Auchtoon!

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, March 30, 2009

I took my first job out of college in 1986. I went to work for Thermotron Industries in Holland, Michigan. Thermotron was (and is) a manufacturer of environmental test chambers. The idea is that if you want to make sure a product works under specific conditions (temperatures, humidity, vibrations, and so on), you test it first in one of these chambers. Soon after starting I was privileged to experience the first of many “why government is worthless” rants by a native West Michigander. I forget who it was or why he was doing it, but it likely had something to do with payday and deductions. It was good theater. He was quite passionate — lots of “stupid wastes of money” and “stay the hell out of my life” and “killing the working man.”

I enjoyed it, but later it struck as a bit hypocritical. You see at the time the country was in the middle of a massive military build up — huge amounts of taxpayer money (and future debt) were being poured into modernizing the armed forces. Defense contractors ramped up to meet the need and were keen to make sure the stuff they were manufacturing actually worked. Ipso facto, approximately 75% of Thermotron sales were to defense contractors, which meant a greater portion of each employees’ paycheck was provided by (and not taken by) Uncle Sam. Ah, the circle of life.

So I want to be clear about my point in this week’s comic. I am not a neo-Reagnite who believes that all government is inherently bad. If the past six months have demonstrated nothing else, it has proven without doubt that any large organization can be equally adept at wasting money: banks, insurance companies, automobile manufacturers, branches of the military, and of course the federal government. What we should want, what we should expect — what we deserve — is some accountability from them. We can’t wish them all away — the void would simply be filled by other large organizations. (Ever read “Animal Farm”?) To get accountability there is got to be some checks and balances, some auditing, some tweaking, some informed reporting — a lot messier than “stay the hell out of my life,” but potentially more fruitful.

Oh. My point: West Michigan is getting hosed by the federal government. And if we can’t get some accountability, how about some free pie?

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, March 23, 2009

Nothing I can add here, really….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, March 16, 2009

I drew this not to damn us Americans, but to simply point out that (as is often the case) a great strength is also a great weakness. Our constant scramble to be on top and do better than the average makes our economy dynamic and healthy. Except when we go too far, and then we suffer for it. Looking forward to the next bubble…

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, March 9, 2009

Of course the market has rallied a bit since this was actually published, but the addiction is the same….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, March 2, 2009

Far, far too often, when revisiting a comic I am confronted with painfully obvious adjustments I could have made — by way of example, this week’s comic. A rare glimmer of positive economic news for Michigan comes from our burgeoning film industry. Recent tax breaks and tweaks designed to lure movie makers seems to be working. (Gran Turino was shot in Michigan.) In terms of actual jobs, the film industry is still quite small, which fit nicely with actors tending to be very short in real life. (My brother once told me that one could easily trip over Sylvester Stallone.) But any job growth contrasts strongly with the ongoing shedding of jobs from our hoary automotive and (vital to West Michigan) office furniture industries. So what I should have done was drawn the two guys as very, very old men with the second one saying, “yeah, well — at least he’s not shrinking.” See? Obvious.

But then on rare occasion, I come across a comic where I would change nothing. Last week I went to a meeting for the Society for Technical Communications (which is actually a lot more fun than the stern name implies), and one of the members, Sandy, handed me a notebook of old newsletters. We’re considering making them available at some point on the chapter website. Back in newsletter days (when people professed not to enjoy reading on the computer), I did an occasional cartoon. When flipping through I found this one from 1994. Made me laugh…

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, February 23, 2009

Spring Break 1981: My friends Dominic, Lewis, Joe, and I took an ill-advised and somewhat unsanctioned trip. We swung through Pennsylvania to visit (and get free meals from) my relatives in Reading, then Dominic’s grandmother north of Philly. From there we headed to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Spent five days playing and having fun — Frisbee, wave-diving, basketball, go-karts… someday ask me to tell you the story about Lewis and the water slide. Then back over the mountains and home to Michigan. All this without a lick of trouble from Dominic’s Chevy Vega.

Oh, it wasn’t comfortable. Whenever I had to take my turn riding in back, I had to be careful to fold myself up just right and not relax. If I relaxed and Dom hit a bump, my head would smack against the unpadded trim where the back window and the roof met. And when it got too warm, we had to have the heat on full blast so the engine wouldn’t explode. And the tape deck that Dom installed played only one audio channel. So certain songs would disappear for several moments. Whenever I hear “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey” I get nostalgic:

Hand across the water (water)
Heads across the sky
Hand across the water (water)
Heads across the sky

The only parts we would actually hear was the “water” repeat. We only had three tapes, so we listened to the radio a lot. That was pretty slim pickings, especially when you consider the geography and what was being played by radio stations in 1981. Someday ask me to tell you the story about how Joe Hasselbach nearly chose death for all rather than listen to a whole Barry Manilow song.

Anyway, I tell you this because most stories or blog posts (particularly the blog posts) that are in favor of letting GM, Chrysler, and the whole automotive industry just go to hell start off with an anecdote about a crappy Detroit 3 car they once owned. Right. So there I have offered a happy story about a notoriously crappy car model.

Now we can get on with the real discussion: What needs to be done to ensure the United States will have a viable capacity for automobile production once we get out of this financial crisis?

Ready, go…

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, February 16, 2009

We’ve become what I like to call a Derivative Society. (Did that sound impressive? I hope it sounded impressive. I added the “what I like to call” bit to make it sound impressive. And also to throw you off the trail because I haven’t really thought the whole “Derivative Society” thing through entirely. It just popped in my head, and I thought I’d write it down because I gotta get back to work, and I honestly don’t have a lot else to say about this week’s comic.)

Derivative Society. What I mean is that we are saturated with information. Media provides us with news and analysis way, way beyond our capacity (or desire) to consume it all. We are overwhelmed. But instead of using our awesome technological powers to gather and report information to add clarity, we sweep past the basics and drill deeper and deeper looking for hidden treasures. Not because it is at all helpful. But just because we can. We analyze the analysis of the analyzer’s analyzation. Which is asinine.

“Is the economy moving forward or is it moving backward?” is the simple question we could ask and the simple question that could be answered. Instead we are more interested in the derivatives: How fast is the economy changing? Are we accelerating out of going backward? Are decelerating out of going forward? Is this decelerating beginning to accelerate? Or is it decelerating at an increasing deceleration? Are crude oil prices going up or down? Who cares? Are the stocks of gas refineries in the Pacific Northwest enough to meet anticipated demands of the 2011 summer driving season? Now that’s sounds interesting! Let’s base the current price of gasoline on that!

So we’re left now with a stimulus package that was declared dead even before it was written. There’s no time to let anything actually work in a Derivative Society. We’ve already thought it all out. The only thing that can save the economy now is news of a future stimulus package. But once we anticipate what it might contain, that won’t work either.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, February 9, 2009

It wonders me that some people go to casinos fully expecting to win. I mean, honestly, you’d think the opulence, the lavishness, the over-the-top showiness would be an obvious tip off that somebody is making money, and odds are good that it’s not going to be you. But then, up until very recently those very same indicators were on display through the lifestyles of many, many Wall Street investment bankers — somebody was winning and it turns out it wasn’t you (or me). So much for obvious.

After a 10 year battle, it looks as if West Michigan is going to get its first Indian casino. Hooray, I guess. The Indian tribe and the community where it is going to be built certainly had the law on their side. The delay was largely a strategic tactic by some powers in Grand Rapids to allow the redevelopment of its downtown to establish itself without a casino’s competition. It did, and so it was really a win for them, too.

I myself won’t be going to the casino. And like everybody else, I’m rethinking the whole invest in the market thing. Happily, it looks like these types of decisions will pretty much be out of my hands for the foreseeable future. With three kids heading to college soon, we won’t have any money anyway. (And that may turn out to be the best investment.)

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, February 2, 2009

Grand Rapids has a relatively new convention center downtown called the DeVos Place. It was years in the making — a complex effort of moving existing buildings (including a courthouse and the police headquarters), building a support structure of hotels and restaurants, and mixing public and private funds in a responsible way. A couple of weeks ago it hosted a convention for the Religious Conference Management Association (RCMA), which was perfect for the facilities and our medium-sized city. By all accounts, it was a huge success. One of many successes the DeVos Place has had and expects to have.

Flint has no convention center, but at one point in the 1980s it built a big Hyatt Hotel downtown. It was a similar private/public effort designed to draw business into the city. By all accounts, it has been a disaster. Recently, plans have been announced to UofM Flint to buy the bankrupt building and convert it into dorms. We’ll see.

My point? All this frenzied chatter about the merits of one stimulus approach over another (infrastructure! tax cuts! regulation! bailing! injecting! refunding!) matters very little if there isn’t sensible, thoughtful, transparent coordination among the government and private sectors involved in implementing them.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, January 26, 2009

All right. This has nothing to do with anything, but it is kind of weird/funny, so I’ll tell you about it. The other night I had a dream. I was running a basketball practice. (I’ve been coaching my son’s 5th/6th grade team this winter, so my brain idling away the night with thoughts of hoops is not at all unusual.) The practice was in a largish room, but it definitely wasn’t a gym because there were various pieces of furniture and a door to a hallway. I was walking the boys through a new offensive set. I was very excited about this because I believed it would no doubt get us some easy baskets. I had devised it myself. Super genius.

The play and its positions weren’t terribly unique. The thing that gave it an edge was that one of the players …was to be a live alligator. That’s right. Full-grown adult alligator. Conveniently, I had brought one with me. So we started walking through the play. The alligator began at the top of the key and swung around the left side. I turned to instruct some of the boys where to go and got distracted for a moment. When I looked back around for the alligator, it was gone. I said, “Where’d the alligator go?” And the boy on that side point to the door — left ajar the approximate width of a full-grown adult alligator.

Well I was kind of mad. I mean, geez-lousie, doesn’t it kind of go without saying that if you are practicing basketball in a large room with an alligator that you should naturally shut the door so the alligator doesn’t walk out? Do I have to spell out everything for these boys? But, kids make mistakes and instead of tearing into him, I decided time was probably better spent looking for the alligator.

So I told the boys to stay put and I walked out the door. As I entered the hallway, it occurred to me that I was inside a children’s hospital. Actually, I had known this previously but really wasn’t considering it until the alligator got loose. My anxiety level ticked up, but I was still confident that I could find the alligator. I mean, what else in a children’s hospital even remotely looks like an alligator? It’s gonna stick out. I strolled on down the hall looking as inconspicuous as possible in my gym shorts (which my daughter says are waaaaay too short) and whistle and high-tops. I went into rooms and looked under beds and in closets and dark corners. Then it began to dawn on me that I didn’t necessarily want to find the alligator — especially by thrusting my head under a bed.

I was making my way back to the large room and now thinking it odd that I hadn’t heard any screams. There really ought to be screams when an alligator is loose in a children’s hospital. Children’s hospital! Holy crap! Children’s hospitals are just full of slow-moving, bite-sized people. I’ve seen alligators eat whole hams, and I would think sick kids are basically talking hams to an alligator. I couldn’t remember if the alligator has been fed lately. Heck, I couldn’t even remember where I got the darn thing. Suddenly the most awful thought hit my head and my innards twisted into a hard knot: I might get in trouble for this! No, wait, no, no, no yes. Yes… Yes definitely. Bringing a live alligator into a children’s hospital is in fact something that would frowned upon.

I was standing by the door mulling this over. “Had anybody seen me bring the alligator in? Was it possible for me and the boys to slip out before somebody found it? But shouldn’t I say something before somebody gets attacked? Yes, but that might be okay because we’re in a hospital — there are people right here who are really good at reattaching things. Hmmm, no, I gotta call 9-1-1. Right. How am I going to phrase this?”  …then I woke up.

Ta-da! I’ve now used this cutting edge technology to share with you and the world a very odd story, which in no way is going to move our economy forward. My work is done here.