Can't remember its name now, but its sales web page ends with the note that the results are subject to change without notice, and the website could disappear without notice. Yikes!

Maybe the Chinese building craze has finally run out of steam...

I'm in my late 50's. A lot of Cat people are my age or slightly older, whose wages and benefits are far better than recent hires. If they can lay off a lot of 30-somethings, blaming it on a few turbulent quarters, that scares a lot of 50 and 60-somethings. If Cat scares them into retiring with diminished packages, they can then rebound with a workforce that is satisfied with much less and a smaller retiree payout burden.

These people are awful conniving bastards. don't put anything past them.

we already have had state farm moving divisions away from it's home headquarters in bloomington,killing the housing market and jobs market....cat following suit will kill same in peoria,hopefully the peoria plant will not be affected

bloomington and peoria are 45 miles apart

Cat has been destroying local contractors that grew up to serve it through the '70s and '80s for some time now. I did work for them, sending it off in June, and just got paid today. That's just not right. Small companies just can't serve them and stay in business under conditions like that for long. They're just one tick above being a deadbeat client.

the conditions the people work under are horrid,low paying and dangerous but still cat is one of the last big manufacturers here so no one fights them...i hope you work at/own one of the better suppliers

sad times for our local economy

I'm a sole proprietor freelancer. I haven't survived, really -- just learned to subsist. It's been a learning experience, to say the least.

we are subsisting on about a 1/3 the previous income...trouble is we still have most the pre crash bills

what do you think is going to happen if the fed govt is shut down again?

last time we had quinn so when food stamps were not being paid for by the feds illinois still had some kind of emergency funding...that is not going to happen with raner,especially since we do not have a state budget

honestly i am terrified for some of my neighbors

My mom's on snap and needs LIHEAP to heat her house this winter. Now Rauner has defunded LIHEAP. I don't have the extra cash to help her this year. So, I guess she'll have to move in here, and we'll keep on enough heat in her house to keep the pipes from bursting this winter.

Our billionaire governor keeps grinning, though. I guess his country club buddies are patting him on the back.

we are probably going to have to do the same with a grown child who can't work enough to support herself but can not get disability either

hint....drain those pipes to save the heat

good luck free, we are both going to need it!



i thru in the bernie bounce so we remember,while there is life,there is hope

an IT contract for Cat in Peoria. He's been on it for a year now. He's a bit concerned and is looking around because of these layoffs. He doesn't know if he will go, but he is looking at plan B real hard.

I wonder if this has anything to do with that ex/im bank defunding?

Cat went heavily into an autonomous mining technology that doesn't require a team of operators -- just a couple of people with joysticks in office trailers. They thought China would buy into it bigtime, but discovered that China wants to employ as many people as possible (duh) rather than automate jobs out of existence.

They also spent a fortune buying another company called Bucyrus. That was, undoubtedly, a good acquisition, but the current turbulence is probably making the purchase part of the balance sheet problems.

I'm in my late 50's. A lot of Cat people are my age or slightly older, whose wages and benefits are far better than recent hires. If they can lay off a lot of 30-somethings, blaming it on a few turbulent quarters, that scares a lot of 50 and 60-somethings. If Cat scares them into retiring with diminished packages, they can then rebound with a workforce that is satisfied with much less and a smaller retiree payout burden.

These people are awful conniving bastards. don't put anything past them.