Don’t be blue if your old noggin is spinning around like Linda Blair’s in the original Exorcist movie.
Times are changing at break-neck speed in world markets with supply and demand on separate trajectories.
And it definitely trickles down to local markets in sometimes unexpected ways – including but not limited to the price of fuel. I know the needle on my gas gauge moves to the left quicker as the price goes up. It feels like gouging as suppliers crank up the price based on not wanting to lose an inch of profit as market speculators bet on both sides of the equation short and long.
Anything over $1.50 a litre changes my activities, so I can only imagine how businesses based on running petroleum products have to adjust their prices accordingly, fuelling inflation no doubt.
I don’t believe the federal government should be maintaining its carbon tax schedule with fuel prices exploding. The failure of the Bank of Canada to control inflation with interest rate adjustments, plus a pandemic, war in Europe, and technology changes have already done the job – we already have a disincentive to burn fuel, like needing to eat.
It seems I’ve been preparing for penny-pinching reality all my life. My dad instructed me on exactly how much peanut butter is actually needed for a sandwich, so the training started young.
For the past five years, I’ve been plowing the hacienda acres with a 1995 GMC with a spare 1995 Sierra Z71 with a crack in the head sitting on the side as a parts vehicle – mostly for the transmission. They just don’t make 1500s like that anymore, it had the heavy-duty frame and the front end was quite capable of swinging a big Western clunker of a blade on the front (it was the official plow blade for the 1980 winter Olympics, so made with real steel).
Well, that was the plan before the running truck’s reverse in the tranny gave up the ghost. A couple of inquiries about the cost of dropping the spare transmission and putting it in the old rust bucket gave me pause. A few thousand dollars later I’d be good as gold but I just didn’t feel confident other things weren’t ready to drop off. I had already fixed the back brakes to stop a leak and was tired of taking off the wheels and banging loose the drum brakes that seized. Sure had a nice, powerful 350 that ran like a top, though.
Fortunately, my cousin Kenny was transitioning out of his 2012 Ford F-150 into a new Tacoma, which gave me an option. It’s not really made for plowing with a heavy blade, especially if you’re driving it around town or doing commercial work. The front end just isn’t there for that abuse. You’re advised to get into the 250 or above for that work.
I just need to plow my own driveway and it can double as an old man’s wheelbarrow for the landscaping.
More to the point, I’m already in the mode of making do and adapting with used creatures to fit my budget and needs. Just a couple of years ago, I was still driving my 2006 Kia Sportage with more than 300,000 kilometres under the hood. I have since moved up to the 2009. And I ended up with another 2006 Sportage and for a while was robbing parts off of them. I replaced sides and a bumper, the hatch glass, headlights, and brake lights, so it was worth the ugliness of skeletons perched on blocks.
In December, I decided to clean up the yard before it got out of hand and found a guy picking up wrecks for scrap prices. I got $400 for each Sportage and $500 for the 1500 rust bucket with the bad tranny, plus a $600 quote for the Sierra but he never came back.
Just three months later, you wouldn’t believe the change in that economy. Must be people all over the world doing what I and a bunch of my friends with grease in the fingernails are doing because scrap and parts are almost double just one quarter ago.
That same long box Sierra fetched several hundred dollars more than the December quote on Monday. It appears the new scrap yard in town, Kenny UPull, is on a buying thrust to stock up on car parts. I’m sure it’s because they see where this stuff is going.
Electric cars are a huge investment for most people and with the prices of new vehicles that still need fossil fuel, I can see people here and abroad taking a harder look at keeping any stock they have rolling. I’m not even sure we’re going to end up with new pollution and climate damage calculations by digging up the Earth to get the minerals for batteries. I know a loan at high interest to buy one of the so-called clean vehicles would bury my monthly budget. I’d have to start supplementing the diet by finding out how to cook all the crickets and grasshoppers that swarm this end of the Corbeil swamp.
I don’t know how this stuff will turn out. I thought of cashing in the house when the market was going crazy but I didn’t like the idea of living on the street – renting half a house is more than everything I pay to keep the name on this deed (property tax, heat, hydro and insurance included).
Hopefully, now that we have two parties at the federal level working in the same direction they might figure out how to keep the lid on the pot of our existence from blowing up. Combined, the Liberal and NDP seats are just over the 50 per cent mark, so I guess that reflects most of the voters. The Conservatives have to get their act together soon or get in that tent so they can offer up some ideas instead of just wanting to do it all their way.
The fact is, we’re going to feel a pinch and have to adapt no matter what – it would be nice if we could all be pulling in the same direction.
I’m fresh out of junk vehicles to scrap.
Dave Dale is a veteran journalist and columnist who has covered the North Bay area for more than 30 years. Reader responses meant as Letters to the Editor can be sent to [email protected]. To contact the writer directly, email: [email protected] or check out his website www.smalltowntimes.ca
