The Alberton Papers, Vol. IV, #XVII
By Dick Darne 8-14-07
"Well Dick, I guess you learned some lessons that night, and even though it took a few years to sink in, you never forgot them." Asked Bill.
Before I could reply, Johnny said: "Yeah, it is true about getting too soon old and too late smart. Some people never learn."
"While you were gone, we had a few discussions about the true cost of things." Said Todd.
"Like the cost of my car and the hospital bill?" I asked.
"Not exactly, it’s more about things we take for granted that we don’t realize the true cost of." replied Todd. "One of the simplest would be a board."
"A board? Asked Johnny.
"Yes, a simple board. One could figure the cost of the raw log plus the milling, transportation, warehousing, retailing, all the accompanying expenses and profit and come up with a price. But sometimes there are hidden costs that the ultimate user never pays. Or any of the middlemen, but good old J..Q. Public usually winds up footing the bill."
"How’s that?"
"Sometimes up front, as in taxpayer funded access roads, or afterwards in cleaning up the mess. Some of the real big boys probably were never made to clean up after themselves when they were children. Makes it bad for everybody." Said the old logger, Bill. "It sure seems that given the relatively small population here, we should be able to harvest all we need to sustain the local economy."
Elder spoke up from the back. "Over the years, a lot of boondoggles were due to not realizing the true cost of things. Mine tailings, asbestos, DDT, air pollution to name a few. Those to blame got theirs and are gone, the public foots the bill."
The phone rang. Someone answered it, it was Sven Berkowitz, Professor Emeritus, from the North Dakota Institute of Financial Technology, calling to tell us about his new book about this very subject. One of the guys was bringing him up to date on our discussions. He put him on speaker phone.
"Say, I’m sure glad to hear the think tank is working so well. I’d like to share one of the case studies in my new book, ‘The True Cost of Stuff and Why Some Dummies Never Seem To Get It.’ It takes place in a little town in Montana called Alvinville.. They took out a fifty thousand dollar loan to buy this wonderful Wildcat Do It All machine, figuring it would save so much money it would pay for itself in nothing flat. At the time of this writing, adding the amount paid so far to the depreciation (generously allowing twenty years) and eighteen percent for maintenance, then dividing by the number of hours used comes out to one hundred and forty two dollars per hour. That’s just the cost of owning it. Ah wunnerful, wunnerful. That’s about twice the cost of hiring a contractor. Wunnerful, wunnerful. Gotta go now, boys, lots more research to do. Keep on thinking and figuring the true cost of stuff. Root out the financial dunderheads"