For sale: 41 cents

Forty-one cents won’t get you much these days.

It won’t get you a cup of coffee. Or a can of Coke. And, heck, it won’t even get you a copy of the Saipan Tribune.

But you know what you can get for 41 cents? I’ll tell you what…and it’s something that used to cost over $60, as a matter of fact:

For 41 cents, you can get a share of stock in Northwest Airlines.

Yes, that’s our beloved—and bankrupt—Northwest Airlines, one of the Commonwealth’s transportation life lines. On the heels of JAL’s departure, when we’re down to counting our blessings, and not counting our tourists, it’s mildly unnerving to see Northwest battling such financial headwinds.

I like Northwest Airlines. They are a class act, one of the top-tier airlines, a proud legacy name in an industry increasingly dominated by grubby, low-rent outfits. In terms of other U.S. flagged carriers operating locally, Continental is, of course, also an excellent airline, but it happens that I go to Detroit and Minneapolis often, and that is Northwest territory, big time….Tokyo to Detroit, direct, is really slick.

Squinting at the little graph squiggles on my computer screen, I note that Northwest stock soared to well over $60 in 1998. I don’t think I’d like to be the guy who paid over $60 for a share of stock back then only to find that one share, plus a buck, would get me a cup of java today…imagine explaining that to the missus. I’d be sleeping on the couch.

Northwest is so cheap, as a matter of fact, that its entire market capitalization is just $35 million. Yikes! That kind of money could buy a big, famous, international airline?

Unless I’m missing something in the numbers, the answer is, apparently, yes. Which would mean, by extension, that you could by a controlling interest in it for half that, or about $17.5 million. Heck, our local retirement fund has that kind of coin jiggling in its piggy bank…

So if I were mischievous, I’d surreptitiously float a scheme for the Commonwealth to buy out Northwest Airlines, wouldn’t that be a hoot?

We could appoint committees of people who know nothing about airlines to manage the airline, hire bureaucrats to write big, meaningless reports on air transportation (“A 30-Year Plan for Air Transportation,” “The Impact of 747s on Flora and Fauna,” “Costs and Benefits of Big Things With Wings,” etc.), hold publicly funded lunch meetings for our committee at PIC, have expensive junkets to Manila to “study” the airline industry…and, well, come on, you have to admit it would be fun.

We could do for the airline industry what we’ve done for the electric generating industry.

We’d be famous! OK, we already are. We could be MORE famous. What could be better? Our luminaries could introduce service to Vladivostok, Darwin, and Peoria, cutting those hated Japanese package tourists out of the market altogether…and we’ll show them who’s smart!

Oh, I think we already have. Showed them, I mean.

Meanwhile, I see no evidence that Northwest is in danger of immanent liquidation, but I’m not complacent about it, either. It just goes to show you that air transportation is a very volatile industry, and the Commonwealth is mighty dependent on this sector.

Northwest’s stock ticker is NWACQ. Even if you’re not interested in the stock market, this is a story worth following.

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One of Saipan’s best kept secrets is Java Joe’s, a café directly across from Joeten Dandan. It’s open 24 hours a day, has wi-fi service, and has an upscale menu and atmosphere. Today, manager Rick Jones is also introducing barbeque via the co-located Memphis Blues Smokehouse. “Ours is authentic American barbeque, cooked over hickory and apple wood,” says he. Jones said they’ll have pork, pork ribs, chicken, with other offerings to follow.

(Ed Stephens Jr. is an economist and columnist for the Saipan Tribune. E-mail him at Ed@SaipanEconomist.com.)