by Hap Rocketto
The recent national economic distress has brought to mind my carefree days as an undergraduate. College was an orchard with many delights ripe for the picking. Much to the distress of my parents my delights in the pursuit of a liberal arts education lagged significantly behind my delight of the pursuit of the opposite gender and the various distilled and fermented beverages needed to ply my many, one time only blind dates into believing that I was the Adonis promised over the telephone.
Between Monday and Friday of each week I attended classes with varying degrees of interest and enthusiasm that never came close to that of my weekends. I very much enjoyed the study of history and English and United States literature, obtusely worked my way through two foreign languages-they were all Greek to me, lacking the necessary compass and map I fruitlessly sought the Royal Road to mathematics, and managed to survive the sciences, both real and social.
One of the few things I do remember about the social sciences, other than they are sciences in name only, was the fact that to most nebulous answer would earn at least a gentlemanly C. Real science is quantitative and repeatable; the social sciences pretend to be. Economics was a required social science course. It had to be required for no one with a wit of optimism would study it willingly and that very reason was to be found in its alternative name, “The Dismal Science.”
The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus was an early economist who was wildly popular among the chattering classes of mid 19th century England. After the deep consideration of various contemporary studies concerning population and agriculture he predicted that the estimated population growth would eventually outstrip the projected increase in the world’s food supply, resulting in world wide famine and starvation. The social scientist did not take into consideration the ‘hard’ sciences that would eventually introduce better farming techniques and machinery It is no wonder that that canny Scot, noted Victorian historian and satirist, Thomas Carlyle, hung the dismal tag on economics after reflecting upon the writings of his academic contemporary.
Two terms that stuck in my head all of these years were inflation and deflation. Originally I thought it had to do with my bald car tires, but I was soon made aware that it was a reference to money. Inflation means that the real value of money is in decline with a concurrent loss of purchasing power while deflation is the opposite, an increase of purchasing power.
I also learned that these two monetary fluctuations were of prime importance to folks living on a fixed income, such as retirees. In those days I was just happy to have two nickels to rub together. Now that I am a retiree I have a better understanding of their importance and how it affects my shooting.
The buying power of my pension dollars in regard to quality match ammunition has been falling of late. This is partly due to the fact that the US dollar has been taking a bit of a beating when compared to the English Pound and Euro, the units of exchange in the nations that produce the best smallbore match ammunition. This would not have been an issue several years ago. Unfortunately Federal, the last United States munitions manufacturer to produce quality domestic 22 caliber match ammunition, bailed from the market place and US smallbore riflemen were left with no protection from the capricious nature of the world monetary system.
In itself this is a situation I can live with but it certainly is no virtue, it is a necessity. However, I was dealt a more telling financial blow from an unexpected corner, the National Rifle Association. For some years it has been the NRA’s custom to award a “Perry Voucher” to the high scoring competitor in NRA Prone and Position Regionals. When presented at the entry office the certificates give the bearer a 50% discount on Camp Perry entry fees. These documents are as prized in shooting circles as were Ugarte’s stolen letters of transit in the seamy underworld of Rick’s Café Américain in the Bogart movie Casablanca.
After many years of watching these 8½ by 11 inch illuminated certificates being handed out to better shooters I finally scored one at Dan Holmes’ Fall Foliage Regional. The 2008 Perry prone entry was $309 and so I was effectively holding a check for $154.50 in my hot little hand. I had never won this much at a rifle match and, in reality; it just about covered my expenses. That mattered not; I was now a member of the exclusive Perry Voucher Club and drop that fact in casual conversation, duly impressing all those about me with my skill as a rifleman. The fact that I was just about the last person in my shooting circles to earn one was lost on me.
Then, as The Bard of Stratford on Avon might say, came the unkindest cut of all. At its January 2009 meeting the NRA Board of Directors voted to reduce the course of fire at the prone championships from a 6400 to a 4800 point aggregate. The reduction in course of fire by 25% meant that the match entry fee would likely be cut by the same percentage, reducing the entry fee to $231.75, which in turn would reduce the value of my voucher to $115.88-a net loss of $38.65!
My dim memory of sitting in a sunlit classroom four decades ago and not attentively listening as a pipe smoking social scientist, clad in his academic garb of tweed jacket replete with leather elbow patches, khaki trousers and penny loafers, paced and droned on about inflation and deflation now haunts me. I know for certain that my Perry Voucher will suffer a loss of value as a result of the entry fee reduction and I cannot fathom if it will it be by inflation or deflation. There is one thing I do know for certain, Carlyle was correct: economics is a dismal science.
