STOP, LOOK, LISTEN

STOP, LOOK, LISTEN

An ageless proverb says wisely, %u201Chave a care o th main chance, And look before you leap; For as you sow, ye are like to reap%u201C.

With change simply for the sake of change, upheaval in everything from health care to banking to transportation and even the way we eat carries a huge potential for unintended consequences as we construct ways to solve problems real and imagined.

If you look at recent history, it tells us of things never thought of, nor talked about in a public policy forum but which were obvious from the beginning and would have taken us in the direction of a positive out come instead of another dead end.

For example what did we learn from the idea of turning a basic food like corn into transportation energy that was obvious in the beginning? What hind sight should have been foresight? Let%u2019s take a look. at available alternatives that might have avoided failure of a nascent industry.

With its corrosive nature and vulnerability to water contamination, pipelines used for the transportation of hydrocarbon products are unsuitable for ethanol requiring that it move by more expensive overland routes.

Butanol comes from the same corn feed stock but uses a different fermentation enzyme and can be burned in any current internal combustion engine. We buy it now as paint thinner with a cost of about $4.00 per gallon which would most certainly be reduced were it put into bulk production for transportation fuel. BP is researching the cost feasibility of this alternative fuel. It is anticipated that BP as a member of the business sector will thoroughly flush out the pros and cons in contrast with government intervention before seeking butanol mandates.

The significant energy costs for ethanol production and its process water requirement have turned corn ethanol used for transportation into a dead end. Even so, industry lobbyists are seeking regulations to increase the content in standard gasoline from ten to fifteen percent.

What might we conclude from the ethanol lessons as we turn our attention to remaking the automobile industry, health care, banking, financial and energy. Let%u2019s examine each premise used to justify the direction to which we are being led in the auto industry for example.

A 30 year lack of a coherent energy policy caused a sudden economic disruption by external factors (OPEC) we no ability to control that directly affected people%u2019s ability and desire to buy their product. There is no way that any auto manufacturer could afford a moth-balled design awaiting that event.

Obviously this is true. When Detroit developed the compact car in response to the first OPEC embargo, they failed miserably. Anyone who drove cars like the Pinto, Chevette, Maverick and others sought alternatives products like Honda, Toyota, Volkswagen and other Asian and European builders. They still provide excellent choices for buyers seeking that style of driving.

But to say that car buyers want to limit their choices by excluding SUV%u2019s is a totally unwarranted conclusion.

Let%u2019s look at the geographical and political factors that shaped European car design. European visitors to the U.S. are astounded at the enormous size. Alaska is larger in area than the combined areas of France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and the U.K. Riding middle in the back seat of an Alpha Romeo 170 miles across northern Italy from Milan to Venice may be tolerable (barely) but doing it from Dallas to El Paso 657 miles would require an osteopath to extricate you from the car.

Driving the Autobahn with no speed limit is an exhilarating experience for a visitor from the states. There are no pothole patches nor expansion joints. But expressways do not go into any European center cities. They terminate in a ring around the metro area requiring the use of city streets to penetrate to the center where parking is virtually unavailable. London requires a special license to drive down town in an effort to relieve congestion. Twenty miles out from the center of Paris is farm land. The urban sprawl that characterize our metro areas has never developed and suburban commutes to work in the center city are much less frequent than what we are accustomed to.

European rail traffic makes our commuter trains seem like cattle cars. They are fast, clean and smooth. Virtually all destinations are conveniently reachable by train. Duplicating rail access in the U.S. would be prohibitively expensive and given our vast area, personal transportation was always the best answer especially when energy costs were reasonable.

Gasoline costs three to four times as much in Europe because of taxes used to help pay for cradle to grave European socialism. This is a major factor in car design. Where fuel efficiency is a much more important design consideration than in the U.S. (at least until the leap in fuel costs), small, light autos with manual transmissions dominate the show room selections and an SUV sighting is extremely rare.

So why, after fifty plus years of American driving experience, have we just discovered that domestic auto manufacturers have been making cars no one wants to buy? We must be the most fickle bunch of consumers in modern history. The objective of customer satisfaction in car design has been replaced with bureaucratic criteria fashioned by government political appointees who, by their own admission, know nothing about the industry. With development of our own huge energy resources paralyzed by government ideologues, we are told that European (and Asian) car designs are necessitated by unavailability of affordable energy.

The 800 pound behemoth sitting in the back seat is a fiction so audacious that it clouds men%u2019s minds. The concept that our living habits cause climate change has become the rationale for all sorts of behavior modification sought by government fiat. More dogma than science, supporters of this theory ignore questions like what does temperature rise on Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Pluto have to do with earth%u2019s carbon dioxide. Most climate scientists do not support this theory but, unfortunately, the popular media chooses to amplify only supporters of anthropogenic global warming.

A very foreseeable result of filling the roads with electric cars is that if we replaced only the imported oil with battery powered products, it would be necessary to double the capacity of our electric grid.

In summary, we have an economically damaged U.S. auto industry largely due to inept management. aggravated by a severe economic downturn brought on by exorbitant energy costs. There is no reason to believe that European car designs that replace vehicles which have satisfied American consumers for over half a century will revive the auto business. It is more likely that owners of SUV%u2019s and pick up trucks will simply drive them longer rather than trade in for a high mileage compact.

A similar analysis of how other sweeping changes proposed for the length and breadth of our fundamental way of life will yield the same flawed reasoning from biased input.

Problem solving requires discipline, dedication and focus. The current Washington milieu is a frenetic hop scotch from one %u201Ccrisis%u201D to another and back. While the president was making an address in Cairo, a TV screen crawl made reference to his intention to address the drug problem. The gratification is more instant when using charisma to urge change day after day but flexing the muscle between the ears is more likely to produce lasting solutions. It is obvious that fundamental assumptions which need questioning are going unquestioned. If the system has a problem, you can change the system to accommodate the problem or you can solve the problem. Unfortunately, the preference for flamboyance of the former obscures the need for the latter. As Churchill said, %u201CAll men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes%u201D.

Stop what you are doing and do more than lend lip service to all points of view. Develop sound plans with sufficient time for public review and comment.  Until the, just STOP!