New York invests in a loser

From the 12 January 2009 Greater Niagara Newspapers

NEW YORK INVESTS IN A LOSER
By Bob Confer

Prior to leaving office in the summer of 2008, the former Senator Joe Bruno, long the head of the state senate, wanted to leave a legacy of sorts, something that would plant an indelible mark on New York. Not wanting it to be the FBI investigation that forced his retirement, he capped off his career by negotiating a mammoth economic development project.

Bruno was the key broker of a deal that will bring microchip manufacture AMD – specifically its subsidiary known as The Foundry - to Malta, a town of 13,000 strong located in Saratoga County. AMD’s new plant will be a $4.6 billion investment, one that will employ nearly 1,500 people when it’s up and running. Given that these forecasts hold true, this sounds like great news for Upstate.

It’s not. As the old adage says, it’s too good to be true.

You see, Bruno, Governor Paterson and their cronies at Empire State Development gave away the bank to bring AMD to our fair state. Besting the offer proposed by Dresden, Germany by some $100 million, the state won AMD’s love by giving the company a $1.3 billion incentive package, which works out to a benefit of $887,000 per job. It’s a combination of tax breaks, rebates and grants, the latter of which accounts for $650 million alone.

That’s $650 million of cold, hard cash – our cash! - literally being given away. And, it’s cash that we don’t have. With Wall Street in the dumps, New York is facing a budget gap of $15 billion, a deficit that has forced the Governor’s hand in introducing some of the most ludicrous taxes that have come down the pipeline in years. The contrast is appalling: As we regular folk struggle to run our small businesses, maintain our jobs, or keep our homes in the mother of all recessions, the state finds it necessary to drain even more of our already-pillaged income while giving money to a multinational corporation which, unlike our residents, has absolutely no allegiance to the Empire State.

Regardless of budget surplus or budget deficit, there is no company on Earth deserving of a deal as sweet as AMD’s. Under what tenets of capitalism and free markets does a government contribution of any size, let alone $650 million, make any logical sense? It doesn’t.

It’s even more illogical when you analyze AMD’s past, present, and future. AMD is a train-wreck that makes the $650 million look like the one of the worst investments of the past twelve months. With the stock market the way it is, that’s saying something.

AMD has become a poor performer and, unlike its competition (the biggest of which is Intel) who have seen revenues and profits drop because of the recession, AMD’s woes started long before the recession and they continue to this day. In third quarter of 2007 AMD accounted for 23% of the global PC and server chip market. One year later, it accounted for 17% while Intel’s market share grew to 82%. This coincided with a loss of $67 million in the third quarter of 2008 which is peanuts compared to the $396 million they lost in the third quarter of 2007! Things have become so bad that Moody’s Investor Services has announced AMD’s outlook as “negative”. Moody’s is confident the company will be cash-flow negative in 2009.

No investor in his right mind would ever go out on a limb to invest in such a bleak company. Yet, New York’s bureaucrats continue to do so. Amazingly, they weren’t disheartened by the monetary losses. And, they weren’t turned off by the telling job losses. Jobs were supposed to be the ultimate payback to our investment. There’s no way that AMD can be trusted to produce 1,500 jobs in Malta when globally they cut 2,100 jobs - 13% of their employment - in 2008. Most of these firing occurred in the early ‘08, before the market blow-up and while Bruno was still ironing out the deal.

To most observers this giveaway was pretty much set in stone when on December 16 the Public Authorities Control Board voted for the last of the minor technicalities, identifying The Foundry as a part of AMD. But, concerned taxpayers shouldn’t throw in the towel just yet. There’s still time to cancel the package because shovels won’t hit the dirt until midyear. We need to put constant pressure on Governor Paterson and our legislators, demanding they accept the mantle of leadership – which we gave them – and take a stand against this rotten deal. If they don’t, and throw away our millions, then they all are no better than corrupt investor Bernard Madoff…and just as criminal.

News media ignored economic collapse

From the 05 January 2009 Greater Niagara Newspapers

NEWS MEDIA IGNORED ECONOMIC COLLAPSE
By Bob Confer

Since November of 2007 I’ve been telling not only my coworkers, but my readers and listeners as well, that our country was in a recession. It’s too bad that I was one of the few ringing the bell when it first needed to be rung. It’s even more unfortunate, especially for our nation’s collective financial security, that the mainstream news media - cable news and national and metropolitan newspapers – failed to educate the masses on what was happening in our economy. Not until the whole world fell apart in September did the news outlets place a greater emphasis on economics.

By then it was much too late.

In the days since, the stock and financial markets collapsed and most businesses found themselves ill-prepared for what befell them. Almost overnight, they fell into crisis mode, unable to handle the sudden lack of credit and/or customers. A good many businesses, all of them recently vibrant, have been forced to layoff millions or shutter their doors. Plant closures and downsizings have been inordinately high, even in the once-indestructible automotive and chemical industries. The collapse of retail establishments has been greater: Some 160,000 retailers have closed shop in recent months and nearly a quarter million more have been pegged to do the same in 2009.

As the businesses failed (and fail), so have their one-time workers. Millions of individuals are now jobless. Positions that they thought were careers became but blips on the radar of their lives. Cast into a job market with millions more workers in supply than demand, they have only a slim chance of finding a decent income anytime in the next two, three years. Had they known, they could have done much over 2008 to batten down the hatches and ready themselves for the inevitable if not unthinkable.

Similarly, the retired were not informed that the mother of all recessions was upon us. Had they some inkling that we were in a world of hurt they could have pulled out some of their investments in the Spring or Summer before they lost huge amounts of their value in the Fall of 2008. But, they didn’t see it coming.

This suddenly crept up on most Americans because the populace was led astray for most of 2008. The national print press and trusted broadcast sources like CNN, Fox News and their brethren focused their efforts on fluffy news. They put all their best reporters and a vast percentage of their airtime on the celebrity worship that we call the presidential campaign. For every day of every month for what seemed like the longest, most drawn out campaign in American history (which it was, running from January of 2007 to November of 2008), you could not escape the bombast that was spewed by the candidates or the pundits who analyzed their every word, as relentlessly repeated as they were. You could not turn on primetime news without hearing Obama-this or McCain-that. More often than not, prior to the Fall bankruptcies and bailouts, economic news was hidden, pushed way back in the pages or left to many television minutes after being inundated with the useless political analysis of the nightly news.

That’s why you need to be very careful where you get your information. Don’t rely only on CNN or just Fox. Watch other news stations. Read newspapers, either in print or online. Open your mind to the vast information network on the web. But, tread lightly. Even academia cannot be fully trusted. The economists who now provide sound bites to news agencies are many of the very same who have derided my column over the past year-plus. The most spiteful hate mail I’ve received is not when I’ve written about controversial issues. Instead, it arrives after I’ve written about economic factors. When I first wrote of the impending economic collapse professors and educated economists from across the US blasted me for my supposed ignorance. They sounded almost McCain-like, saying that the fundamentals of the economy were sound. Ultimately, their theory-bred outlook failed to what I was seeing in the real world.

So, basically, you need a wide-variety of trustworthy sources in order to properly ascertain what’s going in the economy. You can count on your hometown newspaper as one of those sources. Business and economics have been recurring themes in my columns. In 2009 they will become the dominant themes, perhaps more than three-quarters of my columns. Hot button issues like energy, the environment, education and international affairs will take a backseat this year as we weather these unprecedented and downright frightening times.

Real estate is no good in New York

From the 29 December 2008 Greater Niagara Newspapers

REAL ESTATE IS NO GOOD IN NEW YORK
By Bob Confer

Despite the bursting of the housing bubble, real estate remains one of the smartest investments to make in most of the US. The deepening recession that we’re in is a direct result of an inordinate number of foreclosures in places like California and Nevada where totally-unrealistic home prices finally reached their apex and tanked, taking the homeowners (investors) with them. Only after this caused the financial markets to crash did foreclosures see a slight increase in Western New York. As employers who were affected by the recession cut jobs, many local homeowners, now jobless, found it impossible to keep up with their mortgages.

It’s a study in contrasts: While the foreclosures elsewhere in the US were the direct result of the collective ignorance of gambling homebuyers and the risk-taking banks who lent money to the unlendable, here, in WNY, lost homes were not the result of such ignorance but, instead, were mostly the result of issues beyond anyone’s control.

Because of that and for the fact that at first glance our region’s recessionary woes don’t come close to those of the other locales, WNY’s civic leaders – elected officials, businessmen and news outlets alike – have been wearing this like a badge of honor. They claim that we weathered the burst of the housing bubble and we are in no way responsible for what befell America.

Maybe so, but such glee is quite misguided and it hides the real truth, which is even more horrible than fiscal mismanagement by homeowners. The fact of the matter is we did not have a housing bubble – nor will we ever have one – because New York is one of the few states in the Union in which real estate is not a wise investment. That’s because our elected officials, not our citizens, have for decades mismanaged finances. They have made, and continue to make, property taxes that are much too high. The onerous amalgamation of local, county, and school taxes have stripped real estate of any future returns it might have.

Consider the following…

In Niagara County the median home value is $95,800 and the property tax burden on said home is $2,800. Suppose someone buys that home as a starter home and hopes to sell it off in a decade or two. To come out even, based on taxes-paid alone, he would have to sell that home for $123,800 after 10 or $151,800 after 20 years. That’s completely impossible in the Buffalo-Niagara region. Making matters worse, this basic analysis makes two major assumptions: One, taxes won’t rise in every one of those years and, two, he will put absolutely no money into that home (like remodeling or repairs). Those unaccounted-for factors – both of them 100% guaranteed to happen – have the lack of a payback on housing set in stone.

This is a uniquely-NY problem. Property taxes in the Empire State are 57% higher than the national average. For every $100 other Americans pay, we pay $157. And that’s the average; let’s look at one of the extremes. Recently I was visited by a customer from Tennessee. He pays a paltry $660 per year in property taxes for his 2,800-square-foot suburban new-build. In comparison, my coworker in North Tonawanda has a similar home for which he pays $6,800 in taxes annually. Another coworker pays $5,480 on his like-sized abode in Amherst. Think about it: they will have paid $68,000 and $54,800 in property taxes, respectively, after just 10 years. They will never make that up in resale value. Never. But, the Man From Tennessee will for sure. For him, and many other Americans, it makes complete sense to invest in real estate, be it housing or land, because their taxes are so low.

This takes on greater meaning now that we’ve all lost faith in the stock market. As 401(k)’s and pensions have plummeted, we’ve all looked for other options to save for our retirements and our heirs, things like hard assets such as gold, cash or real estate. Only in New York State is the latter an even poorer investment than a down market. Main Street, NY is absolutely no better than Wall Street, NY. It’s depressing because our homes are the single largest investment that we will ever make in our lifetimes.

Let’s put this into historical perspective. A tea tax, but a pittance, was the straw that broke our colonial backs and jumpstarted the American Revolution. Our property taxes are far more extravagant. Will that someday ignite that same fire of change in New Yorkers? Let’s hope so, and soon. We’ll never be a rich people as long as the depressing status quo is maintained in local and state leadership.

The cow fart tax really stinks

From the 22 December 2008 Greater Niagara Newspapers

THE COW FART TAX REALLY STINKS
By Bob Confer

(Warning: this column is totally bound-up with bathroom innuendo)

Excuse me! Everything you’ll read here is true. I’m not full of it….

Don’t let anyone tell you that the old farts in Washington aren’t good with dollars. Sure, they spend them like they’re going out of style, but they really know how to get their dirty hands on them. Tax this. Tax that. It’s an all-around crappy situation.

Because we’re such stinkers with our taxes, good ol’ Uncle Sam is flushed with excitement over the Environmental Protection Agency’s newest idea. The EPA is looking to suppress the (m)ass hysteria over global warming by letting rip with a tax on the production of greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide. It just so happens that those gases are the same gases we live and breathe every day, whether we like it or not…the same gases that every man, woman, and child occasionally lets slip. Yep, The EPA wants to tax farts. No crap! Only from the deepest bowels of Washington could something as stinky as this creep up on us.

But, they know full well that we financially-strapped taxpayers usually don’t go down without a fight as we strain to fill the pot. So, the politicians, who have a nose for bloated government, have trained their sights on the derrieres that make dairy air. They’ve put serious thought into to taxing cows for supposedly dumping on all of us with their noxious fumes.

This dark cloud of taxation reeks of disrespect for our farmers and has them asking, “what kind of ass would do this?!” Oh, the irony of the words!

They can thank the United Nations. In 2006 the organization issued a BS report about BS called “Livestock’s Long Shadow” that anal-yzed the environmental impact of cattle rearing. According to those blowhards, cows are the most significant producer of human-related greenhouse gases, far exceeding the fumes that cars spew into the air. They say livestock creates 9% of the CO2, 37% of the methane, 64% of the ammonia, and 65% of the NO2. They believe the last one to be the worst because it has 296 times the global warming impact of CO2. It’s obvious they find cow farts to have a silent but deadly effect on the environment.

What really stinks is the fact the EPA might be unstoppable because it has the Supreme Court bringing up the rear on this one. Last year the Court let us know they weren’t behind the times by upholding the Clean Air Act of 1970 which they say allows the EPA to regulate gases (greenhouse and outhouse) if it concludes the gases will affect public welfare and health. Basically, the high court will turn their noses up at any farmer who comes to them looking to give the EPA a good ol’ kick in the behind.

You can’t blame the farmers for being mad. They are already struggling to make ends meet and this will serve only to pinch-off more profits, unless the marketplace can accept higher costs. It won’t be a cheap endeavor, either. The EPA must have done a lot of pondering while on the porcelain because the impact is ass-tronomical: They would like to tax all farms that have more than 25 dairy cows, 50 head of beef, or 200 pigs. The rate would work out to be $175 for a farting cow, $87.50 for every bull and its bull, and $20 for every piggish pig. The manure and farts from a 500-head dairy farm would cost that farmer $87,500 per year in taxes. How do you like them (road) apples?

Thankfully, a lot of people have caught wind of this idea and are poo-pooing the concept. Even Senator Chuckie Schumer, usually one to be full of hot air, makes scents - I mean sense - when it comes to the fart tax. He recently let his constituents know that the he thinks the EPA is full of it when he belched this classic line: "This goes in the category ‘you can't believe this.' This will impact New York from one end to the other." God bless that stinker.

Hopefully, the EPA and our more-liberal elected officials will wipe the slate clean and toss this legislation into the sewer where it belongs. Butt – I mean but - you never know…these smelly politicians might pass this like a good movement. Why? It’s usually like pulling teeth to bring in new tax revenues, but if they have their way it will be as easy as pulling a finger. To them this fart tax is almost too good to be true. One man’s garbage really is another man’s treasure.

How can they take themselves seriously? I sure the heck can’t!

Remembering the Forgotten War

From the 15 December 2008 Greater Niagara Newspapers

REMEMBERING THE FORGOTTEN WAR
By Bob Confer

Here’s an experiment in the study of US military history: Ask anyone to list in order the three US military involvements of the past 75 years that had the highest number of casualties.

Most respondents will answer incorrectly. They will respond in a hurry, and correctly, with number 1 (World War II) and number 2 (the Vietnam Conflict). After some stumbling over a response for the third slot, most everyone – be they students or adults – will come back with the nation’s current war in and occupation of Iraq, responsible for over 4,200 deaths. That is the wrong answer. As horrific as that death toll is, it is dwarfed by that of the Korean War. The bloody conflict accounted for the death of more than 34,000 Americans and the wounding of over 103,000 more from 1950 to 1953.

That experiment shows the flaw in our society’s understanding of America’s role in global affairs. Through no fault of their own, people are deeply affected by news and entertainment media and their understanding of historical context becomes skewed by the messages and images they are bombarded with on a daily basis. We are led to live and perceive only the present, never the past and future. (In a similar vein, the media leads folks to believe that the current economic downturn is as bad as the Great Depression. It’s not even close).

It doesn’t help that the participants of the Korean War were already disrespected long before the Iraq War began. For many years this Asian conflict has been known as “the Forgotten War” because, collectively, we have ignored it and its meaning because it was bookended by the epic World War and the immensely-controversial Vietnam War.

And a Forgotten War it is. It’s rare that that we discuss it. It’s rarer yet that we give the participants their just recognition and appreciation. Everyone can readily identify the center point of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington…the restrained yet powerful Vietnam Wall. How many people can identify the primary image of the Korean War Memorial? For those who don’t know, it’s a collection of 19 statues of American soldiers trudging across rough terrain, harried looks on their faces anticipating the next surprise attack.

That haunting memorial perfectly represents the Korean experience. It was a frightening war, full of dreadful fighting reminiscent of WWI’s close-quarters bloodbaths. It started off horribly as over a thousand inexperienced and underequipped young soldiers were cut down in one of the first American battles of the war, US and UN forces greatly underestimating the power of the North Koreans. The body count remained high throughout the three-year occupation when battles in extremely rugged and dangerous mountain terrain became the norm. None of us today can imagine the stress of scaling a steep hill, wondering if the barrel of an enemy’s gun will be at your head at the next rise. Our soldiers paid a heavy price in life and limb and those who survived saw things on a daily basis that no one should ever see, memories they carry with them to this day. The war was so violent that come 1953 - after both sides each lost over a million soldiers – it ended with an armistice, a cease-fire that left a ravaged land and its two parties in no better shape than before the war.

The proper honoring of our Korean vets and their sacrifices in this ugly war are long past due. Highlighting the differential in respect versus other wars, if you travel across the States, you will find that Vietnam War memorials – all of them well-deserved - outnumber Korean War memorials at a 2.5 to 1 rate, despite the casualty difference being just 1.3 to 1. It’s surprising if not disheartening that public and private investments in Korean remembrance have been so comparatively low. Even the 50 year anniversary ceremonies held earlier this century went by with no fanfare, barely a blip on the radar of our media, our elected officials, and our citizens. Adding to this, our schools tread lightly on war studies. It’s really a travesty that most Americans are grossly uninformed in regard to something so great in scale and importance.

That lack of respect can be corrected. But, it’s important that any and all Korean memorials and ceremonies occur as soon as possible, before it is too late. The participants are in their twilight years and they won’t be with us much longer. The youngest of the soldiers turned 73 this year. As a country, we need to give them the love that is due.

You can do your part by sharing a heartfelt “thank you”. They haven’t been told those simple words enough in their lifetimes.

Salivating over Salvia

From the 08 December 2008 Greater Niagara Newspapers

SALIVATING OVER SALVIA
By Bob Confer

When drug users quibble over what hallucinogenic drugs create the strongest trips they generally rate LSD as number one, followed closely by Salvia divinorum.

Most everyone is familiar with LSD. It’s a storied substance that routinely makes the headlines, getting a fair amount of well-deserved bad press. On top of that, it’s a Schedule 1 drug that is illegal to manufacture, possess, buy, or distribute in the United States. Despite the image and the laws, in 2006 some 23 million Americans were estimated to have used the drug in their lifetimes.

Salvia, on the other hand, is a relatively unknown drug. It gets almost no major media attention and is legal to distribute and posses in all but a dozen states. You may not know about Salvia, but there’s a very good chance your children do, maybe even intimately.

Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, Salvia is the latest craze in the youth drug culture, quickly becoming the drug of choice. Word about its dissociative abilities has spread like wildfire on the web and kids find themselves amused by – and therefore curious of – its effects after viewing any one of the thousands of Salvia trip videos that are available on YouTube, Google Video, and the like. They’re easily able to see their peers acting erratically, aggressively, and dangerously, even driving while under the influence of the herb. Go online and give it a look. If you have even a modicum of maturity you’ll find these videos disturbing.

The net not only promotes Salvia, but it sells it, too. This makes it ungodly easy for youth to get their mitts on a potent drug. No longer do they have to worry about breaking a law or dealing with questionable and dangerous drug pushers. It’s all just a mouse-click away.

A quick search will show hundreds of internet companies selling Salvia. A relatively cheap high, anyone can buy it for as little as $9 gram to as much as $64 per gram depending on the strength. And, unfortunately, it’s delivered incognito. In most cases it arrives via standard mail in an envelope or as a package from what appears to be a reputable supplement/health company along the lines of GNC. Few parents would question their children on either count.

Because of the congruence of all these factors, use of Salvia has exploded. In the past twelve months alone, over 750,000 have used it for the first time. One online vendor brags that his sales to New York State have increased by 1,000 percent in the past half-year.

Yes, you read that right. The Empire State, usually the state to have more laws than any other, has no restrictions on Salvia. So, there’s a very good chance that high school and college students you know have used the stuff.

This legal impasse is not for a lack of trying. For the past five legislative sessions the State Senate has passed a series of bills that make the sale and or possession of Salvia on offense in New York State. In each and every session the Assembly has put them out to die in committee. This year was no different. Bill S.695, sponsored by Senator Flanagan of Long Island, would make it illegal to peddle the plant in NY. It was overwhelmingly passed by the Senate back in February. Since then, the Assembly has let the bill (as A.610) sit idle in the economic development committee. Other bills, like Senator Maziarz’s attempt to identify Salvia as an LSD-type controlled substance (S.7736) have been met with disdain. That said, it’s imperative that you contact your assemblyperson and ask him or her to support such legislation when it returns to the floor in 2009.

If they fail to make headway yet again, which is likely and unconscionable, it might be up to our local elected officials to succeed where Albany has failed. The county legislators would need only to follow the lead of Suffolk County. There, back in April of this year, it was signed into local law that possession or sale of Salvia in the county is a misdemeanor punishable by a year in jail and/or a $1,000 fine.

As long as the laws allow it, kids will continue to use this weed, putting them and their companions in peril. It’s up to you as a parent or friend to make yourself aware of this insidious, easily-acquired drug. With no laws on the books it will be up to you to make law in your home.

Obama discriminates against gun owners

From the 01 December 2008 Greater Niagara Newspapers

OBAMA DISCRIMINATES AGAINST GUN OWNERS
By Bob Confer

If you count yourself as a gun owner and are among the hundreds of thousands who are applying for any one of the 7,000 job openings in the Obama Administration, do yourself a favor. Throw the application out.

Don’t bother applying because it will be an exercise in futility. You won’t have a chance based upon the line of questioning posed in question 59 (out of 63). It reads as follows: “Do you or any members of your immediate family own a gun? If so, provide complete ownership and registration information. Has the registration ever lapsed? Please also describe how and by whom it is used and whether it has been the cause of any personal injuries or property damage."

Intrusive. Offensive. Unprecedented. Pick any adjective of negative connotation and it will apply here. This method of vetting is really that bad.

It’s disconcerting, even amusing, that a man whose supporters pride themselves on being non-discriminatory is he himself discriminatory. The President-Elect obviously finds fault with those who believe in practicing their natural right to self defense, one that is duly noted in the Second Amendment of the Constitution, the document he has sworn to uphold and protect as Senator. Obama will make that same promise but with even greater zeal and meaning when he is sworn in as our forty-fourth president. It can be argued that his oaths of office – past and future - are but outright lies based on his neglect of duty to our nation’s bible.

The Second Amendment, as other amendments, will suffer under his rule. When all is said and done he will go down as the most anti-gun president in the history of the United States. We can predict this now with relative certainty because the employment application offers a telling glimpse into his mind, something the electorate weren’t made privy to during his campaign when his responses to gun-related questions were like those he provided to most all other inquiries, meandering and uninformative. Obama’s slick talk of change and his unwillingness to answer questions masked his true intentions of wanting to deny us the individual right to bear arms, something he has a proven track record of.

His most horrific commentary occurred back in 1996 – a scant 12 years ago - when he first ran for the state senate of Illinois. Then he wrote in a candidates’ questionnaire that he supported a total ban on the manufacture, sale, and possession of handguns. That highly-unconstitutional belief manifested itself again earlier this year when over 300 congressmen and senators signed a brief for the now-classic District of Columbia v. Heller case, asking that the Supreme Court to support the individual right to bear arms. Obama was not among the signers.

If he is unable to make an outright ban happen, Obama will do his best to take away certain nuances of ownership. Among the most odious of such desires would be to deny the right to self-protection. Most states now have a Right-to-Carry so a firearm can used as a means to suppress a criminal attack or rape. In 2004, just before he came to Washington, he let it be known that he has and will oppose all such legislation and, if he had his chance, he would push federal legislation that would allow only law enforcement personnel to legally carry guns. Bills like this only serve to empower the criminals.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. He supports the resurrection of the Clinton Gun Ban. He wanted to drive up by 500% the federal excise tax on guns and ammunition. He wants all gun owners to be licensed and registered. He also would like them to be no younger than 21. His list of anti-gun sentiments is endless and incriminating.

Right now, there aren’t too many people who voted for him who understand the horrible significance of his Constitutional onslaught. But, those who did not vote for the man know better and are preparing for his regime. While the rest of the economy has slipped into a meltdown not seen since the days of the Great Depression, gun shops have experienced a boom not seen since the days of the Old West. In the two months leading up to the election and the month since, gun sales at many stores across the US have grown in excess 100% and in some cases 400%. People are stocking up on weapons while they can, now before the Obama Administration goes into power and makes buying a gun just like trying to get a federal job were you to own a gun…nearly impossible.

Personal Finance 101

From the 24 November 2008 Greater Niagara Newspapers

PERSONAL FINANCE 101
By Bob Confer

Americans have a long tradition of teaching our youth about common sense for the comments cents. At a very young age we start them on the path to fiscal conservancy by providing them with a piggy bank and the lessons that go with filling it and saving for the object of their desires.

Despite such an important life lesson we seem to forget it as we come of age. No longer limited to maintaining a piggy bank for basic childhood wants, we adopt newfound adult responsibilities, desires, and income. As they hold jobs to pay for wants and needs, many find it necessary to save little or nothing yet spend a lot in order to satisfy the culture of consumerism so prevalent in today’s world. It’s an ongoing cycle of addiction, one fueled by the messages we receive from advertisements, the media, shifty lenders, and our own peers. Today’s adults feel compelled to have the biggest, best and most when it comes to housing, cars, electronics, and leisure.

This materialism has caused many people to approach their incomes with reckless abandon and the economy has hit a brick wall. Millions of homeowners couldn’t pay for the morbid mortgages they entered into and millions more have accrued unreasonable amounts of debt on their credit cards, the next nightmare on the horizon. They all gambled on the housing bubble, they all lived beyond their means. It’s bad for them, yet worse for us a collective society. We’re all on the hook for their debts, our federal government spending our reserves and creating money out of thin air to prop up the faltering financial markets that were based on false, ethereal funds and credit payments that will never materialize.

For all those folks who spent and invested with no respect for the true value of the dollar, there are many more people who, like me, are pennywise. I’m notoriously cheap at work and at home, finding it difficult to part with a dollar. I know that if I err on the side of excess at home, I’m on the streets. I know that if I do the same at work, there will be 120 families on the street. You’ll find me saving my money to improve my future and investing in my company to guarantee its future.

I’m left asking (as are many others): Why can’t more people be that frugal? We coupon-cutting cheapskates feel let down by the world around us, wondering why we must pay for the sins of society.

Truth be told, the spenders might not be acting in a malicious way. They might just be ignorant. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. They may be uneducated in personal finance. It’s a confusing world out there with so many gimmicks on mortgages, interest rates, loans, retirement accounts and all else financial. I was fortunate enough to have fiscal knowledge drilled into my brain by my parents and the Boy Scouts.

The latter brings me to this point: We need to educate our young adults on basic personal finance. It works. “Thrifty” is just one of the twelve points of the Scout Law, ranking up there with the likes of “trustworthy” and “helpful”. Scouts are taught endless lessons on saving and spending wisely. The Scouting program knows the importance to society of a young man who respects the dollar and the penny. Because of that, most Scouts are stable in their adult lives.

That same approach needs to be applied to our high schools. Back in the day – maybe to this day - there was a class called Home Economics. There were no economics involved, it was all domestic science. We were taught how to sew and cook. It would behoove the greater good of this nation if the schools developed a course that was a true study in home economics, a year-long course for high school seniors that educated them on all the nuances of personal savings. Many seniors have study halls galore, so it would not be that difficult to add another course to their schedule. Millions of seniors venture into the real world every June and it’s imperative that we prepare them for it. They’ll be better - we’ll be better - for it.

It comes down to this:

The wealth of a person is not based on that which is spent. It’s based on what is saved. The wealth of our nation should be based on that which is spent and saved: by spending just a little on the intellect of our youth we can save our nation from a repeat of the horrible economic disaster we’re in now.

Don't bailout the auto industry

From the 17 November 2008 Greater Niagara Newspapers

DON’T BAILOUT THE AUTO INDUSTRY
By Bob Confer

You’d be hard pressed to find someone who supported the $700 bailout of Wall Street. Most folks were up in arms over how taxpayer money – our money! - was used to reward Wall Street’s excesses and bad behavior. This ire, which was shared by pretty much everyone except for Congress and Wall Street’s bigwigs, was well-intentioned and a real breath of fresh air. It was nice to finally see so many people that upset with Big Government.

Even so, I can’t help but to walk away from that uprising with a sense of pessimism directed towards the masses. I have to feel that way when I see how selective they have been with their criticism of 2008’s ongoing “New New Deal”. Where were the critics when Uncle Sam issued the economic stimulus checks? Where were the naysayers when we covered homeowners’ bad mortgage decisions? Why didn’t the media throw a temper tantrum over the government’s buyout of AIG or its cash infusion to the banks?

It’s all because people are mad only when it’s convenient for them. Their anger, their resentment, surfaces only when it’s not they or their interests who are at the financial feeding trough. Because of that selectivity, the federal government has run roughshod over our economy, making FDR’s historic efforts look almost pedestrian. By focusing only on the aforementioned $700 bailout, the media and citizens of our nation have virtually ignored the cornucopia of bailouts, buyouts, stimuli, infusions, loans and the like bestowed upon us the past six months. So far this year Uncle Sam has doled out $2.950 trillion of those giveaways and we still have a long ways to go before the economy can even begin to be healthy. Without the masses pulling tightly on the checkrein, the fed will no doubt feel obligated to issue more rescue plans which might include the salvation of credit card debtors (card debt now stands at $970 billion) or the confiscation of 401k accounts.

Nothing is out of the question unless we make a stand now. The line has to be drawn somewhere, sometime, somehow. There is no better place to start than the next item on the government’s things-to-do list: the bailout of the US auto industry.

As I was writing this column top level officials were still debating what to do to save the industry, specifically General Motors. GM was fearful that come December it would be totally out of cash and bankruptcy would occur. Based on recent history, giving them a bailout would be something akin to giving the keys for the liquor store to the alcoholic who says he’s learned self-control. By believing the loser you’re only feeding his bad habits and guaranteeing his death.

GM’s woes were brought on by its addiction to operating under sales techniques that were developed by manufacturers in the 1800’s and have been obsolete since. Back in the day, manufacturers would build to supply and not to demand, more or less dictating what the consumer would buy. Back then, the manufacturer defined the market. Nowadays, with so many choices available, the consumer defines the market and the manufacturer adjusts accordingly. GM hasn’t adjusted and is still making vehicles that the consumers don’t want, hence its cash flow problems: GM can’t sell that which it has made. Ignorant to ongoing fuel scare issues that have been with us since the 1970’s and oblivious to the burgeoning green movement, GM is putting out too many trucks and SUV’s, only dabbling in the smaller vehicles that are less expensive or use less energy…the very cars that people want and are buying from the highly-successful new American auto industry (the foreign firms who manufacture on American soil). With GM, it’s always too little too late.

Basically, the bailout – once again, our money - would only go towards temporarily masking the weaknesses of GM’s management. It would give them the cash they need to get through their current financial crisis, but, with the status quo as it is at GM, the taxpayers would never see a return on their loans because of the perpetuation of bad business practices.

The same criticism was said of Wall Street. Yet, because of how beloved the auto industry is, there are very few people who will levy those charges against GM. Even so, there are fewer people who will say with confidence that GM is doing the things necessary to change its ways. It’s destined to die, whether it’s December 2008 or December 2011. The bailout will be but an investment in that demise, the government rewarding bad behavior, just as it did on Wall Street.

An open letter to our elected officials

From the 09 November 2008 Greater Niagara Newspapers

AN OPEN LETTER TO OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS
By Bob Confer

Congratulations on your victory at the polls last week.

I know it wasn’t easy. No doubt it took months, maybe years, of blood, sweat, and tears to win the election. You can’t stop there, though. If you thought politicking was tough, brace yourself. Now the hard work begins. You’ve won the election. Now, you’ve got to win our respect.

You’ve got your work cut out for you.

First of all, if you’re new to your role, you’ve got to understand this isn’t your father’s government. If you were reelected last week, know that this isn’t the political environment you’ve grown accustomed to. There’s a new brand of accountability in the air. You’ll be expected to be the type of statesman that was once the norm in the America of long ago. You’ll be required to make some preposterously difficult decisions. In the very recent past, most elected officials have skated-by by maintaining the status quo or doling out some pork. Not anymore. We the People have become as restless and angered as a hurt animal. To be cliché, we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.

This sudden and welcome change of being is an outcome of the world around us. We’ve been let down for decades and that mistreatment has finally come to a head, the economy plunging into despair not seen since the days of the Great Depression. Small businesses are struggling to stay afloat. Hundreds of thousands of families have lost their jobs and their homes. All seniors have witnessed the collapse of their retirement accounts. The younger generations are entering a job market that might never let them achieve the standard of living that their parents had.

Because of this trauma to our pocketbooks, our way of life, and the very core of the American Dream, people from all walks of life have finally come to the understanding that good representation is the remedy for what ails us. We want results. We need results. We have to be that way and we always should have been. But, as a nation, we let our civic responsibilities slip and that has come back to haunt us. Because a majority of Americans found themselves more in tune with the outcome of American Idol than with past elections they overlooked where our nation was going. Because of that indifference to that which truly matters, our leadership was not held in check, and slowly but surely Bad Government – some of it too big, some of it too small – permeated the landscape, allowing the collapse of our economy to occur. Those citizens, who because of their malaise are just as guilty as their elected officials, have learned their lesson. That’s why “change” was such an important part of all the campaigns this year. The People themselves have changed and they are demanding the very same of you.

The wish list for Change is endless. Things have to change in the way our government views spending, entitlements, bailouts, the dollar, the economy, the banks, Wall Street, Main Street, education, and national defense. With such an impressive if not frightening list you couldn’t come into office at a more remarkable time in our history. The next few years are extremely important to America. We’re teetering on the edge. A few wrong decisions could destroy our economy and the America we know and love will be but an afterthought.

Please accept this mantle of responsibility with the utmost care and dedication. All of us - those who voted for you and those who did not- look forward to seeing what you can accomplish while in office, hoping that what you do or don’t do helps to make a better community, a better state, and a better country. Your legacy depends on it. Our future requires it.

Make us proud.