By Sandy Sanders
May 11, 2008 12:01 am
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I am in the news business. I am not an economist. I do read and hear what the “experts” are saying … I just don’t understand and I think it is because they — the “experts” don’t either. When you can keep me focused on a particular stock and why a company is down on the bottom line, I am almost with you. When we talk about gas prices there is plenty of room for us to argue, agree and blame. Then I read items like this:
1. Sam’s Club is rationing rice. You can only buy two bags per customer.
2. SUV resale value gets deflated but don’t trade it, keep it.
3. Year-long study completed to develop the “dream” cell phone for the world’s ‘shantytowns.’
4. The new ‘in’ thing to do is to buy local produce.
The list could continue on-and-on but if I write anymore of them my head will hurt more than it does now.
Last week Chrysler announced a ‘sales incentive’ of $2.99 gas for three years to get consumers to buy one of their vehicles. National automaker watchers have touted this as a great new approach to help boost sales. This week I caught myself saying that gas is down to $3.51. $3.51! What is happening to me? It is better than $4 that some say will come by Labor Day or before. And then there is the $6 gas in five years … $3.51 does look good, or at least better.
Many people with SUV’s wish they had something different and according to USA Today on Friday many people are mad because the resale value is not where they want it. And, why do they think this? If everyone I know with an SUV did not want theirs, why would I think that anyone else wants one? Does anyone remember how the resale value of their SUV dropped when the third seat model came out? No one wanted one with only two rows of seat even though they would most likely only use the third row about twice a year.
We want big and we want a lot of electronics. Everything that is in our cell phone we want in our car. I read recently that soon you will not be able to buy a stripped down (basic) vehicle. We have come to that because none of us want them. We want every remote-type option that can be put in a car or truck and don’t forget GPS, cell phone, DVD (2), automatic door openers, seat warmers, remote fold-down seats, etc. Now if you can throw better gas mileage we are set. The advice in USA Today was to keep your SUV and buy a smaller car. Why? We can afford to.
It is funny and sad how we are getting so hyped up over on cutting back on everything from gas to groceries. We say things like how it will help save the environment … the world. Come on now, the price of gas and milk is up and we say we want change. This is like all those New Years Resolutions we make to lose weight … come April we are still fat.
I don’t think America is ready to change. We will buy local fresh produce, not because it is good for us and our local farmers, but because it’s the ‘in-thing’. When the price of Thai rice went from $320 per metric ton at the end of 2007 to $1,150 we did not notice. When world food prices jumped 83% in 36 months we took a deep breath. To the millions of people in our world who live on less than $1 per day they are facing a last breath. One example, when we said make gas out of corn so our fuel costs will be cheaper our food prices went up. We can not isolate one factor and look for a solution. Our world is too interconnected.
The arrogance of Americans will keep us from being a global leader in finding a solution. The head of World Food Programme, the largest humanitarian agency in the world, has said, “we are witnessing a new face of hunger … food in the market …where millions of people simply can’t afford it.”
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