I’ll start this column by telling you that I try to stay out of political discussions for the most part as I have the view that you have your views, I have mine and we’re probably not going to change each others’ opinions by arguing about them.But that being said I can’t help but make a few comments about the recent election and share some observations from various conversations.

I’ve spoken to a few Canadians recently as I’ve been planning for the Win-door show next week. Since I live in the United States, at the end of these discussions people have asked me, “So, what do you think is going to happen with the election?” Is the market going to turn around there once we know who the new president is going to be?” My opinion was always no, but that’s just me.

Then on Election Day members of our staff were in a meeting and one said on several occasions that in effect today (Election Day) will tell us a lot about the future of the economy–the future of the industry even. Again, I was skeptical.

So then I wondered if the stock market would be up today following the election (another thing people were talking about) and it wasn’t-in fact it was down.

Call me a skeptic but I just didn’t see a huge transformation the day after just because we now knew the name of our next president. We still have the same economic problems to tackle. The door and window industry still has the same basic problems that people are remodeling less and the building industry is building less. Yes, hopefully President-Elect Obama can implement measures that will turn things around but that will take time.

For our industry, unfortunately we’re still hearing about a different window plant closing almost daily. Or about companies halting production at plants until production picks back up. And this all happened in October which was supposed to be the busy season. The economic hardships of Americans that Obama vowed to help during the campaign are even in our industry. We have window workers that were laid off because company X had to close a specific plant. And we have the owner of company Y that had to close suddenly due to economic hardships and carry the burden of suddenly putting people out of work. These people are still suffering and their conditions won’t turn around instantly.

With all the bad news lately, I made a pact with myself that I would try to end my blogs with good news or some news of encouragement. Today, all I can say is that yes things are bad with many companies. But if you can just hang on for another year or so, implement cost cutting measures if needed, think of ways to diversify and set yourself apart, hopefully your efforts will be rewarded when the market turns around.

P.S. With the format of our revamped website you can comment on any article including this blog. Click on the comment box below and tell me your thoughts on the election results (or any other issue facing the industry). I look forward to hearing from you.