There are always two “red” days (holidays) after Christmas. Since Christmas eve was on a Wednesday we now have, or when I say we, I mean employed people now have Thursday and Friday off. Then comes Saturday and Sunday. In general people always have Saturdays and Sundays days off. That means 4 days of no work. That’s nice for all employees, getting some time off like that.
For me it’s both good and bad. I like business. Not much business being done these days. But I also like good movies and nice company. Lot’s of that available right now. Still. I think a day or two would have been enough. Feels like I want to get going with life and career again. Also want economy and companies alive and active. If they are there is always interesting articles and information to be found in business magazines and stuff. That gives me inspiration. The inspiration for what ever I write here and also inspiration for deals on my own.
So. What do I write about a day like today when I haven’t really had that many good articles to get inspired by? Well. Luckily I found something that got me thinking about my past. I read about an American Hangar ship that the army didn’t want anymore. When looking for ways to get rid of its options thinned out quickly. There were some ideas of making it into a museum. But that would be expensive. To get the most value out of it, they could just sell it to one of many dodgy international ship scrapping companies who then run it up on a beach in India, send a thousand workers out with plasma cutters and take it apart, leaving all chemicals floating around in the sea. I see two problems with that. 1. It’s very likely Pakistan or some other player comes around and find a hangar ship useful, backs it down from the beach and bring it home. 2. It’s extremely UN environmental and irresponsible.
They ended up selling the ship to the highest bidding American scrapping company. Price? 1 cent… A scrapping company based out of Texas bought thousands of tons of prime metals for 1 cent. To me that must be a very very good deal. Scrapped metal sells for around 15 cents a kilo. So how many kilos might a hangar ship be? If they have descent facilities and know how to get the job done, they are in for some massive profits. Well done Texas scrapping guys!
The ship we are talking about is the USS Ranger. It’s the same ship they used when filming Top Gun.
So. Why did I find this article interesting? Well. One of my earliest entrepreneurial ventures was pretty genius if you ask me. Back in the early 00’s China was growing like CRAZY! So. In order to grow they needed metal. Lot’s of it. That pushed prices for scrap up to levels never experienced before. For some reason, despite only being 16 years old I found that out before most others around here. The first thing I did was to ask my father I he wanted me to help him get rid of all old farming machinery and scrap that was laying around on his lands. He did. He got varied happy about the offer and lent me his tractor so I could load it on a trailer and take it to the local scrapping company. All in all I got two full trailers of scrap, a happy father and almost 2000 USD in profits. Not bad for three days of work as a teenager. When finished at my father’s farm I went to the neighbours with the same offer. Most of them gladly accepted. All in all it made me good profits, helped me pay for dirt bikes and other necessities back then and made me realize the potential of being able to see and take advantage of opportunities. Scrap is still a business with great potential. Prices will keep going up and down, but I think there are several unexplored areas within the recycling of metals.
Hope you all had a sweet Christmas. Ours was great. My sisters boyfriend (who is very nice and cool) asked my sister to marry him which she gladly accepted. Very beautiful. Made me happy to see them happy and I really want to wish them all the best!