There are two stories in today’s Advertiser that should give us all pause when it comes to Hawaii’s ability to feed its people.

There’s Sean Hao’s piece about the ending of the state’s subsidies for animal feed.  If you weren’t aware of it, the state has been giving money to those in the livestock industry since 2007 to try to help keep the industry alive. According to the story, The state subsidized up to 50 percent of feed costs for commercial beef, milk, egg and pork farmers in an effort to offset the rising cost of importing food for animals.

The program has ended because of the state’s budget shortfall.  From what some of those who have been receiving the subsidy say, it sounds like there will be fewer people raising animals before long.

One of those quoted in the story is the owner of the Big Island’s Naked Cow Dairy, who said “What do you do now? I don’t know if anybody worked on what do you do when the feed subsidy is over.”

The story is at: http://tinyurl.com/yca4e6h

The other is Christie Wilson’s story about the ongoing arguments about the decline in reef fish and what to do about it.  No matter who’s right if the stock of reef fish continues to decline, commercial reef fishing may be a thing of the past.  That would be the death of an industry and the loss of an important protein source for islanders.

It’s at: http://tinyurl.com/yczzvoo

Having had some experience in trying to raise hogs commercially here, I’d guess the loss of the feed subsidy will be a huge blow to the remaining hog farmers.  Hog production in Hawaii has declined by a third since in the past two years to about 9,400 animals–a small portion of the pork consumed here.

Neither story is good news for Hawaii.

The unfortunate news that the tax levied on businesses to fund the state’s unemployment compensation system is truly troubling.

On the one hand, it will have a very negative effect on business and many argue that it the increase should be scaled back.  The problem with that is that the money has to come from somewhere.  Do we raise income taxes instead?  Increase the GET?

We got into this mess because the legislature, in a popular but stupid move, lowered the rate in 2007 when the economic climate was good.

As economist Paul Brewbaker told The Honolulu Advertiser “In the balance between rules and discretion, a steady commitment to one tax regime can sometimes be better, over the cycle, than fulfilling populist pressures to ‘give the money back.’

There’s no easy way out.  People need unemployment compensation now more than ever and the money has to come from somewhere.

At this point it appears that businesses will have to pay the tax and pass the cost on to their customers.  That way, those of us who have money to spend will once again bear the cost.

Or should we cut unemployment benefits to the bone and tell those who had been promised those benefits, “tough luck”?

The county council should not get involved in the sale of the former Hamakua Sugar lands.

It’s important to remember that those lands were not put into a “land bank.”  They came to the county in lieu of taxes when Hamakua Sugar went under, and should be looked at as money in the bank, and now the money needs to be withdrawn to help close the budget shortfall.  The $8.1 million expected from the sale was part of the county’s budget approved by an 8-1 vote of the council

It should also be noted that while the land was marginally good for sugar, about all it could be used for now is pasture, since there is no source of water available for other agriculture.

And the proposal in Bill 132 to require “transparency” in the sale of county owned lands sounds reasonable on the surface, but it’s a very bad idea.  You can’t negotiate real estate deals by committee, and many possible buyers would shy away from having all the details of the negotiations made public for competitive reasons.

Bill 132 is a measure proposed in haste for spurious reasons and it should be defeated.

That there was even a discussion of whether to use this photo, let alone to have the SecDef call a newspaper and ask that it not be printed, is incomprehensible.

Our government has come very close to the world envisioned by George Orwell.  Our enemies have become our friends and vice versa, and they are fighting our wars without asking anyone to make real sacrifice except for those who volunteer to go to a far-off land.

I suppose that had Gates been in charge in 1944 we would not have seen Omaha Beach littered with dead American GIs.  Nor would we have seen the graphic photos from Vietnam that helped turn the country against that misadventure.

We’ve been involved in foreign wars for nearly 20 years and they’ve been almost as distant to most of us as the recent slaughter of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.

I’m ashamed of our profession.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/04/AR2009090403634.html

On his blog yesterday, Aaron Stene points to a WSJ article as an “excellent example of why Hawaii is in such an economic black hole. In a nutshell, Hawaii is simply too dependent on tourism. When will the powers that be wake up and realize that we need to improve our business climate so we can diversify our economy ?”

I don’t mean to pick on Aaron, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the call for “diversification” over the past 36 years, or how many failed attempts I can recall.

Take agriculture for example:  When Bill Paty was running Waialua Sugar during its death throes, they tried any number of experiments to seek a replacement for sugar.  All failed.  Why?  Because even though you can grow almost anything in Hawaii, anything you can name can be grown more cheaply somewhere else.

That has killed sugar, pineapple, mac nuts, animal husbandry, and others.

Over the years trial balloons have been floated for many things.

Manufacturing?  Raw materials are one issue.  We have none, and shipping them here and then shipping the product out kill any hopes of major manufacturing operations.  Not to mention the NIMBY factor.  Look at the opposition to the proposed lumber mills on the Hamakua Coast.

“Think tanks?”  That was going to be the salvation for Sea Mountain,  which failed as a tourist destination.  It didn’t work.

High tech industry?  One success, Hoku Scientific, moved to Idaho.

Education?  At one time there was an effort to make UH a learning center for the Pacific.  Remember the East-West Center?  It was going to be the impetus for that.  But we don’t hear much about that anymore.

Health?  When Jack Lewin was the state health director in the late 80s, Hawaii was “The Health State.”  We were going to be the go-to place for spas and medical facilities.  Chinn Ho was going to turn his Makaha development on Oahu into a world-class “Wellness Center”.  Didn’t happen.

The sad conclusion appears to be that tourism and the military continue to be the only hope for employment of large numbers of people.

And while the military presence seems assured for the near future, our tourist industry is in decline.  Sure, we’ve got sun and sand, but our competitors are growing in number and Hawaii is not the magnet it once was.

The truth is we have too many people chasing too few jobs, and the outlook for major positive change is not hopeful.

I’m wondering if the same people who were so opposed to building a new prison on our island a couple of years ago are among those who are now raising hell because the administration wants to close the one we already have?

If not, they should be very pleased that Kulani will be closed.  I wonder if they’ll be willing to help the out-of-work staff find new jobs?

It was good to read Bret Yager’s story in the Tribune Herald that “The Hawaii Department of Transportation has backed away from a dramatic increase in waiting lounge fees at Hilo International Airport following outcry from the airlines.

The fee charged to interisland carriers shot up to $18.43 per outbound passenger on July 1 — up from $3.91.

But the increase now has been cut almost as dramatically as it increased — down to $4.04, according to Brian Sekiguchi, the DOT’s deputy director of airports.”
The increase originally proposed would have been devastating for Hilo air travel, and it’s encouraging to see that someone in the DOT recognized that.

There are times when the logic of government decision makers completely escapes me.

The Star-Bulletin had a story by David Segal this morning that had me shaking my head in wonderment.

Here’s the lede:

“Interisland airlines likely will boost fares of outbound Hilo flights by possibly $20 or more in the wake of a 371 percent increase that went into effect on July 1 in what the carriers are charged by the state for using the passenger waiting lounge at Hilo Airport.”

Then:

“The state Department of Transportation, citing airport activity and revenue and expenditure forecasts, increased the holdroom rate at Hilo to $18.43 a passenger from $3.91. It was the second increase in five months after the rate was adjusted to $3.91 from $2.81 on Feb. 1.

Under the new rates, Kona’s holdroom rate is 18 cents a passenger, while at the other major airports it is 53 cents on Kauai, 92 cents on Maui and $1.13 on Oahu.

Go! Vice President Paul Skellon called the new holdroom rate “completely out of line with those imposed at other airports throughout the state.”

“They represent about 40 percent of go!’s current one-way fare,” Skellon said. “I think the state is effectively singling out travelers and airlines who choose to fly from Hilo, and this will likely result in fewer flights.”

State DOT spokeswoman Tammy Mori said one of the reasons for the big spike in the holdroom rate to $18.43 a passenger was the result of a drop in passenger traffic due to the shutdowns last March and early April of Aloha and ATA airlines, respectively.”

Another reason is that many years ago the state built an international airport in Hilo that has way more capacity than is needed now.  Why not just tear it down and build a new one more in keeping with demand?

I suppose, if one takes the view that each airport should be completely self-supporting, then this increase makes sense.  But in terms of Hawaii’s economy it is idiocy.  Raise the charge to the airlines, they raise fares and fewer people travel, which means the charge has to go up again, then airfares do and the end result is the airport closes down and the only flights from the Big Island are out of Kona.

The DOT has to realize that Hawaii’s airports are all in this together.  The notion that passengers should pay more to wait in one than in another is going to cause serious damage to our principal industry.

It would make a lot more sense, especially in terms of the economy, to add up the costs for all the airports and levy the same per capita charge to each.  If they don’t, we’re going to end up with a patchwork of airfares that will discourage interisland travel.

I find the attitude of the Hawaii County Council toward their 22% pay raise appalling.

State employees are facing layoffs, our Mayor has cut his pay and that of his staff through “furloughs” and we have six members of the council who refuse to even consider foregoing part of their raise.

We are faced with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and many among us have lost their jobs or had their hours cut.

Our hotels are less than half full, which means a huge hit to our island economy.  Businesses are suffering, General Excise Tax revenues are plummeting.

We need real leadership–leadership that not only understands the need to address our problems, but recognizes the importance of symbolism and the idea of shared sacrifice.

Cutting their pay raise wouldn’t save a whole lot of money, but it would sure go a long way toward telling their constituents that they understand and are willing to share some of the pain.

It is becoming more clear with each passing day that the council is mired in petty politics, self-aggrandizement and disdain for their duties.

A pox on all their houses.

Here’s what I said to the Chamber of Commerce:

During the past 50 years I’ve worked for major metropolitan newspapers, for medium market papers and for small-town community newspapers.

One of those jobs was as editor and publisher of the Virgin Island Daily News, which is about the size of the Tribune Herald on another island about as far East as you can go and still be in the United States.

I tell you that to provide a little context for what I’m about to share with you.

It’s no secret that the newspaper industry is trouble, facing the greatest challenge in its long history.  But what is not clear is how this came about.

In the 1930s it was said that radio was going to kill newspapers.  Then along came television and that was going to do the job.  Now we hear that the internet and blogging is the threat.  It ain’t so.

What we are only beginning to realize is that, at least in the case of the major newspaper companies, they got themselves into trouble in much the same way that a lot of others did:  Through “funny money” financing.

In recent years newspapers have been bought and sold at very high prices to people who had to borrow huge amounts of money to get them.  They did so in the expectation that profits were going to continue to grow, and that they could achieve big cost savings to help make the payments.

Things didn’t work out that way.

Revenues fell more than anyone thought possible because of the loss of classified ads, a huge source of income for big papers, to websites such as Craig’s List.

Then borrowing became more difficult, so the loans couldn’t be rolled over easily.  It’s to the point now that many are saying that Gannett, which owns the Honolulu Advertiser, will be in serious trouble by 2011 because of the way its loans are structured and may have to join the company that owns the Chicago Tribune and others in bankruptcy.

But, while all the attention is being paid to the problems of the giants of the industry, community—which is a polite way to say “small town”—newspapers are, taken individually, still doing reasonably well.

Local businesses are still advertising in them, most are still making an operating profit, and most important, people are still reading them.

There’s a reason for that.  While I can go online each morning and read the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Honolulu papers and others, there’s no single place I can go except to the Tribune Herald for local news–to find out who died, who got arrested, or that Suisan is going to be closed for inventory.

No website will tell me that there are low-interest loans available from Hawaii County for emergency home repairs, and also tell me that there will be a baseball clinic for youngsters here in July.

My point is that the newspaper is part of the fabric of a community, meeting a need for reporting of the day to day news that no other single source can.

Here in Hilo and for much of the island of Hawaii, that newspaper is the Hawaii Tribune Herald.  We may not always agree with its politics.  We may feel that stories are missed, that some are badly reported, or that some shouldn’t be in the paper.

It’s not perfect, as I’m sure Ted Dixon would agree, but it is produced by people who do their best in the face of tough economic times.

Over the long haul, the Tribune Herald is one of the institutions that have made this a community, and for that we honor it and the many people who have been a part of it over the years.