RUST COMMENTARY: BOOK SHOWS HOW STANDARDS OF LIVING, OTHER FACTORS HAVE IMPROVED

Sharing the wealth:

Have U.S. standards of living eroded? Are good jobs disappearing? Are the poor getting poorer? Many books and newspaper articles in recent years have answered all three questions with a depressing "yes." This makes "Myths of Rich & Poor" (Basic Books, 256 pages, $25) timely, important and refreshing. W. Michael Cox, the chief economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and Richard Alm, a business reporter with the Dallas Morning News, claim that pretty much everything in the U.S. is getting better for pretty much everyone. They base their case on a wide range of data and on clear economic reasoning.

Start with standards of living. According to the pessimists, average hourly wages, adjusted for inflation, have fallen about 15 percent since 1973. Messrs. Cox and Alm don't deny this, but they point out two major problems with hourly wage data as a measure of well-being. First, such data ignore fringe benefits, which, as a percentage of payroll, have increased by one-third since 1970. The authors note that real compensation, including fringe benefits valued at cost, has actually increased by 17 percent since the early 1970s.

The second problem with real-wage data is that the index used to estimate them overstates inflation and thus understates real-wage growth. A better way of measuring standards of living is to see how people live. The authors show convincingly that the great majority of Americans are living better. The average new home, for example, is more than 40 percent bigger and much better equipped than the average new home in 1970. A much higher percentage of households have color TVs, clothes dryers and frost-free refrigerators than in 1970. With more than 30 measures of what people have and how they use their leisure time, Messrs. Cox and Alm show that the average household is much better off than 25 years ago. And not just the average household: In 1994, households officially defined as poor had more of the conveniences of modern life than the average household had in 1971.

Messrs. Cox and Alm also shred the view that the rise of the service sector in America means that good jobs are disappearing. By 1997, they point out, the average wage in the service sector was only 1 percent below the average wage in manufacturing. Surprisingly, if you exclude the retail sector, the average wage in services was actually 5 percent higher than in manufacturing. The authors also challenge the belief that service jobs are somehow less worthy than manufacturing jobs. Accountants, doctors, schoolteachers, architects and plumbers all provide valuable services without which life would be much harder.

Critics of the service sector often complain that America is becoming a nation of hamburger-flippers. But flipping hamburgers is one of the lowest-paying service jobs and is thus heavily populated by teens. (Nearly 70 percent of fast-food workers have not yet celebrated their 20th birthday.) The authors add some historical perspective by reminding us what work was like in the distant past. "Believe it or not, Americans used to earn meager paychecks spending long hours winding string into balls, breaking bones in slaughterhouses, stirring glue pots, hauling ore out of mines, boiling lime and mixing acids."

Messrs. Cox and Alm argue that the large number of people losing their jobs, combined with the large number getting newly created jobs-they call this "the churn," is actually a sign of a dynamic economy. Gains in productivity per worker mean fewer workers in many industries. The layoff of unneeded workers is in fact evidence that their services are too valuable to be wasted in the old jobs: "It's incongruous to celebrate productivity gains yet denigrate the downsizing that's essential to the process."

Isn't the gap between the lowest-income and highest-income households getting wider? Well, yes. In 1996, the top 20 percent of American households received half of all income. But, note Messrs. Cox and Alm, such numbers are simply snapshots of households at a given moment and tell you nothing about how a typical household fares over time. Income mobility -- people moving from one income level to another -- is quite high in the U.S. As people in their 20s get older, for example, their incomes rise. Those who have a low income after graduating from high school or college are unlikely to have one years later. The authors cite the best-documented study of income mobility in the U.S., the University of Michigan's Panel Survey on Income Dynamics, which tracked about 50,000 Americans over 17 years. Of the people in the lowest fifth of the income distribution in 1975, only 5.1 percent were still there in 1991, while 29 percent were in the highest fifth.

So the next time you find yourself saying, "Ain't it awful how bad things have gotten?" peruse a copy of "Myths of Rich & Poor." You'll find that, far from getting bad, things are getting better all the time. -- David R. Henderson, research fellow with the Hoover Institute

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Impeachment a picnic? Master of leaks Matt Drudge is carrying a story on the Internet that an unnamed White House official says will make the impeachment proceeding seem "like a picnic." The story describes a massive leak of foreign policy documents that will divulge details of the Clinton administration's failed dealings with North Korea, Iraq and China. The documents appear to back up the charges of Scott Ritter, an American and a former U.N. arms inspector, who said the Clinton Administration was pursuing a public relations strategy of confronting Iraq while secretly backing away from the use of force. The documents are also said to support charges that Clinton eased restrictions on high-tech exports to China in return for contributions from wealthy donors. Failure of the administration to discourage Pakistan and India from exploding nuclear devices reportedly is also covered in the papers. The documents -- perhaps as many as 20,000 pages -- are described as the most extensive leak of secret government reports since the Pentagon papers were leaked to The New York Times and The Washington Post a generation ago. Reporter Murray Waas is identified as the one who received the documents. He was praised by Clinton and Gore in 1992 for his reporting on Iraq. Recently, Waas has reported on tech transfers to China for the computer magazine Slate. Waas, a liberal, is said to be furious that word of the leaks has gotten out -- especially at a time when Republicans are considering impeachment charges. -- American Renewal

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Cape Girardeau's Regional Airport and its manager, Bruce Loy, were recently brought to national attention through the following article in the winter edition of the Midwest Aviation Journal. Recognition such as this will certainly help put Cape on the map and help to draw many visitors to our fair city.

Cape Girardeau Skydiving Boogie: Airport manager Bruce Loy of the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport certainly knows how to increase general aviation activity at an airport. Since April 1997 when Loy took over the position of airport manager, he has worked had to find innovative ways to bring activity to the airport. The airport has been a non-federally funded controlled airport since 1994 when federal government cutbacks threatened the operation of the control tower. The city of Cape Girardeau, however, was committed to supporting the local airport and, with the recent help of Loy in arranging for funding, continues to assume the expenses associated with the control tower.

Cape Airport is served by Trans World Express and Comair (Delta) commuter airlines, and is the home of Air Evac Aviation. Proctor & Gamble flights frequent the airport using Executive Jet and Comair charters. But even with this much activity, Mr. Loy does not rest on his reputation. In October 1997 Loy organized Cape Girardeau Regional Airport's Aviation Day, which included most of the features of an air show, plus a skydiving boogie, the name given to skydiving events that expect to attract more jumpers than the usual weekend crowd.

Loy received many compliments from skydivers after the Aviation Day. All of the 80 skydiving participants told him that they had never been treated so well and that they wanted to come back next year. So in 1998 he decided to divide Aviation Day into two events. One is the now annual Air Festival, a full-scale air show which was held on July 11 and 12. This division allowed Loy to concentrate on providing the skydivers with an event of their own, which became the 1998 Sky-toberFest.

Just as in 1997, Loy arranged this year for Mike Mullins' Super King Air jump airplane to come to the event. Mullins' King Air, which is based at West Tennessee Skydiving in Memphis, travels to many skydiving events in the Midwest. His Beechcraft BE-90 has had its original 550-horsepower PT6 turbine engines replaced with 750-horsepower PT6 turbine engines with high-performance cowlings, and it is well known for its ability to take 14 skydivers to 14,000 feet in seven minutes under standard conditions. Loy and the Cape Airport staff arranged for the King Air jump plane and provided the airport terminal building as a manifest area for the jumping activities and as an air-conditioned packing area for parachutes.

The skydivers took advantage of this unusual hospitality, and while commuter airline passengers watched in amazement, the skydivers packed their parachutes right in front of them while they were waiting on flights. The skydivers patiently answered the many questions that these passengers and Cape Girardeau residents were asking about what it is like to freefall and about how they too could learn to skydive. The Cape Pilots Club, a very active group of pilots who fly from Cape Airport, graciously provided their clubhouse for its restroom facilities for those camping, as well as providing the manpower for the various preparations for the event. The club also barbecued and provided the meal and the beer trailer for the Saturday-night party. The Cruisers, a blues rock band from Paducah, Ky., played in a unused hangar Saturday night, providing a hangar dance, skydiver style.

During the day while the jumping was taking place, there was even more barbecue available. Dave and LaRue McAllister have recently reopened the restaurant at the Cape Airport as Mac's Smokehouse and plan to run a catering business from the airport as well. Dave's father is a pilot, so he knows very well the desire for pilots to have somewhere to fly to have lunch. and Dave plans to bring this back to the Cape Airport. Pilots are again able to fly into CGI for breakfast and lunch, as well as arrange for catered events in the restaurant's meeting room (and soon-to-be-announced evening hours).

Dwight Gates, a veteran skydiver of over 24 years and an experienced skydiving instructor, operates Sky Sports of Cape Girardeau, a skydiving operation at the airport that provides tandem jumping instruction, exhibition jumps for promotional purposes, and a Cessna 182 jump plane for experienced skydivers to jump from. When Bruce Loy took over the position of airport manager, Gates approached him about having a skydiving operation at the airport. Loy immediately saw the opportunity to increase general aviation activity by supporting this business. He believes that skydiving students may become interested in many aspects of general aviation once they experience skydiving. Sky Sports did over 20 tandem jumps with student skydivers over the Sky-toberFest weekend, with many of the students having their entire skydive videotaped by an experienced skydiver with a helmet-mounted video camera. These students were able to see their skydive on a television set up in the airport terminal just minutes after landing their parachute near their friends and relatives in the spectator area.

The Cape Girardeau local media was present for much of the Sky-toberFest weekend. KFVS-TV filmed skydiving segments and did interviews for their evening broadcast on Sunday, and Gary Rust, owner of Rust Communications which publishes the Southeast Missourian newspaper, was at the event both days. Staff photographer Lou Peukert was out to take photos of the event and even attended the Saturday night festivities. The newspaper spotlighted Sky-toberFest with a feature article on the front page of its Sunday Oct. 4 edition, complete with pictures from skydiving photographers in freefall.

At the end of the day Sunday, over 31 airplane loads of skydivers had taken to the air and 412 jumps had been made, a very good number considering that there were several weather holds due to clouds during the weekend. Everyone considered the event a great success, and as skydivers were preparing to leave for their homes, as far away as Kansas City and St. Louis, many were asking Bruce Loy about the date of next year's event as well as suggesting ways to make next year's event better. The captain of a Trans World Express flight preparing to depart on Sunday probably best summed up the feelings of those who experienced the Sky-toberFest boogie and observed skydiving. While looking up at parachutes preparing to land he said, "I've really got to try that someday." -- Gary Peek, Central Region director of the U.S. Parachute Association

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Clinton's State of Union speech not last of the century? President Clinton's declaration that his recent speech was the last State of the Union address of the 20th century sounded logical but wasn't quite correct.

In fact, next year's State of the Union speech in January 2000 will be the last of this century.

When the current Gregorian calendar was devised in the 6th century by a monk named Dionysius Exiguus, counting was done using Roman numerals, which do not include a zero.

So he called the first year "I" and counted from there.

That results in a century running from one through 100 and the next from 101 through 200, a millennium from 1 through 1000 and the next from 1001 through 2000 and so forth.

Thus, 2000 -- not 1999 -- is the last year of the 20th century and 2001 will be the first year of the 21st century. -- Tampa Bay Online

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It's funny how attitudes shift depending on whose ox is in line to be gored. As Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) pointed out recently when Republican Bob Packwood of Oregon was on the griddle three years ago over accusations of sexual harassment and obstruction of justice, the majority Democrats found ways to hear from 264 witnesses, take 111 depositions, issue 44 subpoenas, and hold 1,000 hours of meetings. There are 100 senators and only one president, so anyone can do the math on what would be proportionate in the case of Bill Clinton. -- Washington Update

~Gary Rust is president of Rust Communications, which owns the Southeast Missourian and other newspapers.