The Cents of Sight

I’m writing this at the tail end of summer, but by the time you read it, fall will have passed, and we will have a foot in winter’s door. The L.L. Bean winter catalog lands in my mailbox the first of September, while summer is still at the plate, swinging away. I won’t need winter clothing then, but if I wait until December to order it, L.L. Bean will be sold out and hawking its spring wear. I constantly have to think three months in advance.

Not long ago, the brakes on our car went out. I won’t mention the automobile brand, except to say it’s a four-letter word that begins with F. We hadn’t owned the car very long and were annoyed we had to pay $400 to fix something that shouldn’t have broken. A month later, we received a recall notice from the car company informing us that our original brakes were defective and needed replacing. I drove to the dealer, showed the service manager the recall notice and the receipt, and asked to be reimbursed. “We can’t do that,” the service manager explained. “You shouldn’t have gotten your brakes fixed until you got the recall notice.”

I explained, slowly, that we had thought it unwise to drive a vehicle without brakes, that we had no idea the carmaker would soon be recalling them, and so had elected to replace the brakes rather than crash and die. “Should have waited for the recall,” the car man said.

“If I had no way of knowing there would be a recall, how could I have waiteduntil the recall to have my brakes replaced?” I asked. “How could I possibly have known there would be a recall?”

“That’s a good question,” he said. “But you should have waited for the recall.”

It appears Corporate America not only wants me to anticipate my clothing needs three months in advance; it also expects me to know it will recall my car weeks ahead of any notice.

Three months seems to be about the distance the average American corporation can see in front of itself. Each quarter must be stronger than the one before it, the stock price higher, the expenses lower, the workers fewer. These companies have the long-range vision of a mayfly.

Consider the F company that made my car. Decades after every geologist with half a brain had predicted dwindling oil reserves, it was happily producing vehicles that required their own refinery to operate. Today, it can’t give its cars away, can’t move them out of the showroom at half-price. And, having not looked beyond lunch, this venerable operation is still light years away from a promising alternative to the gasoline engine. We’ll be riding ox carts before a domestic automaker produces a car we can afford to drive. The F company introduced the Flex (yet another four-letter F word) this past fall, touting its 17 city miles per gallon. It tops out at 24 miles per gallon, but that’s downhill with a strong tailwind.

Everyone knows you never get the gas mileage a car salesman says you will. My older son will be heading off to college in three years. I can well imagine the conversation we’ll have.

Son: Dad, I’d really like to go to college, study hard, and discover a cure for cancer.

Dad: Gee, son, I’d love for you to do that. Unfortunately, I have to fill my gas tank this week.


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