1980s AD - Decade

THE 1980s gave birth to the second longest peacetime economic recovery in the U.S. since World War II. Yet, in the minds of many Americans, those years were the antithesis of economic renewal. Like the 1920s, the decade was one of decadence. Like the 1930s, it was a period of pervasive economic retreat, of widespread retrogression for the country and the vast majority of its citizens--or so critics maintain.

Unlike the 1960s, many commentators have claimed that, during the 1980s, the competitive position of American firms and their workers was beaten back at home and abroad. The decade gave birth to a new form of robber barons--Wall Street financiers, dubbed "paper entrepreneurs"--whose new-found wealth detracted from national production. At the same time, it gave rise to the impoverishment of the poor and, more importantly (in the rhetoric of politicians), practically all of the middle class. As the nation entered the 1990s, many of these same commentators could be heard breathing a sigh of relief in the fondest hope that the decade would be radically different. Still, pessimism about the future persisted.

Policy debates during the late 1970s often were filled with mournful discussions of economic malaise, stagnation, or, even more descriptively, "stagflation," meaning high inflation with slow or no economic growth. Indeed, during the late 1970s, inflation was high by historical standards, reaching higher and higher peaks almost every year. Economic growth was slowed as productivity growth fell, in several years, to close to zero, attributable in part to the OPEC embargoes and U.S. policies that held down the rise in the prices of energy and thereby restrained further the growth in supplies. The Dow Jones industrial average index stood at 860 at the start of 1980, less than 80 points (or 10%) above the beginning of 1970.

Public commentaries concerning the fate of the economy began to take on a more foreboding tone after the turn of the decade, especially following the advent of the 1981-82 recession, caused, to a considerable extent, by the harsh anti-inflation policies of the Federal Reserve adopted in late 1979. Harvard Business School professor George Lodge warned that the country was beset with a peculiarly "American disease" (a phrase obviously intended to equate the nation's problems with England and its "British disease"). The symptoms of the American disease were to be found everywhere, in slow economic growth, rising interest rates, plunging profits, and lagging business investment, thus stagnating wealth.

Boston economist Barry Bluestone agreed, warning that the pace of job destruction, especially in the industrial sector, was alarming and accelerating. He pointed out that 31,000,000 jobs had been destroyed between 1978 and 1982, which meant that "fully one-third of all private sector jobs in 1978 had disappeared by 1982." In 1984, Bluestone and Bennett Harrison had developed their empirical case of job losses sufficiently to declare flatly in The Deindustrialization of America that the U.S. rapidly was losing its manufacturing base, the supposed heart of the economy. Harvard's Robert Reich, as well as other academics in northeastern universities, seconded the call for a national industrial policy, maintaining that the country was unraveling, slowly but surely.

Looking back at the 1980s, what did happen? Proposals for a national industrial policy went down to flaming defeat in the 1984 election with Walter Mondale, who had made such policies the hallmark of his campaign. Moreover, the economy did not continue on the economic skids, as forcefully had been predicted. Instead, economic growth rebounded. Total employment increased by 19,000,000 between 1980 and 1990, in spite of all the talk about jobs being destroyed.

Did the country deindustrialize? Hardly. The Federal Reserve's industrial production index rose in line with gross national product, by 29% between January, 1980, and September, 1990 (just prior to the start of the recession). Contrary to the predictions of demise in U.S. manufacturing, the manufacturing index grew absolutely and relatively, by 36% during the same period.

Furthermore, real, inflation-adjusted manufacturing output increased by 38% between 1980 and 1989. This means that, in 1989, manufacturing output represented a higher percentage of GNP (23%) than it did in 1980 (21%). Manufacturing output as a share of GNP was higher, albeit modestly so, in 1989 than in any other year (aside from 1988) since 1947.

The belief that the country was deindustrializing was aggravated by the view that the U.S. was becoming a "service economy." This was worrisome not only because, the country often was reminded, "manufacturing matters," but also since the survival, not just the health, of the service economy is tied inextricably to the manufacturing sector: "Lose manufacturing and you lose--not develop--those high-wage services."

Admittedly, domestic-based manufacturing employment fell from 20,300,000 in 1980 to 19,100,000 in 1990, or by six percent. However, that loss points to the fact that manufacturing productivity in many industries was surging during the 1980s, in no small response to the competitive pressures from abroad and home. If manufacturing employment had risen in line with production, it is a safe bet that output would have represented a smaller share of GNP in 1990 than it actually was because manufacturing in the U.S. would not have been cost-effective then. With the improvement in the cost-effectiveness of manufacturing, exports of manufactured goods grew by 90% between 1986 and 1992, as compared with 25% for the rest of the members of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. These relative changes enabled the U.S. to raise its share of the world's manufacturing exports from 14% in 1987 to 18% in 1991, regaining its 1980 share of world manufacturing trade.

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Just as importantly, the U.S. manufacturing base no longer is in the domestic economy represented by the 50 states--it is scattered worldwide. While manufacturing employment fell as a share of total employment from 20% in 1980 to 16% in 1990, according to economist Kenichi Ohmae, U.S. manufacturing employment on a global scale held steady at 30% of the world share through at least 1986. This suggests that the decline in manufacturing employment was part of an international phenomenon, sparked by competition American producers had to meet--and most did.

The "decline of America"

With their deindustrialization fears dashed by the continuing expansion and without ever acknowledging the errors in their previous claims, the nation's Chicken Littles began to twist, albeit judiciously, their foreboding prophecies in the mid 1980s. The U.S., they professed, was in long-term economic decline, not so much absolutely (it clearly was not), but relatively--that is, when compared to the rest of the world. The collapse of communism and the current efforts of former Soviet republics and the Eastern Bloc countries to duplicate the U.S. market system speaks volumes about the misguided predictions of the harbingers of the decline thesis, but American political successes obscured the nation's economic tumble in the world economy, or so it has been argued.

Daniel Sharp, president of the American Assembly, stated without qualification in The New York Times, "America can't compete." The chief evidence offered was the huge balance of trade deficits and the failure of the falling dollar to reduce the deficits materially. Joel Kurtzman warned in The Decline and Crash of the American Economy that the U.S. needed to alter its economic course, principally through national planning, in order to "end the steep decline of our nation so that we can once again assume our position at the helm of the world's economy." "The saddest outcome of all," wrote Harvard University economist Benjamin Friedman, "would be for America's decline to go on, but to go on so gradually that by the time the members of the next generation are old enough to begin asking who was responsible for their diminished circumstances, they will not even know what they have lost."

Through his widely read book, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, Harvard historian Paul Kennedy probably did more than anyone to substantiate growing despair over the country's fate. He maintained that the relative decline of the U.S. was apparent in its shrinking share of world gross national product. Indeed, as Kennedy reported, U.S. GNP as a percentage of that for the rest of the world fell from 1960 through the mid 1970s. Yet, as Kennedy and others failed to recognize, somewhere around 1975, U.S. GNP relative to the rest of the world began to level off, holding close to a 34% share in 1975 and 1980, only to fall to under 32% in 1982. In the mid and late 1980s, U.S. production relative to the rest of the world began to rise somewhat, reaching a peak of more than 34% in 1988 (and remaining just under 34% in 1990).

Critics might worry that the argument has been distorted by comparing the performance of the U.S. with the rest of the world, which includes a number of underdeveloped countries that grew slowly or retrogressed during the 1980s. It is true that U.S. national production declined relative to Japan during the 1980s. In 1990, the U.S. GNP was 2.6 times Japan's, down from three times in 1980. On the other hand, it grew from 5.1 times Germany's GNP in 1980 to 5.4 in 1990. With respect to all developed countries, aside from Japan and Germany, U.S. GNP grew relatively, but modestly, from 97% in 1980 to 101% in 1989.

Real world investors continued to ignore, for the most part, the pundits of gloom and continued to look at what truly was happening to the economy. Granted, the Dow Jones index fell by more than 700 (or 28%) in late 1987, a precipitous drop that, no doubt, fortified the confidence of the prophets of gloom in this dismal prediction. Nevertheless, the market had recovered all of the lost ground by late 1988, reaching 2,148 in December--two and one-half times its level at the start of the decade.

All of the cheery economic news not-withstanding, Bluestone and Harrison returned to print in 1988 with a slightly augmented beat on their dismal analytical drum. They published a new treatise called The Great U-Turn, in which they more carefully explained how the american economy, beginning in the early 1970s, had begun to make a U-turn on the road of economic progress. They opened their book with a foreboding claim: "The standard of living of American workers--and a growing number of their families--is in serious trouble."

A key, but not the only, statistic used to support their conclusion is the reversal in the real (inflation-adjusted to 1990 prices) average wage of production and nonsupervisory workers. The average wage did rise by 28% from 1959 ($9.07) to 1973 ($11.60), after which it fell irregularly by 14% to $10.02 over the following 17-year span. There is something of an inverted "U" in that performance.

Does this mean that workers, on average, are worse off, albeit slightly? This type of data certainly would suggest that the obvious answer is an unqualified, "Yes." However, there are good reasons for doubt. The most important is that per capita disposable income in the U.S. grew in real dollar terms by 21% between 1978 and 1990. It would appear odd that real wages declined at the same time real disposable income grew.

Second, the income paradox partially can be explained by another form of income redistribution--a shift in the way earnings are received from straight wages to non-money benefits (employer contributions to Social Security, health and life insurance, retirement, vacation days, as well as many other identified fringe benefits). Nonwage compensation as a percentage of salaries rose dramatically, from just under nine percent in 1960 to nearly 21% in 1990. Workers gradually were taking a larger share of their earnings in non-money forms, understandably so since fringe benefits often are non-taxable forms of income.

Third, to evaluate the Great U-Turn thesis properly, the data must be adjusted for inflation in some consistent manner. The consumer price index (CPI) employed is inconsistent, since the method used for computing it abruptly was changed in 1983. The primary reason was because the method used until then overstated the rate of inflation and, when used to deflate wages, exaggerated their fall.

Fourth, the Great U-Turn analysis leaves out of the calculation the very important 20% of the workforce not classified as "production and nonsupervisory workers."

Fifth, the rise in the labor force participation of women and minorities and the growing use of part-time employees during the 1970s and 1980s were factors pulling the average wage down, in spite of the fact that their employment meant income gains for many families. This is the case simply because women, minorities, and part-time workers tend to earn less than the average. Moreover, hourly wages during the 1980s gradually gave way to other forms of compensation, namely year-end and production bonuses (not included in the measure used to compute the Great U-Turn).

If total worker compensation (including all money and non-money benefits) is computed on an average hourly basis and adjusted for inflation via the improved CPI, the widely advertised Great U-Turn evaporates totally. The data reveal that average worker welfare generally has continued to march upward. Total compensation per hour was $9.61 in 1959, $14.58 in 1973, $15.53 in 1978, and (after peaking at $16.60 in 1987) $16.25 in 1990.

Even this higher measure of income does not account for the fact that quality improvements in the goods and services Americans buy often result in higher prices. If the CPI does not adjust properly for quality changes, which it can not always do, the computed real wages will understate the rise in people's true living standard. For many American industries in the 1980s, quality greatly was elevated as a goal, partially because of the growing importance of international trade. The fact that quality has become "Job No. 1" for many firms probably means that computed real wages understate the improvement in America's living standard. Finally, the usual calculations fail to acknowledge the 10-25% of domestic incomes that are earned "underground," out of reach of the tax collectors and statisticians.

Nevertheless, it is evident that this more optimistic reformulation indicates that the growth in average real compensation slowed significantly after 1973. From 1959 until then, it grew at a compound annual rate of slightly more than three percent, then rose at a rate of less than two-thirds of one percent from 1973 to 1990. this, then, is the core of the real economic problem of the 1970s and 1980s--a slowdown instead of a U-turn in wages, which no one has been able to explain fully. Most analysts attribute it, in general terms, to a slowdown in the growth of worker productivity. Subgroups of the labor force--most prominently unskilled workers with little education--probably did suffer a reversal of their economic fortunes during the 1980s. To deny a broad-based Great U-Turn and acknowledge that there was a slowdown in the growth of real wages is not to dismiss the problems confronting the American economy. It is, however, a way of putting problems in proper perspective in order that unnecessary policy solutions can be avoided.

The "Decade of Greed"

Greed has been a problem since at least biblical times. Nevertheless, policy critics have maintained that it was fostered unabashedly during the 1980s by the Reagan Administration, intent on lowering tax rates to encourage excessive ostentatious consumption among its principal supporters. Worrying that the 1990s would be the decade in which the bills of the 1980s would come due, Time magazine reporter Otto Friedrich declared, "The past decade brough growth, avarice and an anything goes attitude," then glibly summarized the 1980s with five words, "Get rich, borrow, spend, enjoy," suggesting that the dealings of Ivan Boesky, "the diaper king of arbitrage," epitomized the wanton ways of an entire decade. The fact that the stock market was pressing toward 3000 by the late 1980s assured the commentators that greed was rampant, especially among the market's "paper entrepreneurs" whose work obscured the weakness of the underlying real economy--or so the nation was told.

Claims of pervasive greed in the 1980s most easily can be assessed with reference to Americans' charitable contributions. Such an assessment reveals that Americans always have given a modest fraction of their incomes to charitable causes. However, total charitable giving (measured in 1990 dollars) continued to reach record highs throughout the 1980s. Total contributions--by living individuals, bequests, corporations, and foundations--more than doubled, increasing from $34,500,000,000 in 1955 to $77,500,000,000 in 1980, or at a compounded annual growth rate of 3.3%. Between 1980 and 1989, total giving in real dollars expanded by 56% to $121,000,000,000, or by a compound annual growth rate of 5.1%. The yearly rate of growth in total giving in the 1980s was nearly 55% higher than in the previous 25 years.

Critics might complain that the growth in private generosity in the 1980s was a product of the rise in income or represented a continuation of the long-term upward trend in contributions. Statistical analysis of the data refutes this view, however. In fact, annual total giving in constant dollars, on average, was more than $14,000,000,000, or 16%, higher during the 1980s than would have been predicted from the philanthropic pattern of the late 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Over all, during the so-called "Decade of Greed," Americans had increased their charitable contributions by the equivalent of one and one-half years over what would have been predicted, given past charitable patterns. Clearly, when compared to earlier decades, the 1980s were a decade of renewed beneficence.

Meanwhile, the reality of the changing income distribution is far more complicated than the modern prophets of gloom would have people believe. As already noted, the method for computing the CPI was changed in 1983, the effect of which was to obscure the growth in real incomes (or to accentuate the decline); the average family size fell by 17% between 1970 and 1986; and fringe benefits and other wage supplements, which are not counted as family income, expanded from 12% of total wages and salaries in 1970 to 20% in 1986.

Researchers at the Congressional Budget Office have determined that, when recomputed with the improved CPI and adjusted for the economies associated with smaller families, real median family income shows a trend upward, rising by 20% between 1970 and 1986. When further adjusted to account, in a rough way, for the growth in non-wage income, the increase during this period may be more than 28%.

Critics do have some of the data on the changing income distribution right. Breaking American households into five income groups, the share of the fifth with the lowest earnings did fall from 4.1% in 1970 to 3.9% in 1990 (after reaching 4.2% in 1980), and the share received by the middle three-fifths fell from 52.7% in 1970 to 49.5% in 1990. At the same time, the fifth with the highest incomes rise relatively rapidly during the 1970s and 1980s, from 43.3% in 1970 to 46.6% in 1990.

Census Bureau data indicates that it is grossly misleading to suggest that changes in income distribution were "seismic," that the poor as a group got poorer, or that only the "most fortunate fifth" gained over the past two decades.

Computed using the improved CPI, the average incomes of the lowest two-fifths of households actually rose between 1973 and 1989 (just before the recession), albeit modestly by historical standards, by 4.7 and 4.0%, respectively. However, between 1983 and 1989, the average income of the lowest fifth rose 11.1%, while that of the second-lowest fifth rose by 10.1%. The average income of the middle and second-highest fiths expanded by 10.7 and 11.6%, respectively.

Granted, the average real income of the top fifth rose by much more, 18.8%, but it is naive to assume that the top fifth is an exclusive club. It is comprised of changing households with varying members operating on continually evolving conditions. Students who were in school in the early 1980s, for instance, had jumped several fifths by the end of the decade simply by taking their first job or by marrying someone with an income. The very limited research done on the subject suggests that a sizable share of the households in the top fifth at the end of the 1980s was in a lower fifth in earlier years. Isabel Sawhill and Mark Condon, economists with The Urban Institute in Washington, found that when people in the bottom fifth in 1977 were followed through 1986, the increase in their average income was 77%, a substantially greater percentage increase than that of the people who started out in the top fifth in 1979.

Over all, the critics have been correct in stressing that the rich have gotten richer, but they are way off base to suggest that they always were rich during the 1980s, became wealthier at the expense of the rest of the population, or that their riches were all ill-gotten or undeserved. It is far more accurate to say that, in the 1980s, many rich and not-so-rich Americans got wealthier faster than other Americans. Both ends of the income distribution were contributing to the economic improvement of the other. Growth was trickling in all directions, not just down or up the income distribution scale.

Taxes

Was the Federal tax burden redistributed during the decade? The answer is "yes" and "no," depending on the data cited and the taxes included. Federal rates were lowered across the board, but many exemptions were eliminated. Meanwhile, Social Security taxes, which tend to be particularly onerous to lower income groups, were raised persistently, with higher rates paid by employees and employers on gradually higher incomes. On balance, when considering all Federal taxes collected directly from individual, the burden on the fifth of families with the lowest incomes went from 8.1% of their incomes in 1980 to 10.3% in 1985, 9.3% in 1988, and 8.6% in 1992. The second-lowest fifth stayed within the narrow range of 15.6-15.9% in those years. Similarly, the middle fifth stayed within the narrow range of 19.1-19.8%, with no apparent up or down trend over the period. The second-from-the-highest fifth declined slightly from 22.9% in 1980 to 22.2% in 1992. The average for the highest fifth fell from 27.5% in 1980 to 24.1% in 1985, but then trended upward to 26% in 1988 and 26.8% in 1992. Throughout the decade, real Federal tax collections trended upward in absolute terms. They represented 19.4% of gross national product in 1980 and 19.6% in 1990 (after falling to 18.1% in 1984). The lower four-fifths of families each tended to cover a slightly shrinking share of the growing tax burden. Between 1980 and 1992, the share of all Federal taxes paid by the lowest fifth of families went from 1.6% in 1980 to 1.3% in 1992. The share of the second fifth dropped from 6.9 to 6.0% and the middle fifth dropped from 13.2 to 12.1%, while the fourth fifth's share dropped from 22.1 to 20%. On the other hand, the share paid by the highest fifth of families rose from 56.1% in 1980 to 60.5% in 1992, mainly because of its realtive income growth.

Hoover Institution economist Thomas Sowell is reported to have quipped that "reality is tricky." Indeed, it is. A host of critics of the 1980s have played tricks on their audiences by pretending that reality is as simple as they say it is. Most of them have had some of the data correct. Otherwise, they never would have been taken seriously. The mistake they have made all too often is not getting all of the facts and pretending that their limited arsenal of facts tell the entire story of the 1980s. Correcting distorted impressions is crucial--the course of public policy hinges on it.

The 1980s were not the best of times, but neither were they the worst of times, as Americans too often have been wrongfully told. This is true if for no other reason than that the stock market broke 3,400 before the middle of 1992--nearly four times its level at the start of 1980. Something good must have been going on, or else the tens of millions of domestic and foreign investors were suffering delusions of growth where none was apparent.

On the other hand, the 1980s was a decade when the Chicken Littles of policy circles invariably followed their grossly distorted warnings of economic calamity with a preconceived prescription for relief that seemed to direct, rather than to be derived from, their analyses. They called for greater Federal involvement in the economic affairs of Americans, more Federal regulations and management of internal and external trade, and expanded Federal planning. With the reality of the 1980s failing to match the dismal predictions and Eastern Europe and the republics of the former Soviet Union seeking to escape as much as possible from the clutches of government controls, the Chicken Littles' social agenda remains a vision in search of empirical justification.

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Grillwork

All good things must come to an end, but we weren't prepared for our trusty charcoal grill finally to succumb to a case of advanced rust right in the middle of prime outdoor cooking season. Faced with the need for replacement, we decided that it was time to upgrade from the basic kettle that had served us so faithfully over the years. However, we were not about to sacrifice true charcoal flavor at the altar of one of those behemoth gas grills that are beginning to dominate the market. Despite all the persuasive talk from salesmen about convenience, cleanliness, and "almost the same taste as cooking over charcoal," we wanted to stick to the traditional briquette-burner, though we did regard some of the more modern tures with a bit of envy.

Ready to settle for another basic kettle, we discovered that the trusty old ugly duckling had taken a quantum leap toward becoming a swan. The people at Weber-Stephen Products Co., Palatine, Ill., obviously have been listening to consumers' yearnings over the years, and the result is the new superstar of outdoor cooking--the Performer Grill with Touch-N-Go Gas Ignition System. They have mounted the standard 22 1/2" kettle into a four-wheeled wagon frame with handles that allow for easy portability and a propane igniter that offers the ease and safety of gas without sacrificing the charcoal method. Just turn on the gas, push the button, and a flame is triggered underneath the briquettes. Five minutes later, turn off the gas and wait for the coals to reach the proper cooking temperature. A deep storage container suspended below the cart's top holds up to 20 pounds of charcoal and, when the lid is closed, provides a stainless steel work surface. Add a bottom storage rack and tool holders, and you have an engineering marvel.

If that was all, we would have been perfectly content, but the additional features showed the thought that has gone into this model. A hinged cooking grate swings up on each side, permitting briquettes to be added as old ones burn down, particularly welcome when slow-cooking roasts. A deceptively simple semicircular rack holds the lid, giving the chef the use of both hands for basting, turning the meat, or whatever other chore may be necessary. Perhaps most clever is the top-mounted thermometer that displays the temperature within the closed kettle, then slides out of the holder to be plunged into the meat to determine how close it is to being done.

The Performer Grill with all its bells and whistles comes in the traditional black, blue, brown, or bright red to liven up the backyard. It can be found at garden centers, hardware stores, and other outlets that specialize in outdoor living equipment for a suggested $379. If you can escape from the store without loading up with the myriad accessories Weber-Stephen makes available, you have more will power than we do. The roast holder ($24.99), rib rack ($34.99), heavy-duty vinyl cover ($44.99), and hardwood-handled stainless steel fork, tongs, and spatula ($34.99 for the set) all helped make our summer grilling a treat. As an extra added service, there's even a toll-free number (1-800-GRILL-OUT) to provide hotline help for cooking conundrums.

Green Thumb Aids

Autumn does not mean the end of gardening, with many varieties of flowers, fruits, and vegetables still thriving. Moreover, it's getting to be time to put the bulbs into the ground for next year. A number of handy devices are out there to make fall chores easier.

Out of White Flower Farm, Litchfield, Conn., comes the heavy-duty Bulb Planter ($49.95) that obviates the need to get down on your knees and dig holes. Instead, this 40"-high implement consists of a tubular steel blade that knifes through the soil, a crosspiece for your foot to drive it into the ground, and a wider crosspiece at the top to lean your weight onto for maximum penetration. Tilling the soil is a snap with the Swoe ($70), a double-edged hoe that has the blade tilted at an offset angle, thus allowing you to turn over the surface of the soil as you work the head around plants. Particularly clever

is the reversible Garden Stool ($45), made of tubular steel with a fabric-covered plastic cushion. Standing on its legs, the device is an 18"-high seat; turned over, it becomes a padded kneeling bench, with the inverted legs acting as supports for getting up and down. These handy tools can be ordered directly from White Flower Farm (1-203-496-9600).

Another handy device for the aches-and-pains gardener is the Grass Hopper ($25) from Step 2 Corp., Streetsboro, Ohio, a handy hinged seat on wheels--with a 6"-deep storage compartment for tools and supplies--that makes planting a breeze. Made of light-weight, but sturdy, molded plastic, the Grass Hopper hoses clean quickly and has a built-in handle for portability. To order, call 1-800-347-8372.

It's a given that nothing grows without water, but wrestling hoses often makes you wish that rain would be sufficient to meet your garden's needs. Three products from Gardener's Supply Co., Burlington, Vt., help alleviate the aggravation. The Four-Tap Distributor ($29.95) allows you to convert an outdoor faucet to four-hose capability. Simply screw in the distributor and connect a hose to each of the snap-on connectors. Shut-off valves permit cutting off flow to any or all of the hoses, so a number of chores can be accomplished at the same time or a single watering if that is all that's necessary. Add the Wind-up Water Timer ($28.95), which attaches to any hose and can be set to turn it off in anywhere from five minutes to two hours, and you can walk away without having to worry about overwatering or flooding. When done, simply coil the hose(s) around the Hose Butler ($29.95), a solid steel hook that, when driven 12-18[inches] into the ground, forms a solid support and keeps up to 200' of cantankerous rubber or plastic out of the way. Unlike the metal or plastic reels that look so efficient in the store, but prove to be anything else when you get them home, this is a deceptively simple product that just gets the job done. Order directly from Gardener's Supply Co. (1-802-863-1700).

Im-Plaque-Able

As the dental profession came to realize that plaque was as much a threat to teeth as decay, products began flooding the market to combat the problem. The latest is the Ultra Sonex Ultrasonic Toothbrush from Sonex International Corp., Brewster, N.Y.

At first glance, the impression is that the machine is a put-on, sort of a dental pet rock. When plugged in, it neither makes a sound nor has any perceptible motion. Yet, the manufacturer claims that high-frequency, low-intensity ultrasound waves are busy cleaning your mouth as you pass the bristles over your teeth. It must be so, since the American Dental Association has granted the device its Seal of Acceptance, confirming that it is an effective adjunct as part of a program for good oral hygiene. If you can get over the skepticism triggered by its silent immobility, this electric toothbrush can be found in department stores, pharmacies, and many catalog outlets for $129.

An intriguing alternative is the Dentrust toothbrush from Oral Logic, Inc., Seattle, Wash. Its unique three-sided design surrounds the tooth, allowing you to brush all surfaces at once, as well as massage the gums. Engineered with the bristles at a 45[degrees] angle, as recommended by the dental profession, the brush requires old-fashioned hand manipulation rather than electricity, but its lack of high-tech pizzazz is made up for by its conversation piece appearance. Look for Dentrust toothbrushes in pharmacies and grocery stores at $2.49.

Garage Guards

For those whose garages have barely enough room for their cars, much less the other items that invariably begin to encroach upon the vehicle's rightful space, Improvements, Cleveland, Ohio, has a couple of simple, but effective, ways that all can coexist. For $19.99, a pair of polyurethane Car Stop Blocks can prevent the annoying, nerve-jarring feeling of driving too far into the garage and hitting the back wall or whatever has usurped the space, a particular problem for those who have difficulty seeing over the hoods of larger autos. Just ease the car into the garage to the point where you want it to stop, mark the spot, back out, and cement down the blocks with polyurethane adhesive. Forever after, you'll know when you feel the wheels make contact that you're as far as you can go. Moreover, by driving in until you make contact, you can rest assured that you haven't erred too much in the name of caution, leaving the tail sticking out far enough to foul the door on its way down.

People who constantly are throwing open the car door and crashing it into the wall--to the detriment of both--will welcome foam-cushioned bumpers that attach to the wall with adhesive or nails. Much as a boat fender prevents damage from a dock, these will protect your vehicle and garage from carelessness. At $39.99 a pair, they'll pay for themselves in saved painting touchups over the years. Blocks and bumpers can be ordered directly from Improvements (1-800-642-2112).

Someone to Watch Over Me

Virtually since humans first crawled out of the primeval ooze, they have kept icons of who or what they worshipped at hand to pray to, appease, or beg for favors, intervention, or inspiration. Why should the Computer Age be different?

Office Gods from Talus Corp., Portland, Me., are designed to place by your copier, fax, PC, or whatever piece of machinery requires divine intervention. These whimsical plastic figurines are around three inches high and designed to resemble classical Greek statues. The Pantheon consists of Copius (cures reproduction problems), Filus (sorts you out), Faxus (prevents fax attacks), Phonia (keeps you connected), Computa (prevents terminal illness), and Caffeina (perks you up). It's advisable to head right for the nearest office supply, card, or gift store and pick up one or more. After all, $6.99 apiece is a small enough investment in propitiating the gods.

Kick Off in Comfort

The football season now starts with training camps opening in July and doesn't end until the NFL Pro Bowl in February. That means an awful lot of passing, punting, and, best of all, pre-game tailgate parties.

Indispensable for such revelry is the Pak Chest cooler from 4 Sport & Play, Inc., San Diego, Calif. This versatile product starts with an insulated container with a capacity large enough for two dozen cans of beer or soda and a full bag of ice, then adds on a number of features that turn it into a traveling cornucopia. A refrigerated pocket absorbs the cold from the ice chest without the mositure, making it ideal for keeping cold cuts, raw vegetables, and sandwiches fresh. Large pockets provide room for pretzels, potato chips, and other snacks, as well as plates, glasses, etc. The chest lid swings open horizontally to form a serving tray. A padded shoulder strap makes the entire thing portable, and the durable canvas duck covering comes in a variety of bright colors and features the logo of your favorite NFL or college team. The one drawback to this handy item is the weight when fully loaded with ice, et al. If the burden becomes onerous, there is a final clever touch: When closed, the padded swing-open lid becomes a seat that the manufacturer maintains is strong enough to hold a linebacker!

The Pak Chest cooler is available at department and sporting goods stores and through various catalogs for $59.95.

Museum Memo

What's new in museums around the country? Among the more interesting exhibitions that will be on view are:

Good Offices and Beyond: The Evolution of the Workplace, Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York, Sept. 13-Feb. 19, 1995.

Masterpleces of Chinese Calligraphy, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., through Feb. 28, 1995.

Grand Illusions: Four Centuries of Still-Life Painting, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Sept. 14-Jan. 1, 1995.

Goya: Truth and Fantasy, The Small Paintings, The Art Institute of Chicago, through Oct. 16.

Thomas Cole: Landscape into History, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Conn., Sept. 11-Dec. 4.

Man and the Moon, The Museums at Stony Brook (N.Y.), through Oct. 2.

Dall: The Early Years, through Sept. 18, and Origins of Impressionism, Sept. 27-Jan. 8, 1995, both at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Every Picture Tells a Story: Word and Image in American Folk Art, Museum of American Folk Art, Sept. 17-Jan. 15, 1995.

The Grand American Avenue: 1850-1920, The Historic New Orleans (La.) Collection, Sept. 13-Dec. 10.

Impressions of an Era: Paris, 1870-1914, M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, Calif., through Jan. 1, 1995.

COPYRIGHT 1994 Society for the Advancement of Education
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group