NeffZone Column

Print Edition: April 28, 2007

THE FACTS, JUST THE FACTS

Young old timers who remember the old Dragnet show on radio and television may recall one the main character’s signature requests: "Gimme the facts, ma’am, just the facts." Sergeant Joe Friday was always straight to the point. He didn’t have time for anyone’s conjectures or opinions.

These days, with so much of the news slanted one way or the other, sometimes it’s refreshing to just look at facts in and of themselves. Sometimes facts make us sad, sometimes they uplift our spirits, but always they just are what they are. That said, here are some facts I’ve collected that, for one reason or another, I found interesting.

Fact: Michigan is having trouble cleaning up its mess. The state ranks third in the nation in the number of no longer used underground gas tanks waiting for cleanup – 9,100 in all. According to the DEQ, Wexford County has 66, Missaukee 27, Lake 20, Osceola 50, and Grand Traverse 96. Supposedly, if the previous owner of the site doesn’t clean it up the buyer of a site is obligated to clean it up, which explains why so many of these sites are difficult to sell. Plus, there are 4,200 "orphan" sites where there is no record of the previous owner. Meanwhile, left over gasoline and oil may be seeping into the ground.

Fact: Michigan is clean in some respects. The state expects to save $200,000 this year by using fuel cards when purchasing car washes for state vehicles. Before you get too excited, the expected outlay was going to be $700,000 for car washes, so even with the savings the state will still spend a cool half-million keeping their rides bright and shiny.

Fact: The sun may be our best energy bet after all. The cost of turning solar energy into electricity is quickly dropping. This is good news because the sunshine that falls on earth in a single hour contains enough energy for all the planet’s power needs for a year. In order to tap into this non-polluting renewable resource we’d need to create utility-scale operations on a national level, something that seemed far-fetched a decade ago. But Germany, right now, has a national effort underway using wind and solar power on a national level. They have installed ten times the capacity now being used in the U.S. and can power one million homes. The average utility bill has gone up $19, but so far 170,000 new jobs have been created.

Fact: It’s hard to have much sympathy for the Detroit School Board. If Detroiters wonder why northern Michigan residents don’t have much sympathy for the budget woes of the Detroit schools, consider two reports in the Detroit Free Press. First, the Freep reported that the schools spent $1.6 million of artwork, purchased from a Detroit art gallery, with funds designated to "build and renovate schools." Second, the Freep detailed that the district has bought and leased $57 million worth of "swank" downtown office space. In some cases they paid above the going per-square-foot rate common in the area, and in one case their one-year lease payment was more than the owner had paid for the whole building just one year before.

Fact: Kids can give you cooties. Scientist recently looked at a variety of locations to see which were covered with the most bacteria. You would think public restrooms, shopping carts and public phones would be high on the list, but instead they were near the bottom. The "winners" in the bacteria derby were playgrounds and day care centers, with 46% of those showing high levels of contamination.

Fact: Marketing pays. At least in the drug industry. Ever wonder why the cost of your prescriptions keeps going up? They’ve risen at a rate of 8.3% per year between 1994 and 2005, according to the Kaiser Foundation. Well, the pharmaceutical industry spends $21 billion on marketing each year. Conversely, the entire Food and Drug Administration’s requested budget for 2008 is $2.1 billion.

Fact: China is spending your money on its own army. If you’re wondering about what China is doing with all the profits from the money it’s loaning the United States to fund the war in Iraq, wonder no longer. China’s budget for its own military will increase 17.8% this year, the largest increase in more than a decade. One of the ways it will spend its $44.9 billion is for new weapons. In an oxymoronic bit of logic, China says its "military expansion will be peaceful."

Fact: Being bald isn’t so bad. Well, take it from me, at least the cost of haircuts is less. Not so for presidential candidate John Edwards whose financial disclosures show that he’s had two haircuts by a celebrity stylist costing $400 apiece, one in Iowa that set him back $248, and one in New Hampshire for $225. (For me that would come out to about $10 per follicle.)

Jim Neff is a local columnist. Comments to neffzone@gmail.com. Read Neff Zone columns online at www.neffzone.com/cadillacnews.