which represents 1/6 of our total economy. For months we have heard both sides of the argument and still we said: No Thank You. No matter the Democrat leadership  simply refused to listen. Americans have been staunchly opposed to this bill and the Democrats have consistently moved forward.

So now we have to look into the future and see what may or may not happen. Will the tax increases destroy our economy? Will the cost of Health Insurance continue to rise? We really do not know the answers to these questions regardless of what the CBO says. (more…)

 As the economy continues to struggle in the housing segment which impacts Quickscrews negatively we must ask ourselves what else can we do? Recently we decided to make a concentrated effort on a series  of fronts. First we will continue to look for products that would increase our visibility not only amongst our existing distribution and reseller network, but with an eye towards developing new customers in new markets.

       For example; we are Proud to Announce our entry into the Residential Solar Panel Installation market. We have begun ordering Stainless Steel hardware and screws that will enable Solar Panel Installers to easily install Solar Panel Roof Hooks onto Tile Roofs.

    As far as new products go, we would hope that possibly our customers who appreciate our ability to deliver products that are consistently competitive and high quality, will recommend to us products they would like to see us supply to them.  Please send in your suggestions and I promise to personally look into each suggestion and respond back directly to you.

Greg Wiener

Owner

Quickscrews International Corp.

    2010 started interestingly enough. The Democrats were strolling to establishing Health Care on a national scale when they were abruptly derailed by one of the most unexpected elections in a long time. I refer to Massachusetts and the Election of the first Republican Senator in over 46 years. This was amazing, but more importantly it defined the angst among the American People. So heavy was the concern that National Health Care would destroy our country, voters in Massachusetts decided to end that possibility. Clearly excessive spending and the increase of the Federal Government is a growing problem currently ignored by Democrats and previouslyignored by Republicans when they were in power for 8 years.

          As I sat and listened to the President give his State of the Union it was clear to me that he will not change his path and is still committed to his liberal agenda. His agenda still includes :

1) National Health Care

2) Cap and Trade

3) Finance Regulation

4) Changing Tax Code

5) Jobs Growth

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       I wish to thank all of you who have visited this blog and read and or commented on the topical issues of the day. I will continue in 2010 to bring you my thoughts on what is happening in the political and public sectors that will deeply effect what we do in the private sector.

          Just this past year we have faced some of the most challenging times we have seen in the past 50 years. The potential damage that could be inflicted on the American public is substantial and I will continue to highlight those policies which I see as the most damaging to the private sector.

          Currently the Health Bill is on the top of the list as the potentially most damaging legislation pending to the American Public. Second on the list is the Cap and Trade Scheme. This is the second most far reaching legislation every to pass the House of Represenatatives, but fortunately the Senate has basically killed the bill and this piece of poor legislation should die an early death next year. If this bill passed every product sold in America will immediately have a price increase and your energy costs will go up significantly as well as a massive tax increase. 

          Next year is a congressional voting year. Hopefully enough of the independants have now seen what it means to have a Democrat President and Democratic Controlled Congress and realize this is not in the best interests of the country.

Only time will tell…Happy New Year and Keep the comments coming.

Greg Wiener

Owner, Quickscrews International

       Now that 2009 is winding down, we must reflect on what went good in 2009 and what we expect to accomplish in 2010. Unfortunately the good was more or less related to surviving the fall of the US economy at the end of 2008 and the severe recession that as lingered on.

          Quickscrews made all the tough moves it had to in January of 2009. That meant layoffs of approximately 35% of our workforce and restructuring of all management employees salaries and compensation benefits. This was very painful but necessary for the health of the company. On a positive note , we have emerged as a much leaner company. By streamlining, we can concentrate on growing our business in a more productive and profitable way without being beholden to the banks or the government.

     We will launch our long awaited Retail Site in the next two weeks or so. This will give access to Internet end users who wish to buy any of our 2,300 different products. We hope to expand into different markets such as fasteners and accessories for Solar Installation. We will begin a move into other construction related supply houses such as Stucco, Drywall, Plumbing and Electrical distributors to stock and sell our expanding line of Drive Bit and Nut Setter Accessory line.

    We further expect to introduce a next generation fastener which we have been working on for approximately 2 years. This launch will be announced in a global e-mail approximately 2 weeks before the new product arrives.

     Thank you for your loyalty in 2009 and we will continue to strive for the best outcomes for all of our potential customers.

Greg Wiener

Owner, Quickscrews International Corp.

As I watched this past weekend and saw the House of Representatives pass what appears to me as the most  dangerous and intrusive  legislation to ever have been voted on in America. Why do I think it is dangerous? Simple it attacks the very premise this country was founded on. You might ask how? This country was founded on man’s ability to strive for excellence, the freedom to push ideas to market and prosper from those ideas. The beliefs that success for one benefits all, the belief that liberty and property rights are inalienable. Many free market individuals believe we should promote and reward success. The free enterprise and capitalistic system insures that success is rewarded and failure is punished, yet done so equally and without prejudice;  unless of course there is outside interference, for example our government.

Once the government begins picking winners and losers in the free market, the free market itself is at great risk. Individual liberties and freedoms can rise or fall on this interference. More importantly it is not the role of government to interfere with the free market; it is the role of government to promote and regulate the free market.

We have seen how massive government intervention has worked before. Huge entitlements like Medicare and Social Security will be either bankrupt or completely insolvent by 2030. Amtrak is billions of dollars in the red and the post office is all but insolvent. (more…)

It is apparent to me that: the current path for Quickscrews is heading in the right direction. We have spent the better part of a year now re-organizing ourselves and coming out leaner and stronger. Unfortunately the rest of the economy is still lagging far behind and it doesn’t seem apparent much will change next year.

Quickscrews will be exhibiting all of our outstanding products next week at the National Industrial Fastener Show at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in  Las Vegas, Booth 1030. Please come by and view the wide variety of products (over 2,000 different SKU’s).

Change for Quickscrews is defined differently. First we look at where we have been for the past 22 years and wonder where can we grow? Where can we expand? Those questions seem easy, yet in a severe recession these are no small tasks. So lets begin with where to grow. We feel very strongly that more growth can come from expanding our customer base to include a variety of industries which we typically have not penetrated for one reason or another. Our outstanding line of Drive Bits and Nut setters will be marketed to a whole new set of potential Quickscrews customers. This product line has had continual growth for 8 years now. We must expand our customer base to continue to fuel growth in new markets. We must aggressively pursue growth within our customer base and ask ourselves what else can we be doing? Today we must be lean and effective for if not we will not continue to grow. Many business people have uttered the phrase Grow or Die and in today’s environment that may be closer to the truth than has been in a very long time.

Greg Wiener

Owner

Quickscrews International Corp.