Sunday Morning Coming Down

I doubt the Fed can do anything much to change income inequality.  Poor people have crappy low paying jobs and don't have much wealth.  The Fed with cheap money helped inflate the housing bubble we had punctured in about 2007.  QE seems to be re inflating housing wealth and stock market wealth. The final verdict isn't in.  Growth in the housing market is good for construction jobs, but the lower unemployment rate is very uneven.  North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming have unemployment rates below 5%.   Sadly, Illinois, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Nevada, and California have unemployment rates that are still 9% or higher. If people were serious about lowering the unemployment rate much more could be done in rebuilding infrastructure like roads and bridges and good jobs could be created.  This is not rocket science.  There are economic and governmental policies that can help create ...

I'm struck by the juxtaposition of a column written by Glenn Garvin in The Miami Herald, 3/26/2013 and Morning Joe same day same time. "Wars end, but scars and costs last forever".  I hardly ever agree with Mr. Garvin who reviews TV Series along with writing a more or less regular column on the editorial page for the newspaper.  Mr. Garvin is going off on the cost of pensions to vets and their families and to illustrate the point we are still paying widows from WWI, WWII, and the Viet Nam War. These pensions "cost" the government billions of dollars each year.  And where there is government money involved there is fraud and undoubtedly some cheating on applications for assistance.  Garvin is probably correct in his guess that costs to support vets will eventually exceed the cost of the wars themselves At virtually the same time that I am reading this column there is a discussion going on about the long backlog of cases and waiting time for assistance from ...

My houseguest comes across some very old paper money from the U.S. and interestingly more than a few South American Countries.  I noticed that one of the $5.00 bills was a silver certificate from 1934.  The bill was in really good condition but had probably been in circulation for a while.  As a collectors item it isn't really worth much more than face value. On the other hand there were some Bolivian peso notes.  In 1962 the official exchange was 11.875 bolivianos to $1 dollar US.  By 1986 the exchange rate was 1.9 million bolivianos to $1.  It's now 2013 and I doubt the Bolivian Pesos are worth the paper they were printed on but I need to do some further research.  I looked at Wikipedia quickly and saw that for a while the government stopped printing money because it couldn't keep up with the falling value of the notes it was printing.  A situation like that is really hard to imagine. Currently in this country the interest rates ar...

There are more articles in the Miami Herald today about the unfolding of the internet cafe scandal.  I think the many headed monster this has become could be the poster child for things that have really run amuck. 1) Jennifer Carroll, former Florida Lt. Governor said she was duped by the scandalous behavior of Veterans of the World.  You would think a Navy veteran might have checked out the charity more closely before advocating for an industry that really was operating in a grey area.  She did paid PR work for the charity and tried to get legislation passed while a legislator that would legalize the Internet cafes. 2) The "charitable" part of Veterans of the World was a fraud.  Less than 2% of profits were donated to needy vets, unless you consider Jennifer Carroll a needy vet.  Financial disclosure forms she completed were probably not checked until this story broke.  She had a conflict of interest but it was ignored.  This is not a fir...

The Florida Lieutenant Governor resigned abruptly after there were 55 arrested when a charity for veterans was exposed as a front for Internet gambling.  The profits from the internet cafe was supposed to go to veterans, Jennifer Carroll headed a PR firm for the Internet cafe company.  Rick Scott accepted her resignation in a New York minute. Allied Veterans of the World ran 49 Internet cafes that featured machines that looked like slots but paid off in scratch off sweepstakes tickets like those McDonald Monopoly tickets.  According to the Orlando Sentinel the criminal enterprise might be worth $300 million. Allied Veterans of the World said they gave 70-100% of the profits to charity, but only actually gave 2% to charity.  It did give Florida Legislators a reported $1.2 million in campaign donations.  Legislators on both sides of the aisle are now scrambling to return the dirty money and outlaw the internet cafes. Meanwhile the parimutuel indust...

Last night I went to see the UM play ISU at Mark Light Field/Alex Rodriguez Park.  The tickets were cheap($2.00) so me and Lisvey were able to hit the concession stand and even buy a small souvenier.  I haven't been to a baseball game at the park named for A Rod for a while so it was a treat to see the Redbirds play the Canes.  Or so I thought. The Miami Maniac came and sat next to Lisvey.  A sixth grader can be blasae compared to a six year old when it comes to college mascots, but it did lead to a short conversation about how uncomfortable the costume would be at a hot fall football game. Before the game I spoke to some ISU fans.  Like me they were transplants from Chicago land that landed in Miami after school in Normal. The Redbird hitters were enfuego.  It was so bad that after three innings I moved to the visitor's side of the field.  After four innings the score was 17-4.  The Redbirds had 18 hits and it was almost 8:30.  So...

The Miami Herald, the radio and TV have been full of stories about Hugo Chavez, of Venezuela.  Venezuelans in Miami had to go to New Orleans, and filled many buses to vote for anybody but Chavez. The first edition of the Miami Herald after his death was announced brought questions about how long he had been dead. The first five pages of the front section of the paper had a variety of stories regarding his death and the impact in Miami.  Venezuelans have bought a lot of real estate in the area, and it is estimated that there are over 100,000 ex pats living in Miami now, and especially in Doral. Miami had done some street corner pot banging a few years ago when Castro I was mistakenly reported at deaths door.  Chavez was only in office for 14 years.  The local, state, and federal governments have detailed plans for the day Fidel crosses over.  The Venezuelans have not begun to return to their homeland.  As bad as things are in Miami economically, the...

Yesterday, I got invited to go to the Heat-Pacer basketball game at the Miami Arena.  It was my first time at the AAA Arena and the experience and the game were great.  Parking was pricey and the traffic was malo, but the Calle Ocho Street Festival and beautiful weather brought out just about everyone not in a long term care facility to some event in Miami. Our seats were way up high,but the view of the court was excellent. The entrances to the arena provided lots of places for pictures to commemorate the event. Going to sporting events now includes a metal detector screening most of the time.  Parimutuel facilities are an exception but the line moved along and the staff was great.  One member of our party has some vision issues and we were given the ability to use elevators that were usually reserved for the high rollers. The Big Screen TV on the score board was good for replays but the view of the whole court really helped while watching the game....

More than a few random thoughts about what is happening in sports in Miami.  Tiger Woods will probably win the WGC Championship at Doral this weekend.  With Tiger in the lead it is tough to play against him and the crowd that follows him.  I'm not a fan of the format of this tournament.  I liked the old Doral Eastern days.  It was just a March stop on the PGA Tour, but the field was bigger and I liked following golfers who teed off early.  They did not have big groups following them. You might even talk to players like Dan Halvorson, a Canadian from Manitoba, who was my Dad's favorite.  I liked Barry Jaeckel, son of an actor named Richard Jaeckel.  If he made the cut his name was usually way down the list, but at least he cashed.  One year when the tournament overlapped with the NCAA Basketball Tournament I heard him talking to his caddy, wishing that the guys in front of him would play a little faster because he wanted to have a beer and...

Audette Fulbright a UU Minister writes a letter to her state representative regarding carrying concealed weapons in schools in Wyoming. The response from her state representative was if you don't like the political atmosphere here, please leave.  What he might of thought in reality could have been much more colorful.  Hans Hunt said what a lot of people in Wyoming think.  UU Congregations are probably one of the few places in Wyoming, where there are not a lot of guns.  Probably more than a few Priuses, Bio diesel pickups and Obama bumper stickers.  Gun racks in pick ups, holsters, boots, cowboy hats are more the norm out there.  While I doubt that a proposed amendment about carrying while drunk would have made a difference it does point out other pitfalls when everybody can have a gun and may feel the need to carry it to protect themselves from UU's or engage in a shootout with an officer during a traffic stop. I doubt that same s...