Archive: Opinions

The brain (mine, that is, the part that still functions in a normal manner) is going in several different directions this week, and somehow it is trying to convince me that if I look real hard, all of these different directions are towards what might be tied together by the end of the column. I may not know exactly where I am heading, but have always received a vicarious thrill closing my eyes while driving at high speed (the phrase 'move fast and break things would be funny if it wasn't already spoken by Zuckerberg...).

Let's start with the Ford Motor Company. They were the only American auto manufacturer that declined any financial assistance from the federal government during the last economic downturn (labeled by the media as the Great Recession, much the same way they feel they have to label every storm these days). General Motors sold millions of dollars of almost worthless stock to Uncle Sam and eventually paid it back. Chrysler is and has been an economic pig in a poke... just ask Daimler who bought it and dumped it, and now Fiat who owns it and regrets it). I remember the first Chrysler bailout in the late 70's from the Fed that folk singer Tom Paxton sang about:


"I am changing my name to Chrysler
And I'm going down to Washington D.C.,
And I'll tell some power broker
that what you did for Iacocca
would be perfectly acceptable to me...
I am changing my name to Chrysler..."

Anyway, the new CEO of Ford has seen some interesting handwriting on the wall and announced that except for the Mustang and one 'crossover' vehicle, they are phasing out all passenger sedan production; trucks and SUVs only, folks, will have a Ford nameplate. Profits are no longer possible on small cars/sedans anymore. So, it should also be noted that Ford is very big in the soon-to-be autonomous vehicle (read: self-driving) research as well as the electric vehicle ramp-up. I might wonder (well, I DO wonder) how Ford will fit into the government bid business for autos and trucks (every three years) with only SUVs. Will the Tompkins County Health Department only have Ford Explorers in their parking lot, sitting in their parking lot looking like a Ford dealership? How about when Ford gets the government bid for State Police vehicles... with no sedans will we be seeing Ford Expeditions and Flexs in high speed chases??? Yikes. Maybe Ford doesn't want the business in government bids anymore (can't say I blame them, I guess). Or, remember back in the 80's when New York decided to be cool and bought a lot of Camaros and Mustangs for thruway Trooper cars, then realized that the equipment that State Troopers need wouldn't fit in the trunks of those racers???

Maybe Ford is looking ahead at a new (and to Detroit, scary) trend in how people may be viewing and obtaining automobiles. Scott Painter is CEO of a company called FAIR, which is a car 'subscription' start-up with a billion dollars in 'seed money' (Financial Times). The service connects drivers to used cars at dealerships nationwide, bundling warranty, maintenance, roadside assistance and insurance into a month-to-month pay-by-app fee. Starts at $150.00 monthly. Pick up your car at your choice of participating dealer and return it anytime with a five day notice. Like Ithaca's new bike program, but more exclusive and complicated. The idea is that more and more people don't want to buy or lease a car with its attendant skyrocketing hassles and costs. Is this a scary program for dealers and manufacturers of new cars? Do people want to own a car in the age of Uber and autonomous vehicles?? Does the migration of millennials to city centers indicate a demise of the ownership market for automobiles??

So, maybe Ford is looking for handwriting on the wall of the 21st century, or maybe they see something else (or don't see with their gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs) that some of us do see. Sorry to predict this (I depend on a car, too) but gas prices are headed to $4.00 a gallon, probably before Labor Day, and this time they may very well not go down as previously. Saudi Arabia and Russia nudged down their production this winter, and convinced other OPEC nations to try the same. The crude price has busted through the $75.00 a barrel limit, and will almost definitely go through $80.00 very soon (if not by the time you read this). The Venezuelan oil fields are broken irretrievably, and the Iran 'deal' which may go bust will affect prices, as well. The Saudis need $80.00 crude to finance their sovereign fund which may go on the NY Stock Exchange next year, and the Russians need at least $80.00 a barrel to alleviate the effects of US sanctions which are hitting hard.

Connection time: I am convinced (and many look at me like I'm nuts when I tell them this theory) that Richard Nixon's downfall was not just Watergate, or the Oval Office tapes, or the criminals he hired and covered for. His downfall could have been predicted in February 1974 (six months before his resignation) when gasoline prices went from 29 cents a gallon to 75 cents a gallon overnight. Literally, overnight. America was angry, looking for someone to blame, a scapegoat, because you can steal a lot of things from us and we may shrug, but when you stand in line for hours for gasoline (which we think is ours by birthright), that is 3X more expensive than last week, someone is going to pay politically. America's anger at Nixon was related in no small way to the situation at the gas pump. "You'll get my car when you pry my cold dead fingers from my steering wheel."

And we're close to having this happen again, but a bit slower. Inflation is heating up, fuel storage costs and trucking costs are soaring, the North Dakota oil fields have no place to store the excess, and rail cars are at a premium. Airlines are already reporting double digit increases in jet fuel, and trucking firms are scrambling to find trucks and drivers. Pharmaceuticals, insurance and groceries are moving upwards in tandem with the GDP (yes, it's moving nicely, but wages are not keeping up, except for minimum wage requirements in several states). The economy could be overheating, as the Federal reserve watches like a hawk, gas prices are on the rise and America may soon be looking for a scapegoat if things get weird as they did in 1973-1974. By the way, we came very close to calling up the 82nd Airborne to the Middle East when Nixon and Brezhnev decided to play games around Israel in February of 1974, too.

Connection: The meeting of the heads of state in Korea is great news. But, in my humble opinion, Kim of the North is being played like a fiddle not by Trump but by Xi Xin Ping, strongman extraordinaire of China. Kim went to Beijing and I think he was told in no uncertain terms that he has accomplished his goals, i.e., a functioning bomb, long range missiles (thanks a bunch, Iran) and has gotten Donald Trump's goat, albeit by puffing him up when the White House says 'I did this'.

Now, says Xi of China to Kim of the People's Republic of Korea: 'Cool it, and play kissy-face and huggy-bear with the South'. Kim stops his nuclear program because he now knows it works, and he has collapsed the mountain where he is testing... shutting it down is a farce... it's already destroyed, as I told you in this column in March, and now the world can watch as the ultimate ego masters meet in Mongolia (or wherever) and both have their massive egos salved and inflated by the media and photo ops. Trump's ego will open him up to the master manipulation of Xi Xin Ping behind the scenes, pulling Kim's strings. Our President may very well be 'played like a fiddle' when he gets false agreements, and is ultimately manipulated without realizing it. Yes, a peace treaty between the two Koreas will be marvelous... but will it result in a reduction of the tens of thousands of weapons and men on the DMZ?? Please don't call me a conspiracy theorist on this next one.

The 'nine-dash line' that China has drawn in the South China Sea is fraught with tension and potential disaster: Australia has already faced off with the Chinese navy over this one. China has been making noises about Taiwan for years, and escalating the noise since Trump took office and a phone call from the President of Taiwan. We've been purposely poking China in the eye recently with Taiwan arm sales, etc. Did we sell Taiwan out in 1979 ? (thanks, Jimmy Carter). Yep, we did.

But China now has two aircraft carriers and they will be steaming very close to Taiwan this summer (they've already warned us about these exercises) while their world class air force buzzes the US Air Force in the South China Sea, stating it is in their 'zone of influence' as they develop ocean rocks into airfields and radar sites in previously neutral waters, or other countries' domain. Trump's bluster (yes, I know bluster sounds like strength, and make American great again, but do we really have the guts to push the issue, or strength?) may add fuel to the fire, unless a third party/country (VietNam, now our 'friend', Phillipines, maybe our 'friend', or Australia) gets involved, provoked, challenged. Do I hear proxy confrontation?

Conclusion: There is a very dangerous time coming, perhaps very shortly, in the East Asian Axis, and we have no real diplomats, or true military power, to defuse it. Plus, we are being distracted by the Korea 'rapprochement' . Korean stall tactics (or misunderstandings about practically anything), Chinese military maneuvers, Xi Xin Ping's rise to total power over his Communist Party and military, rising gasoline prices at home, and a President who now occasionally acts as if he is King of the Hill. Let's throw in a small trade war with our largest trading partner.

And, one more thing from my American history understanding which I think fits into this scenario: if a bill to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller prohibiting his firing by the President passes in Congress (who knows at this point, but sure to be vetoed) it will potentially set up a variation on the situation which brought Andrew Johnson before America's first impeachment trial in 1867. The dispute was about many things, but essentially it came down to Johnson firing a Cabinet member, and Congress saying he could not do so without their permission, a classic case of the two branches duking it out constitutionally. Congress then voted to impeach, and the Senate failed by one vote to convict him. Can Trump fire Mueller? I think constitutionally he has every right. Should he? Only if he really is nuts.

I see conflict coming both within and without our borders, not withstanding the immigration wars. This summer and autumn are fraught with Constitutional, economic and military hazards, much as we were confronted with essentially the same issues in 1973-1974. "Those who ignore history...", as Santayana opined. And, I hope I'm wrong. I don't like being accused of having 'Chicken Little' for a middle name.

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