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The Business Times Contributors THE BUSINESS TIMES augustJANUARY 11-24, 2022 15-28, 2015 Opinion Opinion Business BriefsA new year affords Business Peoplea new opportunity to meet local needs Almanac

A new year almost always brings an opportunity for a fresh start and renewed ambition to do things better.

In business, that usually boils down to providing customers better products and services faster and at lower cost than competitors. Part of the process must include listening to customers to determine what they actually need and then meeting that need. After all, it does little good to offer the latest and greatest if nobody actually wants what you’re selling.

Just like the businesses that belong to the group, the Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce invariably starts out the new year with a reassessment of the services and resources it provides and how well they match with members needs. Jeff Franklin, the new chairman of the chamber board of directors, personifies this approach in describing what he considers his role for the coming year: listen to members, determine their needs and then meet those needs. It’s a role with which Franklin is familiar as market president of Bank of Colorado.

The process will take on a more structured approach in what the chamber plans as the resumption of a program aptly called Listening to Business. Under the program, business owners participate in in-depth interviews to identify barriers to growth and other problems they encounter.

The new year offers a good time to join the proverbial club.

As an advertiser or reader, what do you need from the Business Times?

While business journals traditionally gather and report the relevant news to readers, communication isn’t necessarily a one-way street. That’s especially true as Web sites and e-mail make the dialogue more convenient than ever.

Good publications don’t exist in a vacuum. They respond to the needs of advertisers and readers. They provide what’s needed.

So what do you need?

Is there additional news coverage that would help keep you informed about local business developments? Are there features that would be interesting or useful? Is there advice that would make your jobs a little easier?

It’s equally important to ask what you don’t need. With limited time to produce content and limited space in which to publish it, would time and space be better devoted to something else?

What’s good? What isn’t? What’s needed? What isn’t?

Let us know. Send us an e-mail. Comment online on the Business Times Web site at www.thebusinesstimes.com. You could even write an old-fashioned letter to the editor if you’d like. Your feedback, both positive and negative, is valued and will be carefully considered.

Good publications are the result of not only the efforts of their staffs, but also collaborative efforts involving advertisers and readers.

Like any other good business, we want to listen to our customers, find out what they need and then meet those needs.

It’s a new year. Please help us to do so. F ✦ THE BUSINESSTIMES 609 North Ave., Suite 2, Grand Junction, CO 81501

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Publisher/Owner: Craig R. Hall Editor: Phil Castle Reach advertising at: publisher@thebusinesstimes.com Reach the editor at: phil@thebusinesstimes.com.

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The Grand Valley Business Times, a subsidiary of Hall Media Group LLC, is published twice monthly and distributed throughout Grand Junction, Fruita and Palisade. Advertising rates and deadlines are available upon request. Opinions expressed in this publication are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, editor, staff or advertisers.

Copyright © 2015 — All rights reserved.

It’s that time of year when resolutions and prognostications abound. My favorite saying applied to New Year’s resolutions is in saying they’re basically a bunch of promises to break the first week of January. And while I won’t predict a whole lot, I can pretty much accurately nail a few things that without question will make the news. You will see these are pretty, well, predictable: ■ Prediction one: There will be some sort of weather event, natural disaster or heinous occurrence where someone will be interviewed and say the following: “I’ve never seen anything like that in my lifetime.” It’s as if this person is a required attendee at every news reporting event. While I understand most people’s perspective can indeed be limited by, or contained within, their own personal experiences, it is too much to ask to consult some historical perspective before saying such a thing? Yes, this response can apply to some events. But when it comes to weather and natural disasters, I’m pretty sure this is simply history repeating itself. Same as it has for millions and millions of years. More important, the planet made it! What didn’t were certain species. How’s that for perspective? ■ Prediction two: When it comes to a crime or something that occurs between humans, the other required attendee at all news reporting events is the person who says this: “They we’re just the nicest people, and in no way did I see something like this coming.” Exactly. No one does most of the time when it comes to neighbors and acquaintances. People should be surprised at what goes on from time to time in their neighborhoods, towns and with people they know because people are good. And for the times that they shouldn’t be shocked — like with politicians, repeat offenders and terrorists — where’s the interview that says, “This doesn’t surprise me in the least.” ■ Prediction three: Something good will happen economically, and the government will take credit for it. The most recent example is gas prices, where people ask me why I won’t credit the president for low gas prices. My answer is simple: Government never makes the price of something go down and simply takes credit for good news. Gas pricing is subject to many global factors. Now there are government answers to addressing some of them to keep prices stable for Americans, but our government has none of them in place. The only things it has in place in the

Bold predictions for 2015 more like not-so-bold repeats long run always hurt consumers. Another fact is that unemployment reaches a certain level based on the economy. And while the government might brag the number is low, it’s more than likely the government did something to cause that number being low — and not in a good way. Conversely, when business picks up, it’s because the people who need to buy widgets who were not buying widgets because the economy was contracting due to natural (or unnatural, government caused) reasons, decided we better buy some widgets. The government had nothing to do with this. ■ Prediction four: In keeping with things the government does, I predict the government will manipulate the numbers to make the claim the economy is getting better because of how hard it is working to help all of us “working Americans.” Now Craig Hall you might say, “Craig, you always say this about President Obama because you don’t like him.” You’re right in a sense. I don’t know the man, but what I know of him and his thinking, I don’t like it or him one iota. Before you go off, however, I didn’t like President Bush and his bailouts, stimulus and his abandoning the free market to save the free market. And I don’t know him either. What the government does, and the only thing it can do, is hurt the economy. Unless it does nothing or put criminals in jail instead of partnering with them, nothing the government does will help. Always look at it this way, whatever the government says it is doing, whatever the name of the law it is passing, or whatever the name or goal of the bureaucracy it is presenting to the people, expect the polar opposite to occur. I guess what I’m saying is that perhaps it’s time to get out of our own perspective. There’s plenty of history books and historical research out there to begin to understand that all of this has happened before. And it will again, whether the topic is people or government. The best recommendation is to find some books or try that whole Google thing. There’s a lot of information on the Great Depression. The truth is it wasn’t even a good one until the government got involved. There’s also plenty of research on the medieval warm period when the planet was much warmer than today with a whole lot less people (and warmer well before man was here at all). And yep, people have been killing other surprised people since history was first written. Maybe some research will help stop all of these trends. Otherwise, we’ll be saying we’ve never seen anything like it in our lives. And not in a good way. Craig Hall is owner and publisher of the Business Times. Reach him at 424-5133 Copyright © 2022 — All rights reserved. or publisher@thebusinesstimes.com. F ✦

Normally — and I reiterate this for those who claim I always point out problems, yet offer no solutions — my first instinct is to get the federal government out of whatever it’s doing. Removing government from every situation the Constitution forbids it from getting into always offers a better way to solve problems.

Except this time.

There’s an old George Carlin joke that comes to mind. It was about being a kid in Catholic schools and trying to play stump the brother or sister in charge. The query was something like if God is all powerful, can he create a rock so big he can’t lift it? Ah, from the wisdom of a child. As a man of faith, I believe God can do both.

I ask in kind: Can the federal government — and all too many states, counties and cities — create problems so large it can’t solve them?

This seems to be rule No. 1 for a lot of politicians because not fixing problems while continuing to work on them with laser-like focus is key to re-election. Sadly, rule No. 2 is creating a police state to assure no other entity is allowed to even address the problems, let alone fix them. As a man of little to almost no faith in government, I believe many in government can do neither. But it won’t stop them from trying. Or not trying. It depends on the political wind gauge.

Let’s take the border. When was the last time you heard about that ongoing disaster? Our mainstream media stopped covering the border crisis the day President Joe Biden put Vice President Kamala Harris in charge. I ask this: Can anyone name one thing Harris has done to even alleviate the pressure on our borders? The question is rhetorical. She hasn’t done a damned thing. You know how I know the situation is bad? The mainstream media hasn’t even taken the liberty to run a puff piece on Harris’ efforts related to the border. And you can forget about seeing a report on the actual situation. Heck, we’re at a point where you aren’t even seeing a report the vice president is alive and well.

How’s things going for old Mayor Pete and the transportation situation? Name one action he’s taken to address supply chain problems outside of the optics of flying in baby formula from Europe. You can’t. How about the abysmal port and trucking situation? Have we gone one week without thousands of flights delayed or cancelled? Then again, if the potholes still abound in South Bend,

Recession questions outnumber answers what can you expect from a guy who bragged he and his husband were able I hate to say it, but government must do something ...

The word crops up with increasing regularity in everything from kitchen to get formula while millions suffered counter conversations to national news reports. For now, though, there are more or who told Americans going under due questions than answers about the possibility of a recession. to inflation to buy an electric car if they

When could a recession occur? How severe will a recession be if one does don’t like gas prices? All from a guy who occur? How long will it last? Most important here in the Grand Valley: What will faked riding a bike to work to get votes. be the effects on local businesses small and large? That brings us to our president and

By one definition, a recession constitutes a decline in gross domestic product Congress and their latest problem-solving — the broad measure of goods and services produced in the country — for two skills. It was just a few short weeks ago consecutive quarters. For those keeping score, GDP retreated 1.6 percent in the Biden was bragging about reducing the United States in the first quarter and nine-tenths of a percent in the second quarter. “deficit” by the greatest amount in history:

But like just about everything else that’s followed the COVID-19 pandemic, $1.3 TRILLION. If I have to go into how the so-called new normal isn’t particularly normal. reducing a deficit is still overspending

Consider, for example, the latest report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. while meaning you really, really, really Nonfarm payrolls increased an estimated 528,000 between June and July even as the overspent (by TRILLIONS) the year before unemployment rate slipped a tenth of a point to 3.5 percent. Both employment and the and a totally-ignorant-of-basic-economics unemployment rate have returned to pre-pandemic levels. Consider, too, such other argument, then stop reading now because indicators as rising income and increased retail sales. you don’t understand it or this next point. Still, the Federal Reserve keeps raising its key short-term interest rate to curb inflation. The move could not only slow the economy, but push it into recession. Craig Hall You do realize the government just passed two bills in the past few weeks that have

Other indicators on the economic dashboard flash red. A glance at the list that reduced that “historic deficit reduction” appears in the Business Times shows declines in the Consumer Confidence Index, by $1.2 TRILLION. So basically, Biden is Leading Economic Index and Small Business Optimism Index. The Conference saving America the equivalent of printing Board, the New York-based think tank that calculates the first two of those indexes, money equal a rounding error. I mean, it’s expects a recession could begin later this year or early next year. only $100 billion, so we’re not talking

In Colorado, business leaders responding to the latest survey pushed the Leeds real money. And let’s not forget this law of Business Confidence Index down 12.8 points heading into the third quarter. At 41.1, economics: You don’t print untold trillions the index dropped below growth-neutral 50 to its fifth-lowest reading ever. Almost into a recession. Oops, I can’t use that 23 percent of the leaders who responded to the survey said they believe the U.S. word, so I’ll call it what it is. A depression. is already in a recession, 30 percent said they expect the economy to slip into And that leads to yet another rule and recession in the second half of this year and 27 percent the first half of next year. the source of almost all of America’s latest

Nathan Perry, an economics professor at Colorado Mesa University who woes. The old rule was: Never introduce a tracks trends in Western Colorado, reported in a presentation in June that if a vaccine into a pandemic. (Then again, did recession doesn’t occur by the end of the year, then at least slower growth is likely they? That’s for another column.) for the next six to nine months. But the culprit is COVID-19. That’s where

On the other hand, there’s encouragement to be found in rebounding labor everything went even more wrong. In using markets on national, state and local levels. In Mesa County, payrolls have grown “emergency powers” to shut down the 4.3 percent over the past year even as the market has remained tight. country, the federal government effectively

Inflation and higher prices for gasoline and food could alter the trend. shut down the world economy.And every But consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of economic exaggerated ill we feel today is the result activity, remains mostly resilient. Tax collections, a measure of retail sales, increased of it. Each problem above was exacerbated in June on a year-over-year basis 10.1 percent in Mesa County and 8.5 percent in by COVID and the abuse of emergency Grand Junction. powers. Why? Because it worked where

Uncertainty is bad for business. There’s been no shortage of that for more SARS-1, global warming, Zika, myriad than two years. But when it comes to recession, perhaps a little uncertainty over flus and every other emergency has failed timing and degree remains better than the alternative. And that’s the certainty a in gaining total control. The government recession, or worse, could present yet another obstacle to businesses. succeeded in inserting COVID into everything we do. Therefore, the only solution can come from government. Only government won’t undo what it has no intention of undoing. If you don’t think so, then why is everything an emergency nowadays? Simple. Because that’s where the power is. To solve this situation, the government must rescind every law, mandate and regulation resulting from COVID emergency powers. Then rescind emergency powers. Our government has created a problem so large it can’t be solved by government. And it didn’t come from God. Craig Hall is owner and publisher of the Business Times. Reach him at 424-5133 or publisher@thebusinesstimes.com.

To make a long story short, curmudgeon editor remains on the lookout for mistakes

Part of my job as an editor is to, well, edit. To review copy for facts, spelling and newspaper style. And sometimes make a long story short.

It’s a mostly rewarding task. More so when I need only a polishing cloth to make language sparkle. Less so when a wrecking ball is required to demolish entire stories and rebuild them word by word like brick walls. More than 40 years on the job has turned me into something of a fussbudget, though. Make that curmudgeon aggravated by the least transgression. WHAT? You used further instead of farther? You must be out of your mind. And it’s seven, not 7. You spell it out. Criminy. What a dolt.

At the beginning of my career, I expressed my frustrations using the pencil with which I edited typewritten copy. My weapon of choice was a Mirado Black Warrior loaded with No. 2 lead. Not to brag, but I was a young gun who could wield it with deadly proficiency. These days, I pound away at my keyboard to correct mistakes. And grumble loudly enough the nice woman who works next door to the office likely wonders about my emotional stability. I don’t blame her.

Actually, I appreciate technology and the efficiency it’s brought to newspaper journalism. I don’t want to go back to writing stories with typewriters, pasting together galleys with hot wax or printing photographs with toxic chemicals. The good old days were anything but.

I remain exasperated, however, by what I’d argue is another consequence of technology: despite software designed to prevent them, more frequent mistakes in the written word. The need for speed has supplanted respect for the language of Shakespeare. Does anybody know the differences among their, there and they’re? How about its and it’s? Capitalization has become a popularity contest. If a word looks or sounds important, by all means go ahead and capitalize it.

The problem is nearly ubiquitous in informal communications, but has spread like a virus to infect more formal venues — including those in business.

Lest the editor protest too much, I admit I find mistakes more often in emails and text messages than copy. I’m grateful for the conscientious efforts of contributors who write columns and valuable advice they offer readers. Nobody’s more excited than I am to share important information conveyed in captivating fashion. Nobody. If you don’t get excited about that, you have no business in the newspaper business. The local public relations professionals with whom I’m fortunate to work similarly submit clean and compelling copy. Thank you. Thank you very much.

But to pick a fight with strangers who can’t possibly defend themselves, a lot of what else shows up in my inbox can be bad and downright ugly.

While I’m confident enough to complain about the mistakes I detect in spelling and newspaper style, I’m less sure about punctuation marks. That’s because even experts must agree to disagree about punctuation marks.

Take the Oxford comma, for example. No. Really. Take it. Please. While some love the Oxford comma, I loathe it.

For those who have better things to do with their lives than obsess over punctuation marks — meaning nearly everyone with the possible exception of English majors and newspaper editors — let me explain. An Oxford comma appears after the next to the last item in a list of three or more items. For example: red, white, and blue. Except it should read: red, white and blue.

I feel the same way about semicolons. Abraham Lincoln considered the semicolon a “useful little chap.” I side with author Kurt Vonnegut and his lesson on writing: “Do not use semicolons. ... All they do is show you’ve been to college.”

Don’t even get me started on exclamation points. Perhaps F. Scott Fitzgerald put it best: “An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.”

The problem, of course, with writing about editing and mistakes is the considerable risk I run a mistake will appear in the very column I’m writing and editing. That’s not to mention all the sentences I tend to leave incomplete. For all you eagle-eyed readers out there, I invite you to swoop in if you spot one.

In the meantime, I’ll just keep on editing. That’s part of my job as an editor.

Phil Castle

At the beginning of my career, I expressed my frustrations using the pencil with which I edited typewritten copy. My weapon of choice was a Mirado Black Warrior loaded with No. 2 lead. Not to brag, but I was a young gun who could wield it with deadly proficiency.

Despite their side effects, fossil fuels offer promise of a flourishing humankind

Alex Epstein observes in his new book “Fossil Future” a paradox: “… our culture has infinitely more interest in the fate of polar bear habitats than it has in 3 billion people without energy.” As Epstein points out, anyone knowledgeable about the state of the world today must acknowledge that more human beings are flourishing than at any point in history. Fossil fuels are a major reason why. But there’s a concerted effort on the part of American leadership to eliminate the use of fossil fuels despite three facts: fossil fuels constitute cost-effective sources of energy, cost-effective energy is essential to human flourishing and billions of people suffer and die for lack of cost-effective energy.

Phyllis Epstein explores the use of fossil fuels: the benefits, side effects, negative effects on climate and improvement in

Hunsinger climate mitigation. He also examines motivations to oppose fossil fuels.

To oppose something because of its side effects without considering its massive benefits isn’t a complete evaluation. If a doctor only told the patient about the negative effects of a particular type of treatment, the patient might walk out of the office. But if the doctor covered not only the side effects, but also the benefits of the treatment, the patient could make an informed decision.

The same logic applies to decisions about fossil fuel use. What are the side effects? What are the benefits?

Climate alarmists blame fossil fuels for rising levels of carbon dioxide, particles blocking sunlight, greenhouse gases, habitat degradation, increasing temperatures and natural disasters. These possible side effects are cited in the call to eliminate fossil fuels. There’s more to consider.

Does anyone question how much pollution will be added to the atmosphere when people are forced to return to burning wood and animal dung? Does anyone acknowledge the number of people who’d freeze to death or die of heat prostration without access to energy?

Look no further than Ethiopia and Somalia to name two countries without low-cost reliable energy to discover the high mortality rates caused by a lack of clean water, machines for food production, cooking fuels, sanitary conditions, medical equipment, transportation and economic well-being.

Technology and innovations have made clean fossil fuel production and use a reality. As Epstein said: “Human beings don’t like pollution. As we become more empowered and more capable, we tend to use our capabilities to reduce pollution. The side effects of fossil fuels have become smaller as the benefits of fossil fuels have become greater.”

How are energy policies made? Are decisions made to further human flourishing? To save the earth? To protect animals? To increase profits for select industries and bureaucrats? Energy is crucial in our world and policies matter. Our leaders need to get it right.

“Fossil Future” contains credible scientific research and data demonstrating that more fossil fuel use will make the world a far better place, where billions more people will enjoy opportunities to flourish and all of us will experience a higher environmental quality and less danger from climate change.

Phyllis Hunsinger is founder of the Freedom & Responsibility Education Enterprise Foundation in Grand Junction. The FREE Foundation provides resources to students and teachers in Western Colorado to promote the understanding of economics, financial literacy and free enterprise. A former teacher, principal and superintendent, Hunsinger wrote “Down and Dirty: A ‘How To’ Math Book.” Reach Hunsinger at phyllis@free-dom.us.com. For more information about the FREE Foundation, log on to the website located at www.free-dom.us.com.

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