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W e e k l y   F e a t u r e   P a g e
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Got Gas ?

Our new President-Elect spent most of the last year promising us “change”, and of course, many of you know my oft-repeated motto, “Same good, Change bad”, so you can probably anticipate a little skepticism about now. We all know change is inevitable, and the national economy certainly needs some, but even more urgent seems to be the need for some modulation, a little shock-absorber action to smooth out the transitions from the peaks to the valleys, and vice-versa. The whole world seems to be held hostage to the manic/depressive cycles of the financial communities. Surely, the real world of business doesn’t change as quickly as the panic driven whims of the Wall Street investors, who run screaming to their window ledges with every 2 point drop of the Dow, and pop an aneurism clamoring to buy with every rumor of success heard in the local gin mill. All the hard working Joe Sixpacks are still out there, and that factory is still humming along in Peoria, cranking out widgets by the truckload. The only thing that changes that fast is the mind of the suits back there on Wall Street, who never cranked out a damn widget in their lives. Seems like the tail wagging the dog to me, but the dog is the one that takes the beating.

One doesn’t have to look far to find examples of how this tendency toward the erratic wreaks havoc with life in our great land. Consider the whole oil business over the last year. The national psyche just knew last year that we had to adjust to oil prices that would forever increase, as we helplessly watched prices climb to over $4 per gallon. PANIC!! We can’t afford to drive an F-250 anymore, gotta’ get us a Prius !! Screw OPEC, we’re gonna’ make our own gas outta’ corn !! And naturally, the price of just about every single item rose in concert with the increasing cost of transportation. MORE PANIC !! We’ll quit buying, save our money !! Bad news for Joe and his buddies at the widget factory, suddenly, they have too much inventory, and Joe gets a pink slip. Remember, recession is when your neighbor gets laid off, depression is when you get laid off. Thin line, that one.

Now, fast forward to December, gas was $1.58 last night at my favorite pump, Ethanol plants are going belly-up all over the country, many before they distilled their first gallon, GM stock is about the same price as Charmin, and Joe still can’t get anybody to buy his widgets because nobody can predict what will happen in the next 2 days. Uncertainty is not our friend. If you were asked to list and value your assets, you’d have to put a time stamp on the paper. Your house, your 401K, your pension, your stocks, all the stuff you thought you could count on a couple of years ago, has to be re-evaluated with every new edition of the Wall Street Journal. “Plan for the future”, the old folks used to say. How the hell can you plan, when you can’t predict? Every formula has to have some “given’s”, but where ya gonna get ‘em?

One of the worst ripple effects of all this chaos is the prospect of us losing even more of our manufacturing base, which has already suffered massive losses. The strength of our Nation has always been rooted in heavy industry, and to lose even more of it will leave us in a fragile condition, indeed. All of our leaders are currently trying to connect a giant set of jumper cables between the government and the auto industry, but from out here in Fergus, it’s hard to tell whether there’s a good 12 volts left at either end of the wire. If the big thinkers can put something worthwhile out there on the street though, we’ve still got Joe Sixpack standing there with a crank in his calloused hands ready to give ‘er a spin. And if you want the Fergus Department of Specifications to spec it out for you, we’re not looking for something that goes 150 mph for 12 seconds, we’d rather see 60 mph for 10 years.

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