Tender is the Noun?

If you’re looking for some competitive eating, though, you’ll need to wait until Independence Day and watch the Nathan’s Hot Dogs competition at Coney Island. There’ll be no roasted quotes with a side order of adverbs served here.

Admittedly, those words wouldn’t look very good to an ample number of people who, of course, aren’t reading them today. They’re out of the business; in some cases (according to our collection agency) they’re out of the country.

Schwartzkopf

Nor is there comfort for many of us with smaller numbers of customers and employees, as we try and ride out the recession (which is a word, by the way, that I avoided many, many times back in 2008). Watching the reserves being whittled away isn’t exactly an omen pointing to good times ahead.

For the survivors – a whole lot more people than you might suspect – the post-recession stone trade still offers more hope than the go-go markets of the mid-2000s. And, no, I’m not crazy; the basis of what I wrote several Marches ago is still good today.

First of all, let’s remember that we’re all recovering opportunists in the national chapter of Economic Bubbles Anonymous. (“Hi, I’m Emerson S., and I haven’t bet the farm for two years and two months.”) We enjoyed a tremendous growth market in stone, and the sky looked to be the limit – especially when quoting out jobs for granite detailing of yachts, Maybach limos and private jets.

Part of this came from the massive increase in the supply of natural stone worldwide, as producers pushed more varieties and greater amounts into the market. Granite countertops, along with marble/travertine floors and wherever anyone wanted limestone, became more available to consumers.

It’s one thing to have as much material as you could ever desire. What lit the fuse for the skyrocketing growth curve of the stone industry, however, also did the same for the economy: unbridled debt sales.

Don’t even think of playing the denial card. We were hooked, like thousands of other industries, on that easy money flowing into the economy via the securitization and sale of mortgage debt. We likely benefited more than most, with home-improvement loans to tear out the laminate and bring in the Academy Black.

And, of course, a new home without premium countertops and slab showers and limestone laundry decks just wasn’t done. New home construction added to the frenzy, resulting in giveaways of stone within McMansion tracts from coast-to-coast.