For the week of August 29 - September 4, 2001

Making it in the valley

Commentary by PAT MURPHY

---

A few weeks ago I stopped at a service station I pass several times a day but had never patronized and discovered the gasoline grade for my car is consistently anywhere from 10 cents to 14 cents a gallon cheaper than other stations in the area.

Obviously, I’m now a new customer. But it also begs the question of whether this station is taking a loss on the actual costs of gasoline, or are other stations making larger profits?

In the free market system, business at stations with higher fuel prices could take a nose dive if motorists turn to a more economical station and away from costlier fuel.

In addition to lost business, other penalties are imbedded in the free market pricing system, and Wood River Valley businesses are discovering it where it hurts — a worker shortage that prompted some business owners to ask the Idaho Department of Labor to find out why.

No surprise: the shortage in large part is due to the high cost of living in Blaine County vs. the average wage, thus discouraging workers from living in Blaine County.

The $11.60 average hourly wage ($24,128 per year for a 40-hour work week) is insufficient to survive here without going on welfare, the Labor study concluded. The report said a "livable" wage is $19.46 per hour ($40,456 per year) for Blaine County, where the average home sale averages well over $600,000 and is climbing.

So here’s where the free market kicks in again: employers hurting for workers will need to pay higher wages and benefits to attract new employees.

Higher worker costs either will have to be absorbed without increasing costs to customers, thus lowering profits, or, if higher personnel costs are passed along, then the cycle of higher cost-of-living will continue and the cycle of worker shortages will continue.

Another free market possibility is this: competitors with lower profits in their sights will open shop, like the service station I discovered with the lower prices.

•

One of the few philosopher-journalists in American media, former co-host of ABC’s 20/20 Hugh Downs, can transform otherwise dishwater dull topics into riveting conversation, a Downs virtue that has meant hours of provocative chats since meeting him 30 years ago in Arizona, where he and wife Ruth have had a home since the 1960s.

Recently, Hugh tackled in one of his Internet commentaries a topic most people ignore and created a perspective that’ll make people think.

Suppose, he asked, an alien force suddenly arrived on earth and managed to kill 22 million earthlings and wound another 36 million?

It wouldn’t take long for the global community, Hugh reasoned, to spring into action and deal with this deadly form of life.

Yet, as he pointed out, there IS a deadly alien killer running amok ¾ the AIDS virus, that indeed has wiped out 22 million lives since it was diagnosed, while another 36 million infected victims wonder whether they, too, will die.

Considering the horrific AIDS toll, nations that can afford it are throwing precious little at efforts to wipe out the plague.

Imagine the results if only a fraction of the costs of new missiles and missile defense systems were invested in AIDS research.

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.