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PAGE 4A - THE COMMERCE (GA) NEWS. WEDNESDAY. NOVEMBER 19. 2008
mion
Editorial Views
Automotive Bailout
A Difficult Matter
Now here's a conundrum: Do you allow the
use of taxpayer dollars to bail out General
Motors, Ford and Chrysler — to the tune of
$25 billion?
Philosophically, the easy answer is "No."
That was also the easy answer as financial
institutions had their hands out. But, as
they say, the devil is in the details — in this
case, the details of what happens if we do
or do not pump fresh capital into the auto
makers.
Without help, General Motors is expected
to run out of money. Its collapse would
have huge ramifications, perhaps leading
to the demise of the other two automakers
as well, causing the loss of 3 million jobs.
Don't forget, it's not just the manufacturing
of vehicles at stake; thousands of companies
that sell supplies and tens of thousands of
dealerships are also at stake. The ripple effect
of the failure of the Big Three automakers
could be an economic tsunami.
The flip side — approving the bailout — is
largely seen as a stopgap measure. Detroit is
characterized as a dinosaur unable to adapt to
market conditions in which Toyota, Honda,
Kia and others are taking increasing shares
of the market. A bailout might buy time, but
would not delay the inevitable. In the free
market, businesses that can't survive should
not be kept on life support at the expense of
the taxpayers.
For those in Congress who must say yea
or nay, it's a terrible dilemma. The effects
of the loss of the American automakers
can only be speculated, but it would quite
likely greatly deepen the current recession.
It could even turn it into a full-scale depres
sion as job losses trickle down to all parts of
America.
But just as the $700 billion bailout of
the financial industry has done little to
curb economic fears, there is no guarantee
that pouring money into Detroit will cause
measurable improvement in the economy.
Prolonging the life of a terminally ill patient
is not always the best course of action.
It's easy for the talking heads, the colum
nists, bloggers, editors and others who opine
to speak strongly for or against a bailout,
but none of them will feel any responsibility
for the outcome should the demise of the
domestic auto industry topple the teetering
economy into another Great Depression or if
another $25 billion fails to save the Big Three
or prevent further losses of jobs and invest
ment values.
These are the "tough decisions" politicians
talk about. It's a lot easier to say they need to
be made than to actually make them when
millions of jobs and a nation's economy are
at stake and when there is no clear indication
that either course of action will be benefi
cial.
Damned if you do — damned if you don't.
Editorials, unless otherwise noted, are written
by Mark Beardsley. He can be reached at mark@
mainstreetnews. com
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The Commerce News
ESTABLISHED IN 1875
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MERRILL BAGWELL Cartoonist
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/s'
I overspent my allowance, so I’ve petitioned
my dad for a bailout.
Ever Present In Time Of Need
A Few
Facts, A
Lot Of
Gossip 2
On my way home at
the end of the work
day, I always call my
mother, because that's
our routine: I call to
see if she wants me to
pick up anything at
the store, or if I don't
call, she calls me. But
the other night, there
was nothing routine
about our conversa
tion. Instead of, "Hi. How are you?
How was your day?" Mother said,
"Where are you?" and "Can you come
home right away?"
I found my parents in their bed
room. Dad was lying on the bed with
a blanket pulled up to his chin, and
Mother was standing beside him. He
had been having a fine day, she said,
and enjoying every minute of it — and
then suddenly he was in serious pain
and was not well at all.
Now, Dad's not one to talk about
pain, partly because he has a high
pain threshold and partly because he's
just stoic by nature. I watched him
have a broken finger rotated once, in
perfect silence and with no anesthesia.
"Gee, Dad," I said on the way home,
"didn't that hurt?"
"Oh, yes," he said mildly, as if I
were asking him whether he liked the
weather.
"Well, why didn't you say any
thing?" I asked him.
He shrugged. "What would I have
said?"
"Well, I don't know," I said. "How
about 'Ouch'?"
He thought that was pretty funny,
and I could see why. I'm sure that's
one word that has never crossed his
lips.
So when I saw him lying there on the
bed, white as the pillowcases, I knew
something was badly wrong. A quick
ISEnESS
call to the doctor con
firmed this. "I'd get
him to the emergency
room right away," the
doctor said, and we
did. And once again —
as several times before
— I had reason to be
deeply, deeply grate
ful that expert help in
time of medical trou
ble was just five min
utes away, at BJC. Dad was in the triage
room within two minutes. He was seen
by two doctors, had lab work done,
received a diagnosis, medication, and
a prescription, and was back home and
feeling better in time to enjoy a bite
of supper before going to bed, already
relieved of most of his pain.
I was the one who couldn't sleep. I
kept thinking about what that drive
might have been like if it had taken
half an hour or more, and if it had
landed us in a crowded urban emer
gency room where we might have had
to wait for hours just to get him seen.
I kept recalling my relief as we entered
the small, familiar emergency-room
lobby of BJC and I felt we were "home
free."
In what is still a small town in the
foothills of the Blue Ridge, it seems
like an absolute miracle to have that
kind of help just waiting for us to
need it, even in the middle of the
night, even on the weekend. In fact,
though, BJC is the result of a tremen
dous amount of hard work, by dedi
cated doctors, nurses, administrators,
and volunteers, over a long series of
years. We owe it to ourselves and to
those many hometown heroes to cher
ish and support and hang onto our
hospital. Believe me, you never know
when you might need it!
Susan Harper is director of the
Commerce Public Library.
Lots Of Progress Downtown
I've been making the
presentation rounds
recently. I've met
with the Lions Club,
Kiwanis Club, United
States Department of
Agriculture, and the
Georgia Department
of Community Affairs
over the past six
weeks.
Each group is inter
ested in a different ele
ment of our downtown. For some,
it's our business recruitment strate
gies, while for others it's our ability
to engage an all-encompassing group
of stakeholders to get behind a proj
ect and carry it through fruition. As
I begin each presentation, I look to
engage the audience with the down
town's robust event schedule, business
openings, design enhancements and
community-wide volunteerism. After
thirty minutes of pictures, programs
and policies, I stare in amazement at
our community's recent accomplish
ments.
Since January 2008, the downtown
community has welcomed a barbecue
restaurant, two women's clothing
boutiques, an antique store, a bar and
grill, a local television station, a gift
shop and many more to its already
strong base of family-
owned and operated
businesses. With a
renewed commitment
to recruiting restau
rant and retail loca
tions, our downtown
is becoming one of
Northeast Georgia's
hottest shopping des
tinations.
If you look deeper
into this year's advance
ments, we've seen complete building
restorations, facade renovations and
interior transformations. What may
have been hidden behind faded siding
and out-of-date awnings now screams
with enthusiasm as passersby enjoy
our rejuvenated built environment.
You can actually sit in Spencer Park
and watch pedestrians pointing out
the architectural features that adorn
our beautiful downtown buildings.
With over fifteen building rehabs
completed during the past 18 months,
our community is witnessing an
increase in private investment not seen
in over a decade.
It would be unwise for me to leave
out the wonderful recreational activi
ties our downtown now offers. A
farmers market, movie and concert
Please Turn to Page 5A
Viewpoints
In
Rotation
BY HASCO CRAVER
It's
Gospel
According
To Mark
BY MARK BEARDSLEY
Those Growth
Projections Can
Be Tossed Out
For the past two decades,
every government entity in
Jackson County was preoc
cupied with growth. We've
watched Jackson's rating among
the fastest-growing counties
climb and listened in awe as
Frank Norton predicted that
Maysville will have a population
of 75,000 by 2020.
Then the housing bubble
burst, the credit market col
lapsed and the economy slowed.
Is this a hiccup or a basic
change?
Certainly the economy will
recover, but we may never see
the kind of rapid, speculative
construction and growth of
the immediate past. Zero-down
mortgages are gone; more regu
lations on mortgage lending and
the memories of the mortgage
collapse may permanently slow
the construction of new single
family houses.
The basics for growth remain.
We have (relatively) cheap
land and access to Athens,
Atlanta and 1-85. We have
adequate water and sewerage.
Yet, although Jackson County
may continue to rank among
the fastest-growing counties, a
return to the growth rates of
1995-2005 seems unlikely.
Given that virtually every
decision by local government in
the past two decades was based
on projections of rapid growth,
it's time for local governments
to take another look at popula
tion projections and long-range
capital needs. The assumptions
of the past warrant review.
The recession is already
altering capital spending.
Government at all levels is
locked into surviving 2008 and
2009, not looking ahead 10
years. Just as we were wrong to
assume the economy would stay
strong forever, we shouldn't
expect the recovery to put us
back where we were in 2005
anytime soon.
I used to wonder what govern
ments in parts of Georgia that
did not have rapid growth did at
their meetings. I'm finding out.
Planning commissions and the
water and sewerage authority
have less to do. City and county
governments quit talking about
expanding services or utility
systems. Meetings get shorter,
and the focus turns from
growth to survival.
It's possible that the popula
tion growth will continue apace
but the construction of new
houses will lag as buying houses
becomes difficult. That will cre
ate a demand for rental prop
erty, and whereas most of our
apartment growth in the past
targeted low-income residents,
there may be a demand for
more upscale apartments.
The recovery will occur in due
time, but the patient may not
look as well fed and robust as
he did before the collapse. The
population assumptions local
governments operated under for
years in regard to facilities and
services to meet future popula
tions are no longer valid.
Mark Beardsley is editor of The
Commerce News. He can be reached
at mark@mainstreetnews.com