Change I Can Believe In

With the economy tottering the new Obama Administration is pushing for another “stimulus package” of some $850 billion to perhaps one trillion. This on top of the one trillion already tossed out the door at various struggling entities such as banks, insurance companies and auto manufacturers. Together these two incomprehensible amounts of money will increase the national debt by a whopping 20%.

The bad news is that this reprise of Keynesian Theory will work no better than it did during the Great Depression when FDR was throwing money around or in the ‘90s when Japan tried the same thing. All together now…. “Here we go again.”

The latest news on the results of the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) has just come in. This was the grand scheme for the government to ship off $148 billion to the top banks in the faint hope that they would start lending again. The bad news: Bank lending went down some $48 billion since they got the money. None of the money from TARP got loaned out and the banks made even fewer loans with their own cash. Why? Because their balance sheets are a mess, that’s why. They have a pile of assets that are worth essentially zero because of the “mark to market” accounting rules enacted after the Enron fiasco. The Congress could help the banks shore up their balance sheets at no cost to the treasury by simply reversing this rule. It was political overkill anyway and under the present circumstances, a big hindrance.

The Obama team has proposed massive amounts of infrastructure spending with the hope of jump-starting the economy. They’re talking about highways, fixing up schools, tossing cash at solar and wind power programs and building new transmission lines to carry all this new electricity. One of the big problems with this kind of thing is that a lot of time elapses between the decision to build something and when someone actually turns a shovelful of dirt on the project. Most of money allocated for this kind of stuff won’t help the economy for a year or more.

If the Obama team insists on massive infrastructure spending, the least they can do is suspend Davis-Bacon. This act, passed in 1931, requires that “locally prevailing wages” be paid on all federally-funded projects. The phrase is shorthand for construction union wages. Because of this requirement and the red tape involved in federally funded projects, many companies refuse to bid on them, raising the cost of these projects as much as 40%. Suspension of Davis-Bacon during emergencies has been done many times before. Nixon, Bush I and Bush II have done it, the latter during Katrina. Even FDR did it. While it makes perfect sense now, I doubt Obama will take this sensible step. He owes the unions too much for their help in getting him elected.

As I’m sure you already guessed, I have a few additional suggestions. As already discussed above, they could reverse the Mark to Market accounting rules. It’s a freebie. Only problem: Politicians hate to admit they made a mistake. I suspect this is why they have not already taken this simple step.

A few weeks back a Texas Congressman made a suggestion to put money quickly in the hands of Americans so they could start spending again. (I forget the guy’s name. I could probably look it up but hey, I am in Hawaii and there are other things to do) [Editor's note: Louie Gohmert (R-TX)]. Elegant in its simplicity, the Congressman’s idea was: If you are going to spend $350 billion in stimulus why not just stop deducting taxes from everyone’s paycheck for three months? For one thing, doing it this way avoids the inefficiency of having the government dole out the money. Anytime you run money through a bureaucracy you are assured of losing a pile of it with inefficiency. Remember the last stimulus package? Writing and mailing out a $600 check to everyone had to cost a ton. (I never got one, by the way. Big Brother, are you listening?)

The Bush Administration doled out some $13 billion to the auto companies out of the TARP funds. They will certainly be back hat in hand looking for more cash in the months to come. I would tell them “NO”, and then “HELL NO!” if they misunderstood. They should be allowed to go bankrupt. Hey, Chapter 11 is not the end of the world. They need to restructure, to renegotiate their labor and distribution contracts and to develop a business model that makes sense.

To balance this tough love Congress should give them some breaks on the CAFÉ standards by allowing them include their whole fleet in their calculations and by not imposing even tougher mileage standards in the near term. They could offset any perceived loss of fuel efficiency by allowing the importation of autos made by the Big Three in their overseas plants… especially small diesel cars. The chances of this happening?

None. The UAW will never allow the Democrats to do it.

Obama and his Democrat controlled Congress could do much to ease the minds of investors and business owners by voting to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. The fear and uncertainty of tax hikes continues to put a damper on the stock market and anyone thinking about starting a business right now has to be skeptical. Again, the chances of this happening are remote at best. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, the Left doggedly sticks to the myth that the Bush cuts were a sop to the “rich”. (One of my earlier posts has some specific numbers.)

Finally, I think it worthwhile to devote some thought to the revenue side of the equation. Eventually, someone will have to pay for all this massive government spending. The only idea that bubbles to the surface of a left wing brain involves raising taxes. Little credit is given to the drag that excessive taxation places on an economy or the degree to which it prevents a country from growing its way out of debt. (Think France and the other socialist economies of recent history.)

Besides taxation there is another way to raise revenue and many countries have become quite wealthy in this fashion. The Middle Eastern countries, Venezuela and Russia have exploited their oil resources to good advantage. Canada too. The US has plenty of oil. It also has 250,000,000 automobiles on the highway according to the DOT (2006). The US could raise billions of dollars in royalties, not to mention improving its balance of payments, drilling for oil and natural gas in currently restricted areas. I’ve read that many wells could be brought into production swiftly by utilizing existing offshore platforms and the new drilling techniques. As an added benefit, new supplies from domestic sources would help retard price increases when demand returns.

There are those on the conservative side who believe that Obama and the liberal Democrats want to use this economic crisis to move the US further toward socialism, just as FDR did during the Great Depression. They opine that moving more middle class folks off the tax roles and into receiving checks from the government will make them Democrat voters. Perhaps.

One thing is clear, unless they make intelligent, common sense decisions to let the American economy absorb the asset bubble and encourage the private sector to grow, this mess will persist.

A long recession (depression/stagflation) will impact everyone, regardless of your position on the economic ladder.

Road Trip

In 1984, when the kids were 16,14 and 12, we decided to take a family vacation. It had been over ten years since we had taken a vacation of any sort and we figured we were running out of time. The family balance sheet looked a little skinny, but we were optimistic and decided to go for it.

The plan that evolved centered on renting a motor home and driving from our home in Oshkosh, WI to visit family and friends in Olympia, WA. Along the way we could tour Mt. Rushmore, Devil’s Tower, Yellowstone and, of course, that icon of tourism, Wall Drug.

It turned out that renting a motor home was not so easy. They were not as yet all that common and private owners were the only renters. Finally, we made a deal and picked it up the day we were to depart (and the day after someone else brought it back).

We immediately discovered the thing hadn’t been cleaned and remained blissfully unaware of the many mechanical deficiencies as we set off full of optimism.

My first discovery, that the cruise control didn’t work, came as we pulled on to the Interstate. I did not fully understand how big a pain in the ass (and knee) that would be on a 4000-mile trip until I’d finished my first full day at the wheel. Of course, other issues would reveal themselves in due course.

A motor home is essentially a house on wheels and has all the systems associated with a normal home: sewage, water, heating and A/C, electrical and propane. I make no claims to being mechanically inclined and that’s being charitable. It would have been helpful if our home on wheels came with some manuals on how to run these systems, but, of course, it did not. That left me struggling to figure these things out as we went along. You can probably imagine how well that was working.

It would not have taken a NASCAR mechanic to conclude that the springs on the motor home were shot and the steering looser than OJ’s grip on reality. Aiming the vehicle down the freeway, particularly on windy days, was worse than steering a sailboat in a following sea. While the kids were blissfully munching sandwiches and playing board games in the back, I sat hunched in the driver’s seat with a death grip on the wheel. I could envision the headline: “Family Wiped Out in Motor Home Crash”. At the end of each day it took a couple of scotches and several aspirins to get the knot out of my neck.

I noticed a troublesome shaking and clanking when ever I backed up and it seemed to be getting worse. Finally in Butte, MT I decided to get it looked at. The cowboy/mechanic, in words even a five year old could understand, explained that the emergency brake consisted of a collar designed to grip the drive shaft when you engaged the emergency brake. That collar, he further explained, was broken into several pieces. Meaning: a) That we’d driven all that way without an emergency brake and b) If those pieces suddenly collapsed, the wheels would lock up. It didn’t take much imagination to come up with dozens of scenarios for disasters if that should happen. I called the owner. He didn’t want to fix it and only relented when I threatened to leave the motor home in Butte and fly home to consult with my lawyer.

A few days earlier we had encountered a perplexing problem. For some reason the inside of the motor home smelled like a sewer. I could not figure this out as I had been dutifully dumping the tank. What I had not known was that there are actually TWO tanks, one for “grey water” and one for the sewage. The handle for the latter was tucked back behind the former and ignorant me had missed that detail. Once again, a manual might have proven helpful.

After dumping the sewage tank I figured our problems were over. Not quite. The smell in the back was so bad the kids were riding with their heads out the windows and even in the driver’s seat I could hardly breathe. We pulled into a deserted rest area somewhere in South Dakota where I could assess the problem in solitude. I climbed up on the roof of the motor home and discovered a vent pipe. Well, that made sense. All toilets have vent pipes, even sophisticated outdoor johns. I deduced that with the sewage tank chock full, stuff had backed up into the pipe. I figured it had dried into a plug, backing up the fumes into the cabin. OK. Now what?
I finally figured out a solution. I had a couple of spinning rods and I needed something heavy to attach to the line and drop down the pipe. I tied my Swiss Army knife to the end of the line and climbed back on to the roof of the motor home. Popping the cover off the vent pipe, I began free falling the knife down the pipe and reeling it back up with the spinning rod. I’d done this a half a dozen times and felt like it was working when I noticed an elderly couple out of the corner of my eye. They were standing there looking up at me and I wondered where the Hell they could have come from. The guy shouted up at me, “How they bitin’?” They then had to grab each other to keep from falling over laughing. Realizing how ridiculous I must look standing up there with a fishing rod in my hands, I nearly fell off the roof laughing myself.

They were experienced motor home owners and had another good laugh when I explained my lack of understanding about the two tanks. They gave us a bottle of anti-stink solution for the tank and with the vent now functioning, we continued down the road…. Breathing free at last.

We hit all the tourist spots… including Wall Drug and had an enjoyable visit with relatives and friends in Olympia. It was memorable trip, to be sure, although it took about a year for my neck and shoulders to recover. Joining us on the return voyage were a gift from Loi’s sister, Sam and Tillie, two kittens named for cities we passed on the way home (Samammish and Tillicum). They would be part of the family for the next 19 years.

What If They’re Wrong?

Vancouver recorded the lowest temperature in forty years last night. Tonight we await the arrival of a blizzard that has already struck Portland and Seattle. This past week it snowed in Las Vegas, Houston and Malibu. My cousin who lives outside of San Diego sent me pictures of snow on the hills near his home.

This is, to say the least, highly unusual stuff.

Of course, Minnesota, Wisconsin and the East are getting whacked with vicious winter storms, but that’s normal. What is not normal is that winter has not yet officially arrived. Starts tomorrow.

Since this has started out to be a record breaking cold winter you might well imagine my surprise when the environmental clergy announced that a necessary step in curbing the planet-threatening advance of global warming would be the taxation of cow farts. Yes indeed, bovine flatulence, we are told, represents a large contributor to greenhouse gases. A tax on each offending cow seems to be the only idea on the table.


My entrepreneurial mind immediately clicked with an alternative. Why not, I mused, instead insert a tube into the anus of each cow and attach to it an inflatable balloon? The captured methane could then be collected and burned to generate electricity! Hey, it’s renewable energy and that’s what we’re looking for, right? I can see no flaw in this proposal.


Having quickly dealt with cow farts, a sacrilegious thought occurred to me: What if these guys are wrong about global warming? What if, instead of warming the planet is actually cooling? What if the school of science that links previous cycles of solar activity (sunspots) to warming and cooling periods on Earth are right and the sun determines these things, not whatever Man may or may not do? The evidence suggests we should give it some consideration… not to mention looking out the window and checking out the temp and snow depth from time to time.

The Maunder Minimum, an extended period of low sunspot activity occurred between 1645 and 1715 and coincides with the Little Ice Age. Cooling and warming periods also correlate with the Medieval Minimum (1040 to 1080) and Medieval Maximum (1100 to 1250) although one has to wonder who was measuring this stuff. Scientists also claim that solar cycles correlate perfectly with warming and cooling periods on Mars. Since I have heard no reports on the discovery of SUVs on Mars, I think we can pretty much rule out human activity having much to do with it.

Solar activity comes and goes on roughly an eleven-year cycle and on that pace does not have a significant impact as the warming and cooling effects get dampened somewhat by the oceans. You may remember from 8th grade science that the oceans cover about 75% of the globe…. A big heat sink. When the sun refuses to adhere to the eleven-year cycle, things can get out of hand. The question: will the current minimum in sunspot activity be a short one, or will we be in for the next ice age?

Bjorn Lonborg in The Skeptical Environmentalist points out that global cooling is a far bigger problem than global warming. Shorter growing seasons and less land mass available for cultivation make food an issue. And, he points out, far more people today die as a result of cold than heat. The consensus among scientists holds that by the end of the century, if global warming were to continue at the pace of the last 50 years, that the Earth would increase in temperature by 2 degrees and the oceans would rise by 8 inches. Not a big problem, and may actually be a benefit as more of the northern latitudes become available for food production.

President-elect Obama promised during the campaign to “save the planet and stop the oceans from rising”. (No point in setting modest goals.) With that in mind, he has loaded his incoming administration with global warming and anti-carbon true believers. They will certainly pursue a series of policies to battle global warming and reduce our national carbon footprint. I think it is worth asking if this is exactly the wrong prescription for what ails us? What if Al Gore and his acolytes are exactly wrong and the Earth is getting colder? What if instead of shutting down coal fired electrical plants and restricting oil drilling we should be doing the opposite, just so we can stay warm in the next decade? What if instead of propping up the auto industry we should be helping out the snowshoe industry? It’s something to think about.

By the way, my wife just informed me our water pipes are frozen in the upstairs bathroom.

Stupid is as Stupid Does

The great American philosopher, Forest Gump uttered those memorable words. He also said, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you will get.” I can’t help but think of these two gems when I ponder what the new Obama Administration and the new solidly Democrat Congress will do in the coming year.

From the appointments we’ve seen so far it seems the “Change We Can Believe In” amounts to rehiring all the guys from the Clinton team. If memory serves Clinton was quite radical in his first two years… until the alarmed electorate voted in a Republican Congress in 1996. Clinton then got religion and governed more like the centrist he claimed to be.

Observers have tried to be optimistic that BHO, Pelosi and Reid would show some restraint with the economy in a shambles, but recent comments from the anointed ones do not inspire confidence. On the economic front it looks like the only idea anyone has is to throw more and more money at the problem. Damn the torpedoes of inflation or the ice burgs of government ownership of major industries. Don’t worry about the distant shoals of debt. Open the valves of spending. Full speed ahead!

Once the new Congress gets sworn in and get their furniture rearranged we should expect quick action on two Democrat pet projects: the Employee Free Choice Act and the Fairness Doctrine. These two turkeys could only have been named by Orwell’s Ministry of Truth for there is no “free choice” in the former or “fairness” in the latter.

The EFC Act is a sop to the unions who love the Democrats unconditionally and give them millions. Better known as the Card Check bill it makes it substantially easier to organize a union shop. Less than 10% of the US workforce is currently unionized, mostly government employees and workers in major industries. Union shops like automobile manufacturers and airlines have been falling like flies lately and entrenched unions rightly deserve a lot of the blame. Government unions produce no measurable product and even if they do (like the teachers unions) and the product is crap, they persist. This does not suggest greater unionization is a wonderful idea in this time of economic trouble.

The Fairness Doctrine is only designed to put conservative talk radio out of business. The left already controls the mainstream media…. TV, Hollywood and the major newspapers. This violation of the 1st Amendment would silence any dissent of the left wing agenda.

While some of Obama’s economic team may have convinced him that raising taxes during a recession is a formula for financial disaster, he seems determined to push ahead with his fight against global warming with his Cap and Trade program. He said recently, “[we] will establish strong annual targets that set us on a course to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional 80% by 2050.” Remember, Obama promised during the campaign to bankrupt anyone who attempted to build a coal fired power plant.

VP candidate Biden in one of his memorable gaffs said, “We’re not supporting clean coal” and “…no coal plants here in America.” Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader and dipshit buffoon, once said, “That is, coal makes us sick, oil makes us sick; it’s global warming. It’s ruining our country; it’s ruining our World. We’ve got to stop using fossil fuel.” Harry and BHO probably never bothered to check, but the US gets 85% of its energy needs from fossil fuels and 50% of the US electrical power is supplied by coal plants. Do they really believe that they can replace fossil fuel with solar and wind power? Does anyone believe that the radical environmentalists will ever allow the Democrats to build a single nuclear plant? Their only hope of replacing coal is nuclear and they can’t go there.

The significant phrase in Obama’s quote above is “strong annual targets”. That suggests to me that he plans to use the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and implement his Cap and Trade dreams through that behemoth. The EPA has already prepared an 18,000-page Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) document regulating every emitting source from coal plants to lawn mowers. It amounts to a tax on energy, will cost trillions and wipe out jobs by the millions. Estimates from the Heritage Foundation suggest net job losses (that’s after you add in the “green” jobs created) at 500,000 per year and a cost of $5000 per household. American companies will be leaving the country in droves.

While this madness continues to rumble down the tracks we get this update on global warming from the US National Climatic Data Center. Seems the global temperature went DOWN in 2008 with some parts of the world seeing snow for the first time in memory. 2008 saw record snowfalls in China and Canada (Toronto’s Feb. snowfall the most since 1950). Sea ice build up in Antarctica was the largest in 30 years and even the much-discussed Artic saw increases of 10 to 20cm of ice. Nothing in yet from the polar bears.

[Editor's note: In April 2007, the news release about the dire situation of the Polar Bear was exposed by an Australian journalist as a hoax. The photo was not taken by Canadian environmentalists, but taken by a marine biology student more than two years before in the month of August--when ice caps are naturally melting--and the bear was within easy swimming distance of larger chunks of land; it was released by the AP along with the introduction of the UN's Global Warming Report.]

[Also, there are more reports from a group of international scientists on the global warming nonsense.]

According to Kenneth Tapping of the Canadian National Research Council, solar activity is way down. “The last time the sun was this inactive, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age that lasted five centuries and ended in 1850.” Gee, maybe the sun has something to do with global warming? OK, one winter does not an ice age make. But, it should give everyone a reason to look a little more critically at the absurd contortions of the global warming fanatics. More importantly, it should give our politicians pause before imposing an economy destroying policy on North America. You’d think, but I’m not betting on it.

Don’t count on the Democrats allowing any more drilling for oil or gas either. That’s way too logical.

Gypo Pirates

The term “gypo logger” originated in the Pacific Northwest and described any guy with a pick up truck and a chain saw that set himself up as an Independent Logging Contractor. It seems appropriate to now call any Somali fisherman with a boat and an AK-47 a “gypo pirate”. In the last year, piracy off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden has grown dramatically with some 92 ships being attacked. A handful of these yahoos in a high-speed outboard, armed with automatic weapons and RPGs can easily overpower the unarmed and thinly-manned freighters. The game: move the ships into a nearby harbor on the Somalia coast and hold the ship and crew hostage for ransom.

It’s a growth industry. Estimates vary, but it appears the pirates made at least $40 million last year. The pirates, who likely could not effectively run a hot dog cart, live like Columbian drug czars. Ports like Eyl are booming with ransom money being spent by the pirate princes to purchase mansions and expensive cars.

This week the pirates captured the Sirius Star, an oil tanker about the size of a Nimitz Class aircraft carrier carrying $100 million dollars of oil. This ship joined some 14 others with 300 crewmen as hostages awaiting ransom payments. Insurance companies and ship owners are trying to figure out what to do. The UN and the International Maritime Organization dither while shippers consider the option of going around the South African cape to avoid the area altogether, adding 12 days to their voyage. Shipping costs are going up 25 to 30%.

Somalia, of course, has no real government and has been run by warlords and Islamic terrorists for years. They can’t or won’t do diddily about it. Compounding the problem is the political correctness about “human rights”. I read a lengthy piece the other day written by two lawyers who agonized over where and how to try these international criminals. Last year the Danish Navy captured six Somali pirates and being unable to figure out where to prosecute, simply turned them loose. This sort of thing cannot be regarded as a helpful. To me, the whole jurisdictional issue is irrelevant. I say the few that survive capture (and I would hope not many do) should be tried in International Waters by the Captain of the largest ship in the area.

In the good old days, punishment for piracy was keel hauling or swinging from the yardarm. Maybe sailing into these pirate havens with a few of these guys hanging aloft might send a signal to other gypo pirates?

These pirates operate well out to sea with small boats supported by “mother ships” (usually captured trawlers). Last week one of these ships made the mistake of firing on an Indian Navy vessel, the INS Tabar. The Tabar shot back and sunk the mother ship. Good start.

“So Dick”, you ask. “What do you suggest?” Glad you asked. For openers, as soon as a freighter sends an SOS that they are being attacked I would dispatch jets or helicopters and sink the mother ships and any small boats around it. That might give them something to think about.

As to the ships now being held hostage… I’d give the pirates 48 hours to release the ships and crew. If they don’t, I’d send in Special Ops teams to take back the ships. The US has the SEALs, the Brits the SBS and all other countries the equivalent. The boarding parties would be supported by snipers in helicopters and small boats who would take out any pirate who stuck up his pointy-head. If resistance comes from the bridge or other protected cover, let the helos blast those locations with rockets and missiles. Yeah, you’d damage the ships but the repairs would be cheaper than the ransom.

But, you say, “What about the crews being held hostage?” Most, I understand, have been taken off the ships and are held ashore in Somali ports. President Jefferson sent the newly minted Marines to take care of the pirates off the “shores of Tripoli” over 200 years ago. I’m sure the Marines would welcome a reprise. I’m also sure the British SAS and the French Commandos would be happy to join in the fun. Fast roping into each of the places where the hostages are held (I’m confident our intelligence boys know exactly where they are) they would make short work of the ragtag criminals. The pirates could be advised that if a single hostage is killed that we will take no prisoners. When all the crews have been rescued, I would send in the jets and wipe out every port where the pirates have operated along the Somali coast. Simply sink every boat, blast every pier and destroy every warehouse.

Naturally, none of this will be done. The international community can’t even bring itself to deal with Iran and their nuclear weapons program even though everyone knows they will start a nuclear war one of these days.

I do know that if I owned one of the freighters plying these dangerous waters, I would be talking to Eric Prince, the CEO of Blackwater. I’d hire some of his heavily armed dudes to ride shotgun on my ship and instruct them to blast out of the water any small boat that got in range.

Good reading: this WSJ article on modern pirates.

Where’s the Bottom?

Another very bad day on Wall Street… the Dow down 427 points, closing below 8000. More bad news out of the banking industry, the Big Three execs in Washington begging for cash to stay alive and Paulson zigging and zagging over what to do with his $700 billion. Not the kind of news to send folks out to the auto mall to purchase a new set of wheels or give the broker a call to pick up a stock or two. Everyone is waiting for the next shoe to drop. Actually it reminds me of that recent TV ad where it’s raining shoes. (Funny. I can’t recall what they are selling.)

Frankly, I think Paulson would like to punt the whole $700 billion TARP thing down the road to the next administration and let Obama’s new Treasury Secretary figure it out. That way he could sneak out of town and not take the blame when it doesn’t work. The whole thing smells like they have no clue.

The Big Three automakers were operating on a flimsy business model before they got whacked by the duel tsunamis of the spike in gas prices to over $4.00 per gallon and then the credit meltdown. Decades of increasing concessions to the UAW and the accumulated deadwood of their own management and distribution network (they have way too many dealers) placed them at a big disadvantage to the foreign manufacturers. They have huge liabilities for their retirement and health care programs and they must pay nearly full wages to tens of thousands of laid off workers. The sum of all this means that their cost of producing a car is some $1600 to $2000 more per car than their Japanese competitors. Their loaded cost per worker hour is $72 vs. $42 for Toyota. Some business model.

In addition, Congress has placed some formidable obstacles in the way. As pointed out in an excellent piece in the Wall Street Journal today, Congress imposed the CAFÉ fleet-mileage standards that forced the Big Three to produce low mileage cars at a loss to sell their profitable and popular SUVs. Bowing to the green lobby, Congress will not allow the automakers to include in their CAFÉ calculations the autos they make abroad. This simple change alone, says the WSJ, would likely save Chrysler from bankruptcy. Nor will the greenies consider allowing the car companies to sell in the US their highly efficient, small diesel cars so common in Europe. Anyone who has rented a car in Europe has likely driven one of these little beauties. Quiet, peppy and non-polluting, they get great mileage. The environmentalists won’t permit the increase in the supply of diesel either. That’s why it costs more than gasoline. Never used to, and now it’s killing the trucking industry.

So, with all this against the auto industry does it seem like a great idea to throw $25 billion more at them? I think not. It’s only the beginning. Unless the Big Three can restructure their labor and distribution costs they are never going to be viable. And, unless Congress acquires some common sense about the penalties they impose with their mileage standards, even restructuring may not do the job.

Unfortunately, it looks like the incoming Obama Administration may make it worse. Bush refused to grant California a waver to impose a 23% reduction on greenhouse gas emissions from autos by 2012 and a 30% reduction by 2030.

That would have required the automakers to produce special cars for the California market. A killer. Obama promises to reverse the Bush policy. If he’s going to do that, sending the auto guys any amount of money is pissing it down a rat hole.

I believe, however, that Detroit will get the money, if only because the politicians are afraid to let them fail. Besides, the Democrats owe Michigan and Ohio. Bush will go along because he won’t want the demise of the US auto industry to happen on his watch. He’ll think, “Let the Democrats deal with it after January 20th.” Thus, the problem will be postponed and until the auto industry gets sorted out and banking stabilized, guessing where the bottom is can only be a WAG (Wild Assed Guess).

Tom

The sun was well up and the frost melted by the time the old man loaded his gear in the Jeep and pulled out of the driveway. He had lingered over breakfast, taking a second and a third cup of coffee. Millie left him alone, knowing he had to do this at his own pace and feared that if she talked about it, she might lose her tenuous grip on her own emotions.

The knobby tires hissed and sang on the damp blacktop as the old man headed east into the countryside, passing woodlots and stubble cornfields, pasture and the fallow fields of the CRP Program. He drove slowly dreading the three-act play he had scripted for this day.

The small brass bell on Tom’s collar tinkled as he attempted to rise. He whimpered with the anticipation he always showed when they were going hunting. But, this time his whines were tinged with pain. Tom’s hips had deteriorated badly in the last couple of years. The old man had started giving him aspirins imbedded in soft cheese after each hunt. It helped.

But now, the cancer thing …. The vet tried to break it to him gently, “Hell, Tom’s twelve years old—nearly thirteen. That’s old for an English Setter.” Then he said, “You’ll know when it’s time to bring him in.”

Tom struggled to his feet and shuffled unsteadily forward until he could rest his chin on the old man’s shoulder. He choked back a sob. They had often traveled like this, with Tom whining in his ear, seemingly urging him to drive faster. The Jeep swung into a tight curve on the narrow country road and Tom lost his footing and toppled over. The old man swore, “Dammit. Lay down, Tom. Stay!”

In the month since the visit to the vet Tom had gone downhill fast and the old man knew it was time. Hated it, but knew. The vet said he’d wait for him.

He’d hunted alone in the early season leaving Tom behind. The dog had not appreciated that. Over the years he always knew that when the hunting coat and boots came out, it was time to go hunting. Even if sound asleep at Millie’s feet in the sewing room, he would come bounding into the hall like a three year old hopped up on Sugar Pops. Not wanting to torment Tom, the old man had started sneaking his gear out to the truck at night when the dog was zonked on his bed by the fireplace. Full of painkillers, Tom never noticed.

Hunting without your dog, he found, was like dancing alone. He’d enjoyed the brisk autumn days walking the hardwoods for grouse and stomping the ditches for pheasant, but it was not the same. His bag was lighter too. He had cursed two weeks ago when he lost a downed rooster. Tom, even a year ago, would have found that bird. He always did.

He braked the Jeep and swung into the farm drive way. Past the white clapboard house and around behind the weathered barn, he turned on to a dirt lane angling up the hill. He slipped the Jeep into four-wheel drive and slowly made his way up the rutted track. At the crest of the hill he spotted a battered white Chevy pick-up parked about 100 yards ahead.

Joe, the owner of the farm, crawled out of the truck smoking a cigarette. They were old friends and the old man hoped Joe would forgive him for being late. Joe waved as he pulled the Jeep up and parked on the verge 40 yards short of the pick-up.

Stepping out of the Jeep, the old man watched Joe signal the direction of the wind with a sweep of his arm and he waved in acknowledgement as he felt the light breeze on his face. Joe went to the back of the pick-up and reached into a wooden crate and after a bit of a struggle, extracted a rooster pheasant. Cradling the pheasant in his arms, Joe started walking down into the field of grass and low brush. He stopped at a thick bush about 20 yards in and after tucking the bird’s head beneath his wing, spun the bird in a circle half a dozen times. He then tucked the pheasant down into the bush and started back toward the truck.

“He’ll sit there a little while,” thought the old man. He opened the back gate of the Jeep and reached for his tattered hunting coat. As he shrugged it on Tom made his way to the back and started wagging his tail. When the old man reached for his gun case Tom gave his face a couple of wet licks. “Ready to go, buddy?” He asked. Tom waved his flag-like tail in response.

The gun was an old Fox side-by-side in 20 gauge. The bluing had long ago been worn off and the stock had plenty of dings, but the sheen of oil spoke to how well the old man took care of his gear.

He lifted Tom gently out of the truck and set him on the road. Snapping on his lead and grabbing the shotgun the old man and his dog entered the field. They angled across the wind. The old man wanted to get directly downwind of the bush that held the pheasant. Tom, though unsteady, had his head up, sampling the wind and working that trademark white flag of a tail back and forth. When they were directly downwind and 15 yards from the bird they did a left turn. He reached down and unsnapped Tom’s leash. “Find the bird, Tom,” he said.

Tom moved forward, staggering slightly, but he had caught a whiff and was closing in. Three feet from the bush Tom froze in a classic point, head and tail high with his left foot up and curled. “Whoa,” said the old man quietly. He dropped two shells into the open Fox and snapped it shut. Walking forward slowly past the dog he said “whoa” once again. He gave the bush a vigorous kick. Nothing. He kicked again and took a couple of steps. With a cackle and roar of wings the pheasant burst from the grass 10 feet to his left. The bird had run when he walked in and now was angling back the way they’d come. He brought up the double barrel swiftly and swung, fired and…. Missed! His second shot brought the bird down in a puff of feathers. “I guess we’re both getting old Tom,” he muttered.

Tom had seen the bird go down and was struggling through the thick grass in that direction. The old man quickly overtook the dog and snapped the leash on again. “Easy Tom. We’ll find him.”

The rooster lay in plain sight, gleaming in the fall sunlight, its gaudy colors a stark contrast to the dull brown grass. Tom gently picked it up and they started slowly back to the Jeep. He looked up to wave his thanks to Joe, but the pick-up was gone. He’d have to phone later with his thanks.

Halfway back to the Jeep Tom stopped. He could go no further. He tried to get Tom to release the bird, but Tom would not let it go. “All right you stubborn shit,” he said and picked up the dog. He carried Tom back to the Jeep with the bird dangling from his mouth. Only when the old man had set Tom in the back of the Jeep did Tom release the bird. He then lay down on his blanket, guarding his prize.

The vet was waiting when the old man carried Tom into the office. The place was deserted, as it was Sunday morning. Another debt to be paid. “You ready?” asked the vet.

“Yeah, I guess,” replied the old man. “Shot a bird over him this morning.”

“So I see,” replied the vet with a slight frown, noting the old man's muddy boots tracking up his spotless floor.

Tom lay calmly on the stainless steel table. He knew the vet and the old man rubbing his speckled head and scratching his black ears soothed him.

“This won’t hurt him,” assured the vet. “He’ll get sleepy and then it will be all over.” The vet slipped the needle into Tom’s paw and the dog jerked at the sting.

The old man gripped Tom’s head and stared into his eyes. “So long old friend” he choked. And then it was done.

The vet said nothing as the old man gathered up Tom’s limp body and carried it out to the Jeep. Tears ran down through the gray stubble on his cheeks and dripped off his chin as he wrapped Tom gently in his blanket. He climbed in the Jeep and drove slowly away.

The Jeep followed the narrow country road lined with hardwoods gaily displaying their fall colors in the bright afternoon sunshine. The old man took no notice. Turning on to little used dirt track the Jeep continued diagonally across the ridgeline, coming to a stop at a small clearing. The old man picked up the blanket wrapped bundle from the back of the truck and set off following a faint game trail through the trees. After 100 yards he emerged into the open. To his right a large meadow sloped down the hill, to his left an extensive stand of second growth hardwoods and mixed pine blanketed the ridge. At the edge of the field stood an ancient and massive birch tree and beneath the protective branches of the birch loomed an open grave. Next to the grave a large pile of stones and small boulders stood like a sentinel.

The old man paused at the edge of the hole before gently lowering his burden into the opening. He removed a dog collar from the pocket of his hunting coat and buckled it around a low hanging branch before removing his coat and grasping the shovel leaning against the tree. He began filling the hole.

Brushing the dirt from his gnarled hands on his jeans, the old man sat on a log and studied the pile of stones. “Those rocks should discourage any coyotes from messin’ with you.” He said. The old man fished a crusted briar pipe from his pocket and stuffed it with dark tobacco from a worn leather pouch. When he finished the ritual of lighting the pipe, he wrested a can of beer from his hunting coat. Popping the top and flicking the foam off his fingers he raised it in a silent toast toward the pile of stones. “I guess you know why I picked this spot, Tom. This is where you finally figured out we were supposed to do this hunting thing together. In those early days I was thinkin’ about renaming you 5K, ‘cause where ever I was, you were about 5K somewhere else.”

Taking a long pull on the beer, the old man continued, “When you pointed that ol’ ruff cock bird right under that birch and brought him back to me with your teeth chattering in excitement, a light bulb went off in your head. You’d figured out that we were doing this as a TEAM. Things got lots better after that.”

The old man drained the beer and relit his dead pipe. “I won’t say you were the world’s greatest setter, but you were a good one. You were a sweet and gentle dog, and Millie loved having you around the house. Jeff loved you too. Hell, the two of you grew up together learning how to hunt. I’m sure he’ll be stopping by once he gets back from Iraq.”

He stood, shook the dregs from the can and stuffed it in his battered hunting coat as he slipped it on. He picked up the shovel and came briefly to attention. “Semper Fi, old pal.”

And with that the old Marine turned and limped back the way he had come.

© 2008
Author's Note: This is my first attempt to place some fiction on the blog. Certainly a departure from my "right wing rants" as one of my readers so charitably puts it. If you like "Tom"... great. If not, feel free to offer constructive criticism or suggestions on an alternative hobby. Don't recommend golf. I've already proven I'll never be any good at that damn game.