Feeling Better About 2010
February 22, 2010 I can count on one hand the television shows I make it a point not to miss. Chances are I couldn’t even count one if I didn’t tape them.
My nighttime TV-watching can be a little erratic, so I depend on my VCR and watch my favorites when I can. I don’t know exactly when “The Office” comes on, but my VCR does. Otherwise, how would I know Creed Bratton said, “Sometimes a guy’s gotta ride the bull, am I right? Later, skater.” Words to live by.
Recently I stumbled across “Men of a Certain Age” on TNT. Bet you haven’t heard of it. It’s a “coming-of-age” story of three 40-something men who have been friends since college. I swear that’s the only way I can describe it, and the musical soundtrack is outstanding.
Ray Romano’s “Joe” is a recently separated dad with a bit of a gambling problem. His bookie is not exactly Creed Bratton, but he’s, ah, interesting. Scott Bakula’s “Terry,” suffers (enjoys?) a serious case of the Peter Pan syndrome. Andre Braugher‘s “Owen,” lives in the shadow of his famous father ― a former Los Angeles Lakers star.
In one scene, Joe says, “You can’t fully enjoy feeling good until you’ve felt so bad you think you’re going to die.”
Over the past two years in the cotton industry, there’s been gracious plenty to feel bad about.
USDA’s final planted-acreage number last year was around 9 million. We can barely survive on that, much less thrive.
The annual Cotton Grower survey projects that 9.9 million acres will be planted this year. When we took the survey in October and November, there was still a lot of cotton being mudded out of the Mid-South, and the Southeast was way behind. We thought then, and continue to think now, the number is low.
In a survey taken at the Consultants Conference at the Beltwide Cotton Conferences in New Orleans in early January (see page 11), consultants were asked in an interactive poll for their predictions. Forty-three percent said acreage will be up at least 10% in their area. Another 22% said acreage would be up 20%. So in total, 65% said acreage will be up 10% or more.
An on-line poll on our website ― www.cotton247.com ― taken the week of January 12 is similar: Of the people who took the poll, 65% said acreage would be up at least 10%, and another 12% said it would be up 20%. That’s 77% of those taking the poll predicting acreage will be up at least 10%
I haven’t felt so bad about our industry that I thought I was going to die, and I won’t enjoy feeling really good until the cotton crop is planted. But based on the projections, a guy’s gotta’ ride the bull, am I right?
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