One Stop Shoppin$ 4

Our newest product is pre-stained lumber. It joins an impressive roster of proven moneymakers for you. All grades and sizes of treated and untreated dimension, plus treated timbers. boards and deck accessories. And we have the trucks to get it to you.

And one call gets it all. You can depend on it.

DAVID CUTLER publisher dcutler@ioc.net

Oh, Woe ls Me

When the stock market's summer picnic started to go sour in July, it cast a pall across the American psyche like a hint of skunk amidst the potato salad. As the world economy went soft and mushy, its odors drifted here, heightening fears that our record economic boom was headed for the garbage can.

Certainly, exports of forest products and other goods declined noticeably. Wood producers abroad, frustrated in their domestic markets, loaded up and shipped huge quantities to our shores. The supply and demand balance worked as it always does and prices dropped. The pain for some, though not all, in our business was real.

Predictably, the doomsayers had a field day. As they decorated their forecasts in black crepe, the media elite and some of the Wall Street crowd have furrowed their brows and brought forth visions ofrecession and even depression. Nothing is too gloomy for the tv evening news.

Yet the most recent economic statistics don't quite reflect this grim a picture. At the National Association for Business Economics annual convention last month, the consensus was for our economy to grow 3Vo this year and 2.2Vo next year. Not great, but still okay. While the decline in yields in long term Treasuries hurt investors, it also means lower costs for buying and remodeling homes. Housing has been strong this year and is expected to plateau in 1999. Lumber production in the South and West is expected to be off only slightly next year, but still at a respectable level.

No less an expert than Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan said the U.S. is "far short" of a credit crunch and that our economy still has "fairly significant continuing momentum."

So at this stage, following a major stock market shift, the problem becomes one of confidence. The question is: Are we going to talk ourselves into a recession? It can and does happen. From here on, it's up to all of us.