Chapter 37

October 19, 1977

The university’s semester was half over and Benny had mid-terms this week. He wasn’t exactly stressed out by them. His math class was a snap. He did have some concerns about the English class, which was taught by a woman who was in love with poetry; and the history class, which was taught by a ‘memorize the event and date’ type of professor. His chemistry class was something new for him, and was requiring him to work at learning new material.

He was also taking a government course which was taught by a guy who seemed to have serious political ambitions. The class met at 10:00 to 10:55 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Monday morning he had taken the mid-term for it. To say that he had been shocked when reading the exam would have been an understatement. It consisted of one question, “A candidate campaigns on a promise to clean up the environment. Upon his election, should he keep that campaign promise? Argue for your answer based on the impact environmentally, socially, economically, and politically. Provide positive and negative examples of impact and rate them in terms of significance.”

Benny hated questions like that one. It wasn’t because he didn’t know how to answer it. He could come up with a very good answer. The problem was that if he went off and really thought about an answer to the question that he could end up thinking through the whole class period and without writing anything down by the time he had to turn in the test.

He expected to get the results of his exam this morning, although it could easily be a week before he learned the result. He looked up to see the instructor sitting there with an odd little smile on his face. It was one of those expressions that said, ‘You poor bastards had no idea this was coming. It’s time to start thinking and stop agreeing with everything anyone in a position of authority says to you.’ Benny might not be any good at interpreting what people meant, but there was no way he could mistake the expression on the professor’s face.

The professor started handing out papers by calling out a name and then hand delivering the graded exam to the student. He would then give a scathing review of the student’s answer. Benny’s classmates were squirming in the seats and looking for a way to escape before it was their turn.

“Ben Baker.”

“It’s Benny.”

Making a production out of holding up the paper, the professor read, “I object to the premise of the question.”

“I do.”

He looked down at Benny and said, “My first reaction upon reading that sentence was to say, ‘Ah HA! I have found the first student to receive a zero on my midterm exam.’ Normally I like to give underachieving students a 3 or 4 on the exam. That hurts worse than a 0.

“That was, indeed, my first impulse. I had the pen poised above the paper ready to put a big fat goose egg on it.

“You are most fortunate that I tend not to follow my first impulse. It was the second sentence that convinced me that you understood the real question.”

He read, “Keeping a campaign promise of such a general nature is not an all or nothing proposition, but one that is a matter of interpretation and degree.”

Placing the test on Benny’s desk, he said, “That is the correct answer. Keeping a campaign promise is a matter of interpretation and degree.

“For those of you who talked economic benefits and costs for non-existent legislation, on what basis could you even propose such an argument? No one can measure the economic cost of legislation of a general type. It’s difficult enough to arrive at the cost of a specific piece of legislation. Immediately shutting down all polluters could destroy this country economically. The cost of a slow implementation of pollution quality standards can cost a lot, but is spread out over time without ever being a crippling amount of money, but it can drag out so long that it never gets implemented. A program to reward one company a year with a proclamation that it is a company with a positive impact on the environment does nothing and costs nothing.

“As was pointed out in this student’s answer, increasing the upper limit on the fine for littering is keeping that promise and it costs nothing and has no real impact. He gave an example of a case where an act could be interpreted as delivering on the campaign promise to clean up the environment while actually resulting in a continued decline in the environment. It does little good to pass legislation requiring factories to keep from polluting the environment while excusing existing factories on the basis of being grandfathered. It sounds good, but it does not achieve a good result.

“Campaigning for office is done on generalities. Holding office concerns focusing on the specifics and what motivates an office holder seldom has anything to do with campaign promises.

“So far this semester I gave examples of meaningless campaign promises that I would deliver if elected to office. I was playing a role of a politician trying to get elected to office. You were playing the role of obedient stupid voters, nodding your heads in agreement with everything I was saying. Some of you may even have argued my political stance. There was no political stance. It was meaningless chatter designed to get elected to office. I’m pro-environment, pro-balanced budget, pro-this and pro-that while being against something or another.

“Politics is about getting elected or being placed into a position of power for the sole purpose of exercising that power. In our form of government, legislators are elected. They appoint the people who run the various departments and bureaus of the government. Some of our judges are elected while others are appointed. Every single one of those people is a political animal.

“The rest of this semester is about the structure and function of government, at the national and state level. We will look not at the day to day functioning of government, but at the powers which are exercised by those who run the government from the upper levels of the structure, and in terms of what functions they enforce and enact.

“The EPA was created under Nixon. It has tremendous regulatory and enforcement powers. Who controls that power? Who is directing it? What limits are placed on those people? Can they be controlled or can they extend their control? Who influences them?”

The professor paused and then said, “Very good job, Ben Baker.”

“It’s Benny.”

Benny looked down at his test paper. He had an A. He wasn’t going to argue with that. It did sound like the course was going to be a lot more work in the future. He listened to the comments made about other papers as the professor handed them out.

When class ended, Benny hurried home. Cathy’s closing on her house was scheduled at 1:00 and he had promised to be there. Tim and Sandra were going to be there as well. It wasn’t so much that they were needed financially or legally, but that their support was desired.

Alan and Wendy were both present at the closing. It was more of a family gathering than a business meeting. Hugs were exchanged between buyers and sellers. Cathy gave them a tour of the offices and showed off the antique cars that were sitting in the outbuilding.

An hour later, Cathy and Sandra were homeowners. Their plan was to live there for two or three years and then sell out to move into the one dollar houses, one house each. They weren’t too concerned about people buying them up before they were ready to purchase one. So far, Tim and Benny were the only two people who had bought one of them. If there was a sudden interest, they would move faster with getting Cathy and Sandra into one of them. If there was any hint that the program was going to be canceled, Cathy and Sandra would move the time table up.

After Alan and Wendy left, Cynthia said, “I have a house for you.”

“Good. Tell us about it.”

“It’s a bigger house than you’ve tackled in the past. It has five bedrooms, three baths, living room, dining room, study, family room, and an attached two car garage. It’s sitting on five acres with its own pond. The family is asking $36,000 for it. Once you’ve fixed it up, you should be able to get $60,000 or more for it. Quite possibly, a lot more for it.”

“That’s kind of unbelievable. What’s the story?”

“Eight years ago the wife killed her husband. The husband’s will specified that his half of the house go to the kids. The kids have been living with their grandparents on the father’s side. The older one has come of age and wants to sell the house. The grandparents are acting as guardians of the younger one and have agreed to sell it on his behalf. The wife is in prison and it will be years before she gets out. She’s agreed to sell it.

“The house has been sitting for eight years without any maintenance. There was some structural damage from before the murder. There’s some water damage and the house has fallen into disrepair. It needs a lot of work. There’s also that whole fear about someone having been murdered in it, that is driving the price down.”

Tim and Benny sat there for a moment. Tim said, “Benny. Our money is pretty tight right now. Can we afford to do it?”

Benny crossed his arms, lowered his head, and closed his eyes. Cynthia didn’t remember seeing Benny do this before. She was waiting for an answer. She stopped herself from saying something after glancing over at Cathy, who was holding her forefinger to her lips, in the classic gesture to remain quiet. Tim got up and went into the kitchen to get a glass of iced tea and some cookies. Sandra returned to her desk.

Seeing Cynthia’s puzzled expression, Cathy rose from her chair and gestured for the realtor to follow her. They went into the kitchen where they could talk without disturbing Benny.

Cynthia asked, “What’s going on?”

“Benny is thinking. When he’s thinking like that, we don’t bother him.”

“How long will he stay like that?”

“Who knows? It could be five minutes or it could be five days.”

“I guess I don’t have any choice except to wait for an answer,” Cynthia said.

It was an hour later that Benny opened his eyes and said, “It’s not good, but it’s not that bad either.”

Everyone gathered at the conference table to hear what he had to say. Even Cynthia came out of her office to listen.

Benny said, “We’re going to have to finance this with a bank loan. Since we’re short of capital, we’ll need to include the repair costs in the home loan.”

“So do we do it?”

“Yes.”

Tim asked, “How much will we have to invest and how much will we get out of it?”

“Assuming $10,000 in repair costs, our profit will be $6,000 on an investment of $14,000.”

“That doesn’t sound very good,” Cathy said.

Tim asked, “How do the numbers work out?”

“Let’s say that it will cost $10,000 to repair so we’ll be borrowing on a house of $36,000 plus $10,000 for repairs giving us a loan of $46,000. The bank is going to want us to put 20% down. That means we’ll have to put about $10,000 down to cover the down payment and 2 points on the loan. We’ll be taking out a loan of $36,800 which will give us payments of about $400 a month. Let’s say that we have to hold onto the house for 10 months. That’s $4,000 in loan payments. So our investment in the house would be $14,000 with a loan of $36,800.

“After 10 months, the principal won’t have even been touched. Let’s say we sell it for $60,000. After commission, that’s $57,000. There’s a $20,200 difference between the loan and the sales price. Our profit will be $6,000 on an investment of $14,000. That gives us a return on investment of 42%. Another thousand in resale price and we’d be at a 50% return. If we can drop repair costs to $5000, then we get 78%.”

“You’re basically saying that at a minimum we should get $6,000 out of it, but that is a conservative estimate.”

“Exactly. It can go up substantially. We can try negotiating the price down on purchase, hold costs on remodeling, and market it for more.”

“That would be nice.”

“Let’s not count our chickens before they hatch. Let’s see how much repair that house is going to require.”

“Good point,” Tim said. “Cynthia, can we see the house Saturday?”

“There should be no problem with that.”

Tim said, “What about my house?”

“That’s a problem.”

“Why?”

“We should do the exterior before working on the interior. The weather this time of year is too wet to work on it. Later, it will be too cold or too windy. We’re going to have to wait until April or May to begin working on it. It might even be June.”

“That’s what I thought,” Tim said.

“We can begin working on Cathy’s place, though. All of that is interior work.”

“Where would we start?” Cathy asked.

“I suppose we could begin with the guest room. Fix that up, then you could move into it while we fix up your room.”