Truck Trouble Swamps Ports
What started as a fairly simple and laudable goal – cleaning up the pollution at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles – long ago devolved into a mess. That mess now is getting bizarre.
It’s also a tragedy in the making. Hundreds, maybe a thousand or more little trucking companies that have long served the ports are in danger of being wiped out. And it’s unnecessary. This mess could stop. That’s what makes it bizarre.
The issue at hand is the Clean Trucks Program. The ports want to get rid of the thousands of old, fume-spewing trucks that ferry shipping containers into and out of the ports. They want new, clean-burning trucks. Many of the trucks that call at the ports are driven by their owners, many of whom are scraping by, and so the ports decided to subsidize the purchase of the new trucks. They came up with a fee on shipping containers that would help raise the considerable amount of money to subsidize the new trucks. The truck owners would still have to pay some, of course.
Put a Lid on Construction Caps
Santa Monica is crowded. Walking on the jammed sidewalks is like a modern-day joust. Traffic is impossible, and lucking into an on-street parking spot is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
So it is understandable that residents are frustrated and some want to slam a lid on commercial growth. They’ve managed to get a measure on the ballot this fall that would cap construction of most commercial space to a piddling 75,000 square feet a year.
The frustration is understandable, but the proposal is misguided.
Like many measures designed to fix one problem, it may well end up creating others. And it may not even fix the crowding issue.
Defining Public’s Interest
If you read this newsletter, you probably know what it means to take on a fiduciary responsibility. That’s the duty to handle other people’s money responsibly, to invest it in a way that maximizes return and to put the investors’ interests ahead of the fiduciary’s interests.
But apparently California’s big public pension funds aren’t too acquainted with that definition. Instead, Calpers, the California Public Employees Retirement System, and Calstrs, the California State Teachers Retirement System, have been pushing their so-called socially responsible investment plans.
Several years ago, they stopped investing in countries that didn’t have labor unions and a free press. They dumped stocks in tobacco companies and businesses they didn’t think were “socially responsible.” Instead, they boosted investments in businesses they did like and real estate, much of it in California.
The decision to make the giant funds become socially responsible was pushed by then-state Treasurer Philip Angelides, a Democrat, in the dawn of this decade. Funny how the definition of “socially responsible” favored the friends of Democrats, who got beneficial funding, but punished the friends of Republicans, who got screwed.
Consumer spending is down, but what’s really to blame?
A new report last week said that consumer spending was down again. It said consumers are skittish about the economy and inflation. Although I’m just one consumer, I know my spending is down. But it’s not because of the economy. I’m fed up with retail clerks.
For one thing, they’re an endangered species. You can count more condors in the sky than clerks on the floor at Macy’s. And when you do find one, it’s obvious they’re on the sales floor by mistake because they’re clearly not there to help you. The last time I asked a clerk at Home Depot to look for something in the back because it wasn’t on the sales floor, he snickered, “Sure, dude,” and sauntered off, never to be seen again.
How long would it take a manager to tell all incoming clerks they must smile at customers, ask if they can help, say “thank you”? Would it take a minute to give that little speech? Thirty seconds even? I mean, we went to the moon and everything. You’d think a little speech like that could be told to all clerks before the end of the decade.
Honestly, I’m curious. Retail managers, please tell me, why can’t you hire a few more clerks and give them that little “be helpful” speech? What am I missing here? If enough explain, I’ll include some of the responses in a future column.
Olympic-Size Opportunity
Will Los Angeles be a beneficiary of the Olympic Games?
Even though the games, which open next week, will be in distant China, they could result in residual and real benefits for Los Angeles.
How so? Well, consider what Peter Ueberroth said last week: While Chinese officials see the games as a way to show off the country to the rest of the world, they don’t quite realize that the games will bring the world into China, exposing their population to a wave of foreign influences and attitudes. That wave will wipe away fears and prejudices, and embolden the Chinese to look overseas to study, do business or just travel.
What the Chinese officials don’t know yet is that once you open up a closed country, it’s hard to snap it shut again.
For that reason, Ueberroth said the upcoming Olympics will be the most significant international event ever.
Shoring Up America’s Oil
Famed oilman T. Boone Pickens lately has been calling it the greatest wealth transfer ever – the $700 billion or so the United States now will send overseas each year to buy expensive oil. Much of that money is enriching regimes that want to undermine the West and kill Americans.
More people are motivated to take serious action and make sacrifices to trim our appetite for foreign oil. And California – which burns more gasoline than any other state and most other countries – is in position to make an important contribution. California should reopen offshore drilling.
I know there is a barrel of opposition to it. But most arguments against offshore drilling are old and no longer valid.
For example, those who say drilling inevitably leads to devastating oil spills apparently have missed the revolution in safety improvements. Sure, there’s risk in oil exploration and production, but in recent years the amount of oil spilled in the oceans from human activity has dropped so far it is now far less than from natural seepage. Think about this: Hurricanes routinely twist up dozens of rigs in the western Gulf of Mexico, yet you don’t hear much about oil spills there, thanks to safety improvements.
Not so Fast on Food Ban
When I was in college, I often wolfed down a Whopper between classes or gnawed on some Kentucky Fried Chicken while studying. Sure, it wasn’t the healthiest stuff to eat. But I didn’t have the time to get enough sleep, let alone prepare nice meals for myself. I didn’t have the money to eat at finer restaurants. For me, it was Taco Bell or starve. Besides, I was too skinny anyway.
Now? I rarely touch fast food. All that cholesterol. Besides, I need to lose weight.
The point is I figured out for myself the best era in my life to eat fast food and the best era to avoid it. I didn’t need the government or anybody else to figure it out for me.
That’s why it’s troubling that Councilwoman Jan Perry has decided to inject government into the decision-making progress. As reported recently in the Business Journal, she wants to ban future development of fast-food restaurants in a 32-square-mile area of southern Los Angeles. If approved, it would be the nation’s biggest fast-food ban.
Unfortunate Run of the Month
The more IndyMac Bancorp withered in the last couple of weeks, the angrier I got at Sen. Charles Schumer.
The New York Democrat did what a responsible person should not. He worsened IndyMac’s fragile situation by encouraging savers to pull their money out. Financially speaking, he yelled “Fire!” in a crowded theater.
How so? He wrote a couple of weeks ago that he is “concerned that IndyMac’s financial deterioration poses significant risks to both taxpayers and borrowers and that the regulatory community may not be prepared to take measures that would help prevent the collapse of IndyMac or minimize the damage should such a failure occur.”
Now, I’m not going to argue that he wrote anything inaccurate. What’s more, I’m sure his concern was genuine.