Page 3 - Sanger Herald 8-16-18 E-edition

SANGER HERALD 3A THURSDAY, AUGUST 16, 2018 EDITORIAL & OPINION
Random thoughts Those who complain the loudest are the least likely to do anything about it ...
By Dick Sheppard
I've been asked several times recently what kind of a city council election cam- paign we can expect this time around.
The question always
comes from someone who
remembers one or two of
the more angry and bombastic campaigns of the past, ones that produced lots of "sound and fury" but didn't drive any voters to the polls and didn't change much of anything.
Most of the sound and fury has always been
on social media where people are brave enough to post about how unhappy they are - and that, unfortunately, is apparently the extent of their political activism.
I don't expect much more this time around.
Sanger voters are notorious for being apa- thetic. Posts on Facebook or acrimony during city council meetings most voters never attend aren't going to motivate them to go to the polls.
I can't remember a local campaign that didn't remind me of a line from Shakespeare's Macbeth.
To paraphrase only slightly, "It strutted and fretted its hour on the stage and then was heard
Councilmembers Eli Ontiveros and Humberto Garza have challengers and
it's remotely possible that councilmember Melissa Hurtado could defeat Andy Vidak in the 14th district state senate race and have to resign as a councilmember.
If those who do the most complaining about the council, and there's been quite
a bit of that going on recently, would stop complaining and start organizing, there might actually be some changes. But that would require action, not just words, and a dozen years of watching city council races in Sanger has convinced me that those who complain the loudest are the least likely to actually do anything about it.
"We have met the enemy and he is us."
- Pogo
Comments, complaints and suggestions may be emailed to sangerherald@gmail.com or may be made by calling 875-2511.
Dick Sheppard
GUEST local commentary
Steel and aluminum are up, but it’s not showing up
in consumer and producer prices and the Trump economy is still booming
no more: it was a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
There is a potential for a significant change in the council composition.
By Robert Romano
One of the conventional wisdoms to do with the tariffs and duties levied by the Trump administration on steel, aluminum and lumber is that they will lead to higher prices and inflation, hurting producers and consum- ers, thus stunting economic growth.
For example, billionaire Charles Koch warned on July 30 that the tariffs would lead to a recession.
So far, however, that does not appear to be the case. In the second quarter of 2018, the U.S. economy boomed at an inflation-ad- justed 4.1 percent annualized. And the latest consumer and producer prices, taking into account the period when many of the tariffs were levied, do not show the predicted price hikes.
Consumer inflation is up 0.8 percent the past six months, below the Fed’s 2 percent 12-month target.
As for producer prices, if you look at fin- ished goods for final demand by commodity less energy and food, you see a 1.44 percent increase the last six months, averaging 0.24 percent a month. That is slightly below the historical average of 0.27 percent a month dating back to 1974.
Americans for Limited Government president Rick Manning commented on the numbers, saying, “the six-month tracking demonstrates that the economic growth spurt generated through president Trump’s economic policies have not spurred higher costs to consumers. Just one more piece of welcome news that defies so-called expert predictions.”
To be fair, since the steel and aluminum tariffs were recommended in February by the Commerce Department, announced in March and taken effect in May, steel and alu- minum prices have increased on commodi- ties markets.
For example, Aug. 2018 contracts on hot rolled coil steel on NYMEX increased from about $690 to $901 as of this writing, a 30.5 percent increase. And Sept. 2018 contracts on aluminum MW U.S. premium platts on NYMEX have increased from $0.13 to $0.195, a 50 percent increase.
But what has not happened is it impact-
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ing overall consumer and producer prices and hindering growth overall, as seen by the latest numbers. That is because steel and alu- minum only make up a small part of overall consumer and producer prices, such that an increase in demand for U.S.-produced steel and aluminum could lead a price increase, but not at all slow economic growth or trig- ger inflation.
As for lumber, it is true that after the President Donald Trump announced the tariff on Canadian lumber in April 2017, Sept. 2018 contracts on lumber futures on NYMEX did increase from about $350 to $624 on May 27, but guess what? The prices since then have crashed dramatically by 33.7 percent back down to $414.
It was a speculative bubble. Perhaps driven by the announcement of the tariffs, but a bubble nonetheless that turned out to not be sustainable when real market factors were taken into consideration by investors. The futures prices after all on commodities markets do not take into account taxes. They are a pre-tax price, and in any event, the U.S.- produced commodities in question are not being taxed at all.
All of which serves as a cautionary tale for those investors that drove the futures prices up on steel and aluminum, as that increase may not be long-lived. Market factors explain it too. As U.S.-based steel and aluminum pro- ducers take advantage of the current trade advantages and increase market share, they will also ramp up production. This will in turn of eventually bringing prices down to what the market can bear.
Meaning, although there are obvious market impacts brought on by the tariffs, at the end of the day, they are taxes on foreign- produced goods and commodities. The incen- tive is to purchase the U.S.-made products instead, which is what is happening. It’s the whole point of the policy.
What it won’t lead to, however, is 1970s- style overall inflation or impede economic growth, no matter how many times the alarmists make such predictions.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Gov- ernment.
An award winning 2018 member of the California Newspaper Publishers Association
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In my OPINION
Bureaucrats with power and no oversight
By Fred Hall
quality of life than generating revenue to support their personnel and expensive opera- tions. Readily identifiable would be the 35 local air districts as well as the California Air Resources Board. Simple math with extrapolation of salary, equipment and opera- tional costs will give one an idea of the huge amounts of money it takes to keep such a bloated bureaucracy operating.
All of these people have been endowed with great power by their own creation with basicallynooversight. Perhapsthemost appropriate analogy for air boards would be a comparison with our infamous Department of Motor Vehicles. Talk about the inmates being in charge of the asylum, one can't do better than these two areas.
Before one assumes that my claims might behyperbole abouttheintrusionofenviron- mentally formulated agencies, remember they have agendas that are overly drawn. Remember these people are contributors to the reason we have overpriced gasoline that is so poorly blended as to be simply a cock- tail of chemicals. It seems to be well estab- lished by automobile experts that, in the end, California formulated fuel is a poor choice, and life-shortening one, for your second larg- estinvestment. Allenergyconsumedby Californians is extremely costly for the very same reason—bureaucratic oversight. There are so many mandates that have been created by unelected bodies that it has become overly expensive and problematic.
The State is attempting to force us into the use of high speed rail travel which may never be completed and certainly will not be employed at a high enough usage rate
as to be a practical self-sustaining venture. Electric cars are being subsidized by the government and are, as with the train, being force fed to a public which has no, or very little, interest. People don't want them; gov- ernment subsidies will never be able to prop them up.
Fact is that government has little or no impact on climate change, global warming
or any of the other invented environmental concerns. Thefortunesandtribulationsof nature are far above the pay grade of man- kind. Theonlythingourpoliticallyappointed bureaucracies are accomplishing with their intrusion into our daily lives is to make living in California ever more difficult and expen- sive. WillthelastpersonleavingCalifornia please turn off the lights in case the govern- ment or Pacific Gas and Electric have not already done so?
But, as always, that's only one man's opin- ion.
In addition to the Sanger Herald, Publisher Fred Hall oversees two other Mid Valley Publishing newspapers - Reedley Exponent, and Dinuba Sentinel. He can be contacted by phone at (559) 638-2244 or by email at fred@ midvalleypublishing.com.
By this point, it should
be abundantly clear to
everyone that Mother
Nature does not subscribe
to the manmade rules of
the Governor, environmen-
talists or the various and
omnipresent air boards
operating in California.
We're told we can't use our fireplaces, but rightnowhundredsofthousandsoftreesare being burned and these omnipotent agencies can do nothing about the smoke and particu- late that are being created.
AlthoughCaliforniacitizens areheavily taxed and regulated, purportedly to insure clean air to everyone who lives in the Valley, nature ignores the edicts from these tyranni- cal agencies that flit about in their environ- mentally friendly little state-provided cars, wreaking havoc on businesses throughout the area. Asinglewordorunfavorableruling
by these folks can result in the shuttering of one's business. Unelected individuals, living by their own set of self-mandated rules, cre- ate difficulties based on an implied promise ofcleanairandcleanwater. We,inbusiness, have all paid our dues as requested ... now where the hell is our clean air?
It makes the point rather obvious that there is a power operating in California that exceeds the reach of our army of bureau- crats whose job seems to be that of making usallmiserable. Thereis,indeed,apowerat work that exceeds the reach of Jerry Brown andhisDemocratminions! However,we continue to be expected to live under a set of man-made rules that are often neither ratio- nal nor reasonable.
Where was government when the condi- tions which created all this dead and dying timber was being allowed to flourish, com- pletelyunmitigated? Sprayingpesticides would have controlled the insect doing all the damage and careful, thoughtful harvesting of any dead trees would have removed the abundance of fuel that exists in our forests becauseofthedeadtrees. That'sjustone more example of governmental bungling in thenameofenvironmentalism. Manshould have been empowered to manage nature, not juststandbyandsingcampfiresongs. It's our belief that we were each endowed with commonsensebyourcreator. Whysomany, who always seem to wind up in government, have elected not to avail themselves of this God-givenassetisanunknowable. Sadthing is they always make the rules by which we have to live our lives!
Please don't be mistaken about our attempt her to inject common sense into this argu- ment. Thereprobablyisatimeandaplace for a statewide agency of sorts which is more focused on generally trying to improve our
Fred Hall