Chronic myopia

by Mike Crouse

The economic climate... improving ever so gradually, is what we're both hearing and seeing. It is not so much a cause for celebration as it is a recognition of an improved stability and markets whereas at this point last year we were swimming in uncertainty.

The attitude both at the Sierra-Cascade and the Oregon Logging Conferences was cautiously upbeat. Certainly both shows have contracted with economic realities, but they have adjusted as have those of both vendors and the loggers in attendance, focusing on better service and finding new ways to better serve existing customers while looking for the versatility and diversity that lead to new markets.
In market driven economies the reward is for innovation and efficiency. Benefits come in having a clear vision of customer wants, needs, and anticipating the future... certainly nothing new to business.
Business innovation is the foundation of our economy and thus the cornerstone of our freedoms: it is what pays the bills... a fact this is demonstrably lost on the current crop of elected politicians.

For all the prattle from Washington DC (and in far too many state capitals) over job creation and economic recovery the purpose of government seems to have been discarded to the mystical belief that government drives the economy. Certainly governments have an effect both from policy and the climate of the playing field, but it is not the driver. Government's proper role is in setting a level playing field that encourages enterprise in a predictable setting governed by rules, regulation and oversight. To establish and maintain infrastructure for water, sanitation, health, safety and defense is government's first responsibility.

However we have gone seriously astray on that mission the past few decades with dramatic ideological shifts both left and right that have set into effect the "all or none" mentality towards public policy concentrating interests on "winning" rather than governing and essentially trashing the interests of compromise and figuring out how to "make things work."

It has given us the bizarre shift of power from local solutions-based problem solving that has been the cornerstone of our democratic republic, to our current top down push of rules, regulations, and unfunded mandates that appear to leave citizens with few choices. Fortunately, in this coming November, that can change.

If there really were a free lunch, this would be easy... and in the elected class this seems to be the prevailing attitude. Certainly they are aware of a tough business climate and the cyclical nature of business, but beyond that their budget reality is two fold: revenue stream and expenditures, with no apparent concern over the collateral affect from raising taxes as opposed to reducing their own operating expenses or improving efficiencies. Modernization, to the governing class, is about more agencies, more personnel, made further perplexing in that neither party demonstrates an interest reducing spending, agencies, staffing or their insidious growth into our everyday life.

November we'll again have the opportunity to bring the elected class and their legions back to reality.

Job creation

I'd worked with an editor many years ago, a bright fellow, well educated, and a very good guy who would occasionally clash with me on various topics ... we were on different sides on some political issues. During one of our discussions he looked to trump me by saying, "... the difference between you and me is I'd feed a man that was hungry and refused to work and you'd let him starve!" Without hesitation, my reply was, "you're damned right I would!" ...which rather pointed out where each of us stood. There is NO free lunch, there should not be a free lunch, and if you're not willing to work, then you can in fact starve until you change your mind or perish, duh.

President Obama's administration in particular spoke volumes on their vision of the economy and jobs in remarks following the infamous "jobs summit" in early December 2009, essentially assailing business for providing more jobs... all this while Congress and his administration mounts an increasing attack on business in general, and small business in particular by rattling sabers, increasing rules, fees, regulations and continuing to cast an air of uncertainty that prudent businesses cringe over.

When your entire perspective and experience is from government your point of view is a myopic tunnel vision focusing on speeches and pronouncements rather than in a broader vision and realization that the business climate you demonize IS in fact the golden goose that creates the cash, which pays for government, services, infrastructure, schools, health and safety.

There are topics within this administration we can subscribe to: modernizing infrastructure in particular, upgrading the power grid, improving roads, alternative energy, all good themes. However when those topics were sold as the "stimulus funding" of last year, the immediate injection of cash and jobs went into the growth of the federal, state and agency bureaucracies FIRST and promised funding for projects on the ground somewhere in the future. Doesn't look like the CHANGE touted by this administration during the "never-ending campaign" ... looks, walks and talks like the same old story.

The good news

Our economic foundation has resiliency and in spite of the current lunacy we will recover. The basis for attitude change is well on its way. WE talk with a number of colleagues who have been energized by the idiocy of the past few years and are ready for a change from the Pelosi/Reid brand of "openness, transparency," and "government ethics," towards representative government that controls its spending and reigns in on an unquenchable thirst for largess and power.

Perhaps most bizarre is the "march of the lemmings" we are witnessing as the congressional majority worms its way through approving legislation on what is quaintly referred to as "health care reform," which the vast majority of Americans are vehemently opposed too. The ideologically driven agenda has little to do with the reform that's needed, and has ballooned to a behemoth of complexity sure to feed bureaucratic health for decades to come.

The legacy to our children is unprecedented in its debt and unlike any left to future generations in our nation's history.

We pray that people are sufficiently inflamed and motivated to push the lemmings over the edge and out of sight. The key remains finding candidates with some sorta of sanity who will in fact carry their convictions on the election trail on into their actions once elected.

On the horizon

Most of the conversations we've heard on the conference circuit has centered on biomass as an answer not only to flagging federal forest health, the global change in paper and chip markets, and a means for diversifying logging and milling operations for the future. The most pressing problems of transportation, costs, and markets that can be sustained profitably continues towards an eventual resolution with our federal governments luke-warm interest. If you thought using our abundant quantity of woody biomass as a renewable, sustainable substitute for foreign oil was a no-brainer, you are sadly mistaken.

Not everyone, even in our own industry, is on board with the concept, as see emerging markets for woody biomass (from chips to hog-fuel) as competition for a resource they have had all to themselves essentially forever, and they are not wishing to have other entities potentially influencing their access or their cost for those materials. Certainly left to its own the marketplace would define the price over time, thus the interest in maintaining the status quo the old fashioned way: through the power of law and today's new found altering definitions of terms (i.e. the definition of what is biomass) to bend the market legislatively.

And then we have the power of the eco-industry lobby for whom control of our federal forests supersedes the long term health of that forest, and no perceived interest in the economic health of communities near those forests. The eco-leadership's interest in energy independence has a single vision: use less energy, use solar, use wind, and simply get along with less.. simple indeed.

In the mean time, the public is beginning to reap the benefits sewn from 40 plus years of policy that has yielded some noticeable benefits: cleaner air, cleaner water, and more attention to proper planning, but is finding there are some consequences as well. Those consequences can be managed with some moderation towards finding solutions and exercising flexibility, not really the hallmarks of current eco-policy, eco-law, or the eco-leadership.

Its one thing to declare war on the more sparsely rural western America, it is quite another to have those policies put individual families and the offspring of baby boomers out of work as those policies filter down to the rest of the country.

Many who identify themselves as being environmentalists are finding themselves at odds with the eco-leadership of the past 40 and while not willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater are far more interested in finding solutions that are flexible and include their families in the vision of tomorrow in affordability, life, liberty and their own pursuit of happiness.

Changing the Federal Government's payday

Out of the realm of problem solving comes this bit of inspiration, which may amuse, inspire, or confirm your opinion of this author... you be the judge. We've held this opinion before but feel in light this time of the year it is worth revisiting.

On the 15th of this month a good many of us will have our income tax due to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)... and while you may or may not like paying most of us realize it is the price we pay in cash to maintain our government and the cost of civilization. Our point here is not over if we should pay or how much we should pay in taxes, but when we pay and in recognition that timing is important in life, changing the timing of those payments to more closely coincide with holding our government's elected representatives accountable.

Over the past several decades there's been the ongoing conversation on how to make government run better, more efficiently, and perhaps most important of all: with greater accountability.
What's resulted runs contrary to any model of efficiency, by increasing the number of moving parts, agencies, mounds of paper, rules, agencies, bureaucrats, etc. and making it far more difficult and complex to deal with or get identifiable action from our federal government.

And while it's been suggested we enact term limitations, increase public participation through more meetings, and turn out countless studies and advisories, the end result continues to be more of the same. We have a suggestion that would greatly increase public participation, and place accountability at the right place and time.

While few alive would recall it, prior to the First World War, there was no income tax, no withholding, and of course, we had a far smaller Federal Government. What was to be a short term fix (not too surprisingly) became a permanent fixture in short order, wherein at some point April 15th became the designated date we settle our taxes with the Government... the price of civilization.
We'd suggest a slight alteration of the existing structure, implemented in two phases, while maintaining all the current system that's in place.

First, rather than taxes being due on April 15th, change the date in the first year to the last Tuesday of October, so in the first year, you'd pay taxes for the first six month span from April 15th through the last Tuesday of October. From that point on, taxes would be due that last Tuesday of October (yes, that would have you paying taxes a week prior to federal elections).

It might be an inconvenience in changing the tax year, but it is a small shift in due date, with no change in procedures, cash flow, withholding taxes, etc. and after that first year not an issue.
The advantages, however would tie elections to the literal cost of government placing accountability and the financial cost vs. benefit directly in the forefront where it belongs.

While it may be an incidental, we suspect the opportunity to tie the cause and effect "free" government services to legislative accountability when they are being voted on would have a very liberating effect.

Accountability... what a shock.

Do we feel it would be possible... certainly NOT from our elected officials. Memories are short, and April realities are well removed from Election Day promises of something for nothing.
However changing our federal tax day is efficient, clear, easy to implement, and far easier than employing massive staffs of attorneys further complicating and already complex process. Shine a little light in the right place at the right time.

A great conference!

The past several years of economic doledrums has changed the literal shape, size and scope of the logging conferences throughout our nation and yielded considerable contractions in each including the largest logging machinery show west of the Mississippi, the Oregon Logging Conference.

The past few years in particular have been a reflection of the market each of us live in: manufacturer and dealer consolidations, cost cuttings and seeking greater efficiencies to get more "Bang for the Buck."

Through this transition, the 2010 OLC management and board of directors demonstrated again flexibility with the changing times through innovative presentations, contemporary seminars on topics relevant to today's industry that maintains its position as a must go both to the vendors and today's working loggers.

Nice work, OLC!!