Published: November 18, 2008 09:45 pm         

Bark beetles are chewing out our economic insides

Financial wizards all across the nation are trembling as violently as the economy itself. I could do with a little less excitement, but nevertheless, this is a time our grandchildren will do school reports on and the adversity that we endure will become legendary in the annals of history.

The collapsing markets bring to mind the pine bark beetle. This is a little bug that finds a Ponderosa Pine or a Douglas Fir tree that is weakened from drought or other disease, and chews a little hole in the bark. A healthy tree would quickly drown the bug in sap, but a weak tree can’t. The beetle feasts on the moisture-carrying layer just under the bark and it lays its eggs. Soon the tree is completely infested, the under-bark is all eaten and the tree dies. The beetles move to a new tree.

The tremendous forest fires that burned in the Rocky Mountains a few years ago seemed like a total disaster. The truth is that Mother Nature kills off the bark beetle every now and then by burning down the forest. But people have built their homes among the pretty pine trees and tend to try to avoid forest fires. We’ve become so adept at preventing them, that the forest is long overdue for a good cleansing. Thousands of acres of trees killed by bark beetles wait like so many matchsticks for one well-aimed bolt of lightning.

We lived in the forest ourselves and were required to cut down our “beetle trees.” I decided to use a log from a beetle tree as part of a lamp in my son’s woodsy-themed room. I wired the log, put in the lamp fixtures and attached a handsome tan shade. My son thought it looked OK, but the problem was the chewing. All night when he tried to sleep, the chew, chew, chew of a bark beetle gnawed at his sleep. We had cut down the tree, but by trying to use chunks of the infested tree, we preserved the evil creature that inhabited it.

That’s similar to what’s happening in our economy now. The economy became diseased when the government required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to give sub prime loans. Sub prime is another term for undesirable customers. We all saw the advertising urging us to take loans against our equity up to 110 percent of the homes’ value. That’s like saying, “I’ll lend you $5,000 if you’ll give me a note on your car worth $4,000.” Which would the borrower rather have, the item worth $4,000 or the cash worth $5,000? The health of the economy was undermined by motivating people to default on their loans, and to borrow more than they could pay back.

The bark beetles are all those who benefited from loose lending practices, including politicians, borrowers and business executives who collect gigantic salaries for mismanaging lending companies.

Now the government is spending many billions of dollars trying to put out the forest fires, when in truth, the whole system is deathly ill. Yes, some folks who have built their fortunes in those markets will lose them, but eventually, the corruption has to be cleaned out and a fresh start made. Propping up the current system only delays the inevitable.

The worst idea I’ve heard in a month was to dump more billions into the auto industry. If American cars can’t compete, it’s because they don’t make enough attractive products. The unions have the Detroit auto manufacturers by the throat so that they can’t alter their current system and become competitive. Giving them a bunch of money to continue business as usual would be like spray painting a beetle tree green. It might look healthier, but it’s still going to die.

Government needs to let nature take its course, and let the companies that have products or services that people want to buy survive, and let the companies that have eaten out their own insides die. A depression may come whether the government intervenes or not, but a depression might be exactly what is necessary to get down to the healthy soil where new, strong businesses can grow.

The best things we can do now are to save as much money as possible, pay off debt as fast as you can, store a good supply of non-perishable foods like dry beans, grains and dry milk, and pay tithing. In Malachi 3:10-11 God promises to open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it, and to rebuke the devourer if we pay tithes and offerings. I think we could use those blessings now.

BETH STEPHENSON is an Edmond resident.

     

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