Yesterday evening, I sat in a Jiffy Lube waiting room while my car was undergoing an emissions test—a requirement for tag renewal. A small, very old-school, rabbit-eared TV tuned to a local news station stood in the corner. As I attempted to wile away the time reading the latest but already well-worn issue of People magazine and catch up with the David Letterman situation, a fellow waiting room occupant began to talk to me about what was happening on TV. She laughed and said, "My husband keeps telling me to stop watching the news. It's all bad."

Throughout the years, I've heard this advice from several people, most memorably, an individual who taught courses at Rock Valley College, Rockford, Ill., in the early 90s about the mind-body connection. Myrna (not her real name, but close) said we should never watch the news, or read the newspaper; it isn't healthy.

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That number bounced around the blogosphere this week as CIT teeters on the brink of bankruptcy. CEO Jeff Peek told news outlets that 760 manufacturing companies could shut down if CIT collapses. And then comes the ripple effect, which is even scarier.

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It seems Paul Gordon of the Peoria Journal Star hit a chord last week.

Two metal fabricators in Morton, Ill., southeast of Peoria, changed ownership on the same day: Friday, June 26. Morton Welding, previously owned by Michigan-based BHM Technologies, was brought back under local ownership by a group of small investors. Another firm—Morton Metalcraft, currently undergoing bankruptcy reorganization—was sold to a Canadian company.

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If you read last week's blog post "Leapfrogging the competition," you know about the Barclay's Commercial survey cited in the May issue of "Tube Talk" that said 54 percent of UK businesses view the ability to leapfrog struggling competitors as their key opportunity in the current recession. You also know that 31percent view staff loyalty, retention, and productivity as their greatest opportunity during the economic downturn.

That post included remarks from a "Tube Talk" reader who agreed wholeheartedly with the findings, particularly about the opportunity to retain skilled workers. This reader shared his frustration with the trend to cut the work force to trim costs. He said, "We need to start looking for creative ways to cut back so as to keep our most valuable asset, our work force."

Another reader believes the work force-related opportunities that exist in a recession go beyond retaining your skilled workers—it's time to weed out poor performers and find the talent that can take you to the next level.

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Yesterday's "Tube Talk" e-newsletter that went out to more than 10,000 metal tube and pipe industry professionals featured findings from the Turning the Corner survey conducted in the UK by Barclay's Commercial.

According to this survey, a majority of UK businesses (54 percent) view the ability to leapfrog struggling competitors as their key opportunity in the current recession. Thirty-one percent view staff loyalty, retention, and productivity as their greatest opportunity during the economic downturn.

Do "Tube Talk" readers share these views? Several wrote to say they agree—the downturn presents very real opportunities.

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This is going to sound strange, but a recession like this sometimes feels like a breath of fresh air. If a company can operate through a downturn like this relatively unscathed, that's really something. If a company's inefficient, it shutters its doors. Sometimes bad things happen to good companies, but often, the hand of the free market makes all those annoying things about business--political infighting and other wasteful practices--stop, because companies that continue that silliness close their doors.

A downturn like this takes no prisoners--and it doesn't put up with political bull, either.

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Did you hear IBM's getting into the water business?

That’s right, the water business. Specifically, IBM managers are looking to change the way water is managed through digital sensors and computer networks. This is coming from a company that grew up in the era of mainframes and transformed the corporate world with the personal computer. Now it wants to get into the infrastructure-improvement business, including the management of automobile traffic, water, and the power grid, according to a recent Associated Press report.

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Buy low, sell high. Good rules to live by for the investment-savvy person. (I, being oh-so-not investment-savvy, usually do the opposite.) The phrase could be applied, slightly altered, to a business strategy: Invest during slow times so you can sell when times are good.

That sounds like a smart, level-headed business rule, and some of the largest companies follow it. Today The Wall Street Journal reported on a study showing that companies that had steady or increased R&D spending during a downturn found big success once the economy kicked back into gear. Apple’s iPod is a shining example. R&D for the device that helped propel Apple’s growth during the last decade started in 1999, and it was released during troubled economic times--in 2001, just one month after Sept. 11.

But Bruce Hamilton, president of Boston-based lean consultancy GBMP, takes this concept another step. He suggested that companies don’t just hang in there and wait for the upturn. Now, he said, is the time for the best companies to get aggressive, ramp up advertising and marketing efforts, and gain market share.

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Jerry Sadler didn’t look like the news from Wall Street really bothered him. Walking the aisles at the FABTECH International® & AWS Welding Show earlier this month, the quality manager at Ameron International had other things on his mind, like customer orders that have been placed through 2011.

That’s right: through 2011.

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What a troubled week. Automotive industry execs spent it in front of Congress saying they need a loan. And of course there are those big weekend stories, with Lehman Brothers declaring bankruptcy and Bank of America acquiring brokerage giant Merrill Lynch.

Hearing and reading all the pundits pine over the troubled economy, one voice struck a chord with me.

“I’d rather have a mediocre idea that was brilliantly executed than a brilliant idea that was poorly executed.”

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